Blichmann Breweasy

[sjacobso76]

Has anyone seen or used one of these yet? Seems like a really good deal for an all grain set up with automation and almost everything necessary to get brewing. I haven't seen any discussion on it yet, so I thought I'd get one going. Any issues you can see with the way they have it set up?

 

[PilotCline]

I'm putting one together. I have the 20 gallon, burner, and therminator so far. Next week I'll be getting the lid kit and March pump. Then the following paycheck will be the 15 with false bottom. I was originally going to get the top tier, but after talking with John it sounds like this will work better with my garage size constraints. I will post as soon as it is complete and update everyone. In the mean time if someone with more cash flow beats me to it, let us know!

 

[Braufessor]

I've been considering it.... waiting for them to release some video of it so I can actually see how it works, set up, process, etc. Not dropping $2k blind. They have said something would come out - have not seen anything though. Hopefully soon.

 

[rod1916]

Hoping to hear someone that has used this, I have everything in the shopping cart and just trying to decide if I hit "buy" or go back to the idea of building an automated BRUTUS 10.

rod.

 

[sfrisby]

I'm seriously thinking of this when the electric version comes out.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[sfrisby]

Any electricians out there have any idea what it would cost to rewire an outlet from 120v to 240v, professionally?

 

[sjacobso76]

I'm not an electrician but have done a lot of electrical and worked with a lot of electricians.

It depends on what amount and what for of 240 you're looking for. If it's just 20 amps of 240 with no neutral needed then it should be pretty minimal. In that scenario all that needs to be done is to change out the receptical and the breaker, assuming that you have 12 gauge wire there already and it's the only outlet on that breaker. If you need to have wire pulled its a much bigger job and will entirely depend on your situation. Length of run and ease of access will change price significantly. Call an electrician in your area and you should be able to get them to give you a quote.

 

[jpc]

I'm not an electrician but have done a lot of electrical and worked with a lot of electricians.

It depends on what amount and what for of 240 you're looking for. If it's just 20 amps of 240 with no neutral needed then it should be pretty minimal. In that scenario all that needs to be done is to change out the receptical and the breaker, assuming that you have 12 gauge wire there already and it's the only outlet on that breaker. If you need to have wire pulled its a much bigger job and will entirely depend on your situation. Length of run and ease of access will change price significantly. Call an electrician in your area and you should be able to get them to give you a quote.

I'm not an electrician either, but this makes no sense to me. Most 110V outlets will only have one leg of the 220V line present, and would be wired with 14 ga wire. It would likely be very difficult to rewire 110 to 220 in an existing outlet.

 

[VladOfTrub]

"I'm not an electrician either, but this makes no sense to me."

Good. Stick with your day job. The other post mentions that a 220 volt breaker will be needed. If the present wire is 12/2. The white neutral wire will be connected to one side of the 220V 20A breaker. The black to the other side of the 220V breaker. Hence, no neutral. Is it legal? Depends on local code. Code may say to mark the white wire that is connected to the breaker with a piece of red electrical tape wrapped around it or, code might say that a neutral wire is needed. In that case 12/3 wire will need to be installed.

 

[sjacobso76]

Yep, as long as all you need is straight 220, and assuming you have 12 guage wire you can switch over to 220. However, much equipment required a neutral as well, in which case you would have to pull wire.

And as a point of order, I imagine you are asking the question because you desire to get wired for a brew easy (since that is the thread). Though I can't be entirely sure, I think I can say with some confidence that it will take a neutral to wire it.

 

[sfrisby]

Yes, my initial question was due to my interest in the breweasy electric version. But brewing will still have to be done in the garage, where no 220 currently exists.

On another issue- any of you that already have blichmann boil kettles and use pumps have an idea of how much wort needs to be in the kettle to allow the pump to function? I'm thinking of the 10 gallon system (15gal boil kettle) to accommodate by big beers, but my typical batch size is 6-8 gallons.

 

[limulus]

I basically built a similar system a couple of years ago. My 10gal MT sits inside a 15gal BK. The MT has the bottom removed with a perforated false bottom in it's place. The MT is lifted up with an electric hoist mounted above in my garage. It can be used as a spargeless system or I can sparge by lifting the MT gradually as the sparge water flows into the top. It "had" a RIMS until I removed it last year. I'm now thinking about resurrecting my RIMS.

Now that I've seen this Blichman, I'm also very interested. This thing is pretty slick! But there is no video anywhere to be found. I would love to use the tower of power with my burner and their stacked kettles.