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I finally received my brewie on 12/19 (East Coast US). Fortunately (depending on how you look at it), mine was held at the manufacturing facility until just about a month ago to sort out an issue with the SSRs controlling the heaters (at least officially, who knows if there were other lingering issues). As disappointing as the delay was at the time, I am grateful to not have to send it for repairs immediately upon receipt like some other have.

My initial impressions:
-The fit and finish of the machine is pretty good. Some of the cut metal edges of the housing edges are a bit rough to the touch in a couple spots, but all in all, its a pretty sleek unit. My living arrangements have changed since ordering and now that it actually came i have to figure out where it will live during storage and operation, but the SO seemed to appreciate the looks of the unit compared to my shelves of pots/buckets/burners, etc.
-The software update runs immediately upon connecting to the internet (i used wifi -worked fine; apparently the usb port is mainly for a usb-ethernet adapter if you need wired connection). Having read about failed updates, i was mildly terrified during this step. It seemed to update fine and then asked for a restart to take effect. The side power switch did nothing (only seems to be for turning the system ON). The rear power switch turned it off, but once it restarted, it returned to the same screen telling me to restart the system for the software update to take effect. I nearly flipped my sh*t. I then unplugged the machine and waited a minute. The next boot up worked perfectly and took me to the initial cleaning cycle. I'm not exactly sure why it didn't take the first time, but just happy it worked.
-The initial unclogging/cleaning cycle did what it claimed to do.
-Calibration was a bit tedious but seemed to go off without a hitch. Requires adding 7L of water, then 2L more and letting it measure at each step. I'm hoping its smart enough to tare itself properly so that the hoses/false bottom weights get nulled out in the future.
-I then connected to a water supply and ran a ~2.5gal 'test recipe' with just water. This is basically a ~5 min mash, ~5 min sparge, ~5 min boil and a cool down cycle. It took about 2.5 hours to run (guessing it didn't help i had it outside where the temps were approaching ~35*F). I measured the water temps at a few points in the cycle and they were close enough (within ~3*F on my inexpensive meat thermometer) to what it said on the screen, and at all times the machine seemed to do what it said it was doing. Heaters were only on when it claimed and only when there was water in the the respective tanks. I drained using the "leave sediment" option which uses a pickup tube about .75" above the bottom of the boil tank. It drained about 2 gal into my bucket (not 2.5g) but the manual says ~3L get left in the bottom if you use the 'leave sediment' option, so it seems pretty close on the water measurements. Finishing with the normal drain (using bottom drain port) got me right about to the 2.5g mark.
-The cooling cycle worked really well. Using the cold hosewater, it got the boiling water down to 75*F remarkably fast, probably 7-8 mins (i was doing other stuff at this point, but notably surprised that it was done cooling when i went back).
-I was worried that the 120V version wouldn't have enough ass to heat to a good boil, especially outside in the cold. It did, although it was only a 2.5gal run. I'll update once i put a real brew thru her.
-i ran the full drain cycle again afterwards and that does get most of the water out for storage (tilted machine forward while it was pumping to get as much standing water out as the drains are near the front). After disconnecting all the hoses, i tilted it towards the back to drain as much as possible from those fittings before bringing it inside. It probably drained another 8oz out of the rear ports, but once inside it didn't leak a bit more.

All in all, i'm really just happy it actually came and that it appears to work. I'll be running a real batch thru it sometime in the next few days, at which point i'll post an update. I plan to take more diligent temp measurements at the mash steps and see if i can't get some reasonable efficiency numbers as well. I'm excited about the possibilities of the machine , but by no means will i be clearing out all of my other equipment anytime soon.

Here's to hoping that others are having similar success and those that sent theirs in get them back quickly and in good working order.
 
I ordered my Brewie in June 2017 at Homebrew Con. Finally got it Dec. 21, 2017 and got the Brewie pads I had ordered the following day. (Midwest US)

Most of my experiences were similar to "Hamboner" above. I did not run the test brew. Just ran a full clean which took about 2.5 hours.

Today I ran my first brew, since the full clean I ran last night worked just fine. I was a bit worried after hearing all the horror stories in the fb group.

I brewed the Rusty Rex pad that is available. I stayed nearby the whole time to keep an eye on things, check temps, test gravity, and I was curious to see the whole process in action.
The end result was approx 65% mash efficiency. 1.038 OG from 4kg of munich malt and 19L into the fermenter.

There were zero issues during the whole process, got a nice boil going. It was really nice to just sit around, do mostly nothing and end up with what promises to be a decent beer using all grain. Overall I am very happy with the machine.

I will not be giving up my Grainfather anytime soon but may be a possibility in the future once I run the Brewie through it's paces and see just what it can do.
For now I can just be happy that my wife will be brewing beer now too.

I do wonder how many of the "problems" with the Brewie we've all heard about are due to impatience or user error. I can see how issues could arise by one not paying attention or not having a good understanding of the brewing process, and the control can be a bit sluggish at times.

Hope everyone else has as good an experience with theirs as I did with mine.

I for one am a satisfied customer. It is a great machine if you want to brew all grain but can't dedicate 4+ hours to brewing. You still need to be around but can take care of other things while the machine brews for you.

Cheers
 
I've had mine for several months now and it works great. I did have some issues with pre-1.7 firmware but they all seem to be fixed now. One big thing I learned was just don't touch the machine when you don't need to as that seems to screw up the weight measurement system during water additions. My efficiency is usually around 72% to 75% as I do stir the bag around a few times during the mash.
 
Mine was in for repair and beyond repair from what they tell me. After a lot of back and forth they finally agreed to send me a new one. It landed this Saturday. WiFi didn’t work out of the box but after I did the first clean it connected. Test brew with no ingredients went fine last night and all updates have worked. Fingers crossed I will actually brew next weekend.

IMG_0506.jpg
 
I got a nasty surprise this weekend for my third brew on the Brewie.

I had been keeping a close eye on it for the first two brews.

I decided to let it do it's thing and do other stuff while brewing the Hocus Pocus kit. Luckily I was nearby when the it started to overflow.
The mash got stuck so when the sparge started the wort had no place else to go.

Didn't find out until later the real damage that had been done. The pump actually created a vacuum and bent the false bottom which is 1/16" thick stainless. Since there was no wort circulating it scorched on the bottom of the mash tank, scorched the false bottom, and burned a hole through the grain bag.

20180127_114221.jpg 20180127_114215.jpg 20180127_113738.jpg

I finished the brew so we'll see how the beer turns out. The OG was pretty low, but that seems to be the norm so far.

At least now I have an idea of how to keep this from happening again.
Going to fashion myself some sort of overflow tube that should at least keep it from overflowing the mash tank again. Hopefully it will also keep the wort flowing so I won't have to worry about scorching anymore.

Will post pics when I have something to show.
 
Bummer man. I scorched quite a few brews in my beginning electric days with elements on grain bags and air pockets. Sad to say your beer will be smoky and not very good. I wouldn’t waste my time fermenting it but your call. Thanks for the heads up. I’m still trying to figure out a way to try to prevent air pockets and dough balls. Maybe build a second false bottom and stir during mash in.
 
Bummer man. I scorched quite a few brews in my beginning electric days with elements on grain bags and air pockets. Sad to say your beer will be smoky and not very good. I wouldn’t waste my time fermenting it but your call. Thanks for the heads up. I’m still trying to figure out a way to try to prevent air pockets and dough balls. Maybe build a second false bottom and stir during mash in.

I hope it doesn't have a smoky burnt taste or smell, that would suck.

I always make sure to be there when it is mashing in and give it a good stir. The first two brews I would stir at mash in and a few times throughout the mash. I am disappointed that I have to do this as it is supposed to be an automated brewing system.

I am seriously considering selling it.
 
I've had mine for several months now and it works great. I did have some issues with pre-1.7 firmware but they all seem to be fixed now. One big thing I learned was just don't touch the machine when you don't need to as that seems to screw up the weight measurement system during water additions. My efficiency is usually around 72% to 75% as I do stir the bag around a few times during the mash.

I have not been getting efficiency anywhere near that and I stir it up a bunch during the mash. Generally seeing 55% - 65%.

Anything else you might be doing differently? I would be happy to hit 70%.
 
I ordered my Brewie in June 2017 at Homebrew Con. Finally got it Dec. 21, 2017 and got the Brewie pads I had ordered the following day. (Midwest US)

Most of my experiences were similar to "Hamboner" above. I did not run the test brew. Just ran a full clean which took about 2.5 hours.

Today I ran my first brew, since the full clean I ran last night worked just fine. I was a bit worried after hearing all the horror stories in the fb group.

I brewed the Rusty Rex pad that is available. I stayed nearby the whole time to keep an eye on things, check temps, test gravity, and I was curious to see the whole process in action.
The end result was approx 65% mash efficiency. 1.038 OG from 4kg of munich malt and 19L into the fermenter.

There were zero issues during the whole process, got a nice boil going. It was really nice to just sit around, do mostly nothing and end up with what promises to be a decent beer using all grain. Overall I am very happy with the machine.

I will not be giving up my Grainfather anytime soon but may be a possibility in the future once I run the Brewie through it's paces and see just what it can do.
For now I can just be happy that my wife will be brewing beer now too.

I do wonder how many of the "problems" with the Brewie we've all heard about are due to impatience or user error. I can see how issues could arise by one not paying attention or not having a good understanding of the brewing process, and the control can be a bit sluggish at times.

Hope everyone else has as good an experience with theirs as I did with mine.

I for one am a satisfied customer. It is a great machine if you want to brew all grain but can't dedicate 4+ hours to brewing. You still need to be around but can take care of other things while the machine brews for you.

Cheers

I ran a 1/2 bbl brewery, ordered mine in 2015 as a original backer to their fund me in indiegogo. Got mine. Never made it through one cleaning session. No heat, stuck software. Glad you're happy, HOPE it's signs of things to come. Mine left for repairs. No user errors in a lot of these cases. I wouldn't stray far whilst it's doing it's thing if I were you.
 
I got a nasty surprise this weekend for my third brew on the Brewie.

I had been keeping a close eye on it for the first two brews.

I decided to let it do it's thing and do other stuff while brewing the Hocus Pocus kit. Luckily I was nearby when the it started to overflow.
The mash got stuck so when the sparge started the wort had no place else to go.

Didn't find out until later the real damage that had been done. The pump actually created a vacuum and bent the false bottom which is 1/16" thick stainless. Since there was no wort circulating it scorched on the bottom of the mash tank, scorched the false bottom, and burned a hole through the grain bag.

View attachment 555547 View attachment 555549 View attachment 555550

I finished the brew so we'll see how the beer turns out. The OG was pretty low, but that seems to be the norm so far.

At least now I have an idea of how to keep this from happening again.
Going to fashion myself some sort of overflow tube that should at least keep it from overflowing the mash tank again. Hopefully it will also keep the wort flowing so I won't have to worry about scorching anymore.

Will post pics when I have something to show.

Now that I have seen a test brew live I think they really should have designed a float valve for the sparge water to prevent overflows and regulate sparge flow. This would have been a pretty easy add like the blichman sparge valve. I’m not really seeing the logic of putting the sparge “in” directly in the middle of the grain bag. I realize they had to drill the hole lower because of the depth of the hop cages, but some method of an overflow shut off would be a lot safer. Pumping the sparge water into the middle of the bag can also lead to air pockets. It’s much better to lay the sparge water over the top of the grain bed.
 
For kicks, I calculated how long I waited for my brewie from my initial indiegogo contribution to delivery.....829 days = 2 years, 3 months and 6 days. Yikes.
 
As a big fan of automation, I wanted to see this device work. Unfortunately it’s really not that easy... Murphy’s law of “can and will” gets very demonstrated when machines run on their own... not because they are bad, but because the humans who designed & built them missed a possibility or mistaking made assumptions.

That said, I appreciate the technical failures such as @HarkinBanks example above. If the sensors don’t detect the overfill (didn’t) or the vacuum (no such sensors), the machine plods along happily until catastrophe results. This is expected to some degree in my opinion.

However, the real shame is how the brewie team is handling these problems. Communication (lack that is) has been offensive in my opinion based on what I have read here and on the FB page. Perfect example is their absolute absence from both. It’s a case study in how not to treat your prized customers. I hope they figure that out else they will suffer the fate of an alienated community and/or keen competition.
 
Hi fellow Brewie owners and watchers

I purchased my Brewie in August of 2016 and received shipment in October 2017. So, I've had it for 3 months.

Upon opening and setting up, I started the Rusty Rex program. It proceeded to start the process and overfill. Luckily I was under the space it was and saw water pouring down the wall in time to stop it. Once I got the water under control, it brewed the batch as expected with no problems.

My second batch, the next day, I brewed my own recipe. Set up the recipe parameters and off it went with no problems. It proceeded through the entire process with no problems and once I learned from the night before that all that cooling water had to go somewhere, it was no problem at all. However, I found that pumping out the mash and boiling tanks could be better, it seems to pump a bit out and then stop. So I have to restart the empty cycle repeatedly.

With my third batch, I figured out some more of these quirks and all went smoothly when anticipating these things.

I now had plenty of beer for a while, so there was some time in between, about a month.

I went to brew last weekend, it received the 2.8 update and that's where things went awry.

Firstly, the Wifi connection refuses my password to connect.

Secondly, I noticed is that one of my custom recipes was no longer there.

I entered my recipe as before and the Brewie went to work. It filled the boil tank and heated the water, meanwhile I placed the grains and hops in there spaces. At the end of the boil, I expected it to pump water over and start the mash. However, it did not. I heard the valves making their noises and then the machine just shuts off. So, I tried several more times (pumped out the hot water and let it go to the same point) with the same results. Frustrated, I had to walk away and restart in the morning. I made a new attempt and again it shut off. On the second attempt, I decided to try to trick the software (because upon rebooting the machine it knows it was in the middle of the brew process and I got the continue choice), by moving the hot water to the mash tank manually before turning the machine back on. So, with this, I was successful in moving the program forward, right past mashing and sparging, it went straight to cooling. So, that was done with. I ended up saving the mash and finished up on my stove top BIAB style and added some honey to turn it into a Braggot.

Since that time, the only thing I've done is run several cleaning and unclogging cycles. Each time in the clean, I expect the machine to send water from the boil tank to the mash side, but it doesn't. I hear those same noises like it is activating the valves, but nothing happens, but a small trickle from the upper sparge hole. I'm wondering if I have a broken or clogged line or the software update didn't translate to tell the valve to open fully.

With the cleaning testing cycles, pumping water out is still testy at best.

I did contact Brewie 10 days ago with no answer.

So, in the end, after waiting so long and three moderately successful batches without incident I have an unusable machine. Hoping it was the software update and with the next update it will fix these issues. I'm not sure if it is hardware related because up to that point with the previous batches it performed correctly.

Very frustrated with my purchase now and hoping I didn't waste my $$$$.
 
As a big fan of automation, I wanted to see this device work. Unfortunately it’s really not that easy... Murphy’s law of “can and will” gets very demonstrated when machines run on their own... not because they are bad, but because the humans who designed & built them missed a possibility or mistaking made assumptions.

That said, I appreciate the technical failures such as @HarkinBanks example above. If the sensors don’t detect the overfill (didn’t) or the vacuum (no such sensors), the machine plods along happily until catastrophe results. This is expected to some degree in my opinion.

However, the real shame is how the brewie team is handling these problems. Communication (lack that is) has been offensive in my opinion based on what I have read here and on the FB page. Perfect example is their absolute absence from both. It’s a case study in how not to treat your prized customers. I hope they figure that out else they will suffer the fate of an alienated community and/or keen competition.

I've noticed the same thing with their response time. They were great when poked enough when asking about shipping time, about continually telling me next month repeatedly. Then once the machine arrives....POOF!!
 
I have been without my brewie for over 6 months. If you bought it through paypal or even if you didn't please let them know of your issues. If enough people complain to them the can and will aply pressure to brewie
 
I have been without my brewie for over 6 months. If you bought it through paypal or even if you didn't please let them know of your issues. If enough people complain to them the can and will aply pressure to brewie
Well, I purchased my Brewie with paypal. However, I happened to have closed the particular Paypal account I purchased the Brewie with. I have another personal Paypal account, just not the one I purchased with.
 
PayPal may not be able to get you a refund. If enough people complain the will lock brewie's acount till they feel the issues are resolved. You don't need to have used paypal you can tell them anyway. It will give them reason to believe there might be credit card charge backs coming . They will want to make sure there are enough funds in there account to cover the charge backs
 
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We just got our Brewie and it looks like the heating elements aren’t working. Brewie has yet to respond on next steps. What disappointment. Should I have gone with a Zymatic instead?
I just received my brewie and am having the same issues. Did you ever end up getting this fixed or a response from brewie?

I ran a full cleaning cycle when I first got it and the heating elements worked fine. The next day I ran calibration. Today I went to brew for the first time and it won't heat on either a brewing or cleaning program.
 
Finally had my first brew day with Brewie and it went surprisingly well, with one small hiccup. The first water addition into the BK messed up and only added a very small amount of water and started to heat up and went to a boil within a minute or two. I shut down the machine, rebooted and started the process again without a problem. If I had not been around, it would have likely scorched the BK and the element - not cool.

I watched the entire process like a hawk and tried to monitor it on my iphone, but the connection is really spotty and by the end of the brew, it wouldn't even connect. I am a beta tester for that function. I hope they get that sorted, because watching the process and temps are a good way to monitor what is going on and when to check the system in person.

For those who are curious on process, the BK heats up the mash water and then moves over to strike in the MLT. My stock Brewie recipe ("Call me Grainy") had a low strike temp and then ramped up through a few step mash temps and then a final mashout temp. As the mash ramped up the BK was filled with "sparge" water and heated. The MLT had a very gentle flow of re-circulation throughout the mash (only re-circulating the mash volume) and the pumps worked flawlessly. I was pretty impressed with the re-circulation and my fears of air pockets were generally assuaged. In a perfect world, there would be a sparge arm to properly distribute the flow and prevent any overflows. After the MLT hit mash out temp (which matched the BK temp perfectly), the entire system volume was circulated between the BK and MLT as a "sparging" process. Given the low efficiency numbers people are reporting, I will want to test a longer full volume sparge process or a full volume mash process with my personal recipes. Once the "sparging" process was complete, it moved the full volume to the BK and heated up to boil. I opened up the BK lid to aid in boiloff rate and the hop cages released on time and without incident. Boil was definitely under what I would call a "rolling" boil, but acceptable. I had 3000 watts in my old rig and could get that thing really going. I didn't get a quality hot break that I enjoyed seeing on my old setup. Opening the BK lid was my only interaction with the unit - I really think given the finicky nature of the machine you don't want to touch anything during any process. The machine weighs water additions and once it is calibrated, I suggest not touching a thing. I left the grain bag in the MLT until after cooling. Cooling went remarkably well and brought temps down to 70 degrees quicker than any shirron, CFC or IC I have have ever used. I "drained all" to my Vessi fermenter, switched the dump hose and then ran two short clean cycles to gently scrub away the residue. The short clean cycle is pretty cool to aid in cleaning, although the water is cold tap water so I had a jug of hot water to dip my non-abrasive sponge. I will run a heated clean cycle before my next brew.

A few tips:

1-Follow the instructions exactly upon delivery, first boot up and updates. The software is rather touchy.
2-Don't touch anything during the brew process. I considered stirring the mash, but decided against it. Efficiency is what it is. Interestingly my stock recipe was designed for 55% mash efficiency.
3-You will likely need to run a longer waste water line to a drain. In my case, I ran it to my sump pump since I brew in my basement. My sump discharged twice, once for cooling and once after cleaning, so there is quite a bit of waste water.
4-If you run a dedicated water line, you can install an in-line water filter. I inserted a RV inline water filter and it worked well.
5-I don't know if it is absolutely necessary, but I used fermcap to avoid any chance of a boilover.

Overall I was very pleased with the experience. I hope the process is repeatable for a long time. Only time will tell.

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Sadly, it sounds like my experiences are thus far are the exception rather than the rule. I really feel for everyone - this was a lot of coin to plunk down on something that is supposed to just work. Rather than Brewie doing the beta testing (i wouldve thought they could squeeze that into the 2 year wait), they chose to have us do it for them apparently - a great way to turn your staunchest supporters into your biggest naysayers. I had really thought that getting this would eventually allow me to clear out some equipment and make brewing easier as life throws more hurdles at me, but i have a feeling i'll never ditch my original equipment as long as there's a lingering doubt, and i've seen enough doubt in just this forum to never feel 100% about the machine.

I had kinda figured that since i have 4 brews thru the machine without any 'real' issue that i was probably in the clear, but now i'm a bit worried after seeing the results of that stuck mash. The problem i've had up until now was on the most recent brew. I connected the water line as usual and started the brew. After about 10 minutes i checked on it, and despite it having filled with some water, it had an error message stating that there was no water connection. I just hit restart and it worked fine. I'm guessing it unclogged/primed itself right about the time the error was flagged. I took the lesson to be that i should run the short clean cycle before brewing after its been sitting in dry storage for any period of time.

I have an electrical engineering background and am starting to wonder if i shouldn't open the thing up and 1) see what they have going on internally (i love tearing things apart, but am certainly leery about doing it to this 2000$ machine) and 2) determine how difficult it would be to add in a few externally monitored temp/flow/liquid level sensors and a relay that just cut power to the whole thing the moment something doesn't look right. I suppose that would void my warranty, but it doesn't sound like that's much of a loss based on other people's warranty experiences (6+ months of hoping and wishing). I'd rather sacrifice a single batch to save something that cost the equivalent of 60-70 batches.

Also, for anyone brewing with the Brewie Pads, they provided a tablet that says its for boil over control (to be placed on the 1st hop addition ledge). To me it looked like a whirlfloc tablet. I didn't realize that helped prevent foaming during the boil, but maybe it does, or maybe its not that at all. I've never seem boil/foam control in tablet form, only liquid, like fermcap. Maybe a beano tablet? Any thoughts or more informed ideas?

If its warm enough this weekend, i'm going to finally do a side by side with my normal setup and actually compare the brews. Its been a while since i got all science-y on my original brew config, so it should be fun.
 
That tablet addition is interesting. In November Brewie sent me 4 additional Brewie pads for free as consolation for my long wait and none of them had an anti-foam tablet - one had a whirlfloc though. I too have only seen it sold in liquid form as fermcap.

Personally I wouldn't open the unit, but I would have no problem adding bolt on additions for safety reasons. You could add something like this:

http://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?28771-boil-over-control

and wire it to an inline shut off electric switch before Brewie is plugged in. If the probe is touched, the entire unit would be turned off.
 
I don’t know if foam control that comes in tablet form. Since fermcap works so well, why not use it?

With respect to overfills, brewie obviously made a grave error in the sensor selection/design/implementation. They are using load cells in the feet. In theory these should work, but either they are not accurate/repeatable or the software/hardware reading them is flawed. This is evidenced by many reports of both overfills and dry fired burners - neither of which should happen. Amazingly, 10+ firmware iterations and yet the problem continues - which tells you it is likely a hardware problem.

If anyone knows the model of load cells being used, I would be happy to buy and bench test one to report its performance. Heck, maybe someone has a scrap brewie... we’ll put BruControl in it and see what happens!
 
Second successful brewday, with one minor mistake on my part. The app connected better for this session so I could monitor from afar and do other things. I won’t get cocky but if you know the process you can pick your spots when to check in. When the machine is just heating water there isn’t much need to be around. I stopped in at the start of the mash, for the sparge and for the beginning of the boil to add the fermcap. I opened both lids for the boil and that was my minor mistake.

Pro tip-leave the mashing lid down for the boil.

I brewed the hopus pocus stock ipa recipe and it has quite a bit of hops. The second hop cage ended up floating up without the MLT lid down and some wort spilled back into the MLT. With the MLT lid down it keeps the hop cages pushed down and there is no chance for wort to spill back into the MLT. Live and learn.

I am still figuring out my efficiency numbers to compare my two brews but I know they are low. I may have to stir the mash or reduce the amount of water. I think Brewie is using too much water in the recipes. I have asked them to give me their crafting parameters. Overall a positive result.
 
PayPal may not be able to get you a refund. If enough people complain the will lock brewie's acount till they feel the issues are resolved. You don't need to have used paypal you can tell them anyway. It will give them reason to believe there might be credit card charge backs coming . They will want to make sure there are enough funds in there account to cover the charge backs
Well, Paypal sent me a generic response to file a claim with Brewie. Not what I expected when there should be a human answering direct questions.
However, Balint at Brewie got back to me yesterday after 12 days and filed a tech support claim on their website. He asked me to run the unclogging and video it. He said that they'd get back to me after viewing the videos. He said from the video they will determine if it's a clogged or stuck together tubing line, which I will be able to dismantle the machine and fix myself or if it is a broken valve, which will lean to sending the machine into repair.
Well, at least I have communication again.
 
Well, Paypal sent me a generic response to file a claim with Brewie. Not what I expected when there should be a human answering direct questions.
However, Balint at Brewie got back to me yesterday after 12 days and filed a tech support claim on their website. He asked me to run the unclogging and video it. He said that they'd get back to me after viewing the videos. He said from the video they will determine if it's a clogged or stuck together tubing line, which I will be able to dismantle the machine and fix myself or if it is a broken valve, which will lean to sending the machine into repair.
Well, at least I have communication again.


There is a number to call paypal. If you look for contact customer survice button. After the click you will get a 1 time pass code. the number is 888 215 5506.
 
Now that I have seen a test brew live I think they really should have designed a float valve for the sparge water to prevent overflows and regulate sparge flow. This would have been a pretty easy add like the blichman sparge valve. I’m not really seeing the logic of putting the sparge “in” directly in the middle of the grain bag. I realize they had to drill the hole lower because of the depth of the hop cages, but some method of an overflow shut off would be a lot safer. Pumping the sparge water into the middle of the bag can also lead to air pockets. It’s much better to lay the sparge water over the top of the grain bed.

I'm wondering if a connected tube to the sparge hole, run up along the grain bag and lay on top during sparging would run water up and over the grains as one would expect...... self mods of the future.
 
Well, Paypal sent me a generic response to file a claim with Brewie. Not what I expected when there should be a human answering direct questions.
However, Balint at Brewie got back to me yesterday after 12 days and filed a tech support claim on their website. He asked me to run the unclogging and video it. He said that they'd get back to me after viewing the videos. He said from the video they will determine if it's a clogged or stuck together tubing line, which I will be able to dismantle the machine and fix myself or if it is a broken valve, which will lean to sending the machine into repair.
Well, at least I have communication again.


I just called back in and gave them a update. They did launched a investigation some time ago. I added this thread to there report and the facebook page brewies owner group. I encourage you and others to call in. The more info paypal has about brewies bad customer service the better it is for all of us.
 
I just called back in and gave them a update. They did launched a investigation some time ago. I added this thread to there report and the facebook page brewies owner group. I encourage you and others to call in. The more info paypal has about brewies bad customer service the better it is for all of us.

Awesome!!!! Don't mess with home brewers.....we are a nation!
 
I find it hilarious that with all the problems the machines are having and their stellar response time that they can send out a newsletter update like this: http://brewie.org/knowledge-center/...t-faster-delivery-mobile-app-and-new-products

Also, I just got an email from a David C. at Brewie and he is asking for a Short Clean cycle to be videoed and sent to them. So, I'll stand there and video a 12-15 minute clean cycle for them.
 
I find it hilarious that with all the problems the machines are having and their stellar response time that they can send out a newsletter update like this: http://brewie.org/knowledge-center/...t-faster-delivery-mobile-app-and-new-products

Also, I just got an email from a David C. at Brewie and he is asking for a Short Clean cycle to be videoed and sent to them. So, I'll stand there and video a 12-15 minute clean cycle for them.

Stay on them. I emailed Balint, the CEO Marcel and the North American Distributor Bob daily, weekly, until they sent me a new machine. It is too soon to tell with my new unit, but I really think the first few batches of machines were defective and all needed to be recalled.
 
Anyone have any pictures of the inside of the Brewie? I'm wondering what they are using for solid state relays.
 
Stay on them. I emailed Balint, the CEO Marcel and the North American Distributor Bob daily, weekly, until they sent me a new machine. It is too soon to tell with my new unit, but I really think the first few batches of machines were defective and all needed to be recalled.
Good to know. Did you send your original unit back and demand a new unit? How did that go about? Do you have emails for Marcel and Bob Daily?
 
Good to know. Did you send your original unit back and demand a new unit? How did that go about? Do you have emails for Marcel and Bob Daily?

My unit was the first unit sent back to Memphis, TN and their new repair shop. They tried to replace a "blown fuse" and the damage was more substantial than they expected, so I was told. I kept pestering them and they finally decided to send me a new unit. Then they didn't have any more units, and I pestered them more, and then they got more units in and sent me one. So, as I mentioned, keep on them. I resorted to emails every morning, it just became a routine of mine. Wake up, send an email. Here is the list:


[email protected] - Customer Service in Hungary

[email protected] - GM - North America in USA

[email protected] - CEO in Hungary
 
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