Brewzilla Gen4 Discussion/Tips Talk
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Do you mean the bottom perforated metal disk? It's there to keep the pump from clogging. So likely necessary unless you are taking significant other measures.
Barão
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I found the heat exchanger helpful in speeding up the boil, especially if you dial the pump back a bit with the valve. I got the Bluetooth thermometer also but it reads almost 10c high, can’t calibrate it so seems pretty useless!
Barão
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tthanks....it also helps with the retention of the hot trub...hops?
Barão
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tthanks....it also helps with the retention of the hot trub...hops?
I haven't used it, but since it creates lower velocity areas on the perforated plate, probably?
I think people have talked about filtering trub, if you're worried about it. On some brews, I recirc through a hop spider, which probably grabs a lot of stuff. But some hops clog it up, so it's a mixed bag.
The heat exchanger plate greatly increases the speed at which you can heat up while recirculating. If you are doing step mash or want to improve your heat up times to the boil it makes a difference.
If however you are doing single infusions it's not a going to make a big different just heating up to the boil would be slightly quicker with it.
It doesn't hold much trub so I don't think that is really a factor. It might hold about 100ml or something like that so it's negligeable. We also have a couple small holes in the middle of the plate so it generally drains out gradually too.
The Bluetooth thermometer being 10C out sounds a bit strange to me. This is out of specification and I think it's more likely you actually have a 10C difference between the bottom probe and the Bluetooth thermometer. I think a lot of customers do not realize how different the temperature can be at the base of the brewery to the middle of the malt pipe. We can certainly change the bluetooth thermometer to include a calibration feature if you guys think it's necessary but we have not had many requests like this. I think it's worth calibrating the probe in the brewery itself as this can vary by a few C. The NTC Probe in the brewery can sometimes benefit from a temp calibration but the bluetooth probe is generally not required from the testing that we have done.
A bit off subject but is there a way to export the data from the BT thermometer? Using the RAPT interface I can only export the base signals even if I select the BT probe data on the right side of the graph.
Thanks in advance.
Barão
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Thank you....and the hops trub...does it help with holding?
DuncB
Well-Known Member
@KegLand mention above
"It doesn't hold much trub so I don't think that is really a factor. It might hold about 100ml or something like that so it's negligeable. We also have a couple small holes in the middle of the plate so it generally drains out gradually too."
I haven't corrected their typo.
We are in the process of updating the whole look of the web portal. Trent has been doing a lot of work on this side of things.
With the new portal we will have each seprate device listed including the BT probes. This will enable you to export the BT data separately.
The other thing is the dashboard will change and you can essentially build your own dashboard and add each device to your dashboard and it will remember what you add so if you add on the PC then you view with the mobile phone app the same dashboard will show up.
We only just migrated to the new app.rapt.io portal so you will continue to see a lot of changes and more features like exporting data. After having a play around with the new dashboard if you still feel the exporting features are not enough please lodge a ticket on the Gitlab and we will then act on this in due course:
https://gitlab.com/rapt.io/public
Thank you very much for your answer, and thank you for all the hard work!
Kegland, have you found that the HED lowers mash efficiency? Are there any downsides to using one?
Hey guys, I'm new here and just finished reading all 23 pages ... Thank you for all the good comments and advice but I have to say that after trying much of it, I'm still getting clogged pumps or pipes in my Brewzilla Gen 4 65l. I have now given up and ordered a brew bag to use inside the malt pipe. I'm definitely not looking forward to adding something to my brewzilla but can't take the risk of clogging every batch and trying to unblock by sending compressed air in the recirculation pipe and risking one of the hose clamps to give up...
For reference, I am using a crankenstein (3 roller) at the #2 = 0.060 = 1.524cm now (I was using #3 = 0.055 = 1.397cm with my grainfather previously). I tried both ways to for the pump connection as suggested in the manual. I use a lots of rice hulls, sometimes up to 1 KG (2.2 lbs) for bigger batches with wheat and oats. I have been careful to start the recirculation pump very slowly. I run the pump all the time, even while adding the grain to the malt pipe. Not exactly sure what else I can try so I'm basically giving up.
I'm really intrigued as to what I'm doing differently than others that have no problems including Kegland that has commented in this thread. Also open to other suggestions if I missed something.
Thank you.
For reference, I am using a crankenstein (3 roller) at the #2 = 0.060 = 1.524cm now (I was using #3 = 0.055 = 1.397cm with my grainfather previously). I tried both ways to for the pump connection as suggested in the manual. I use a lots of rice hulls, sometimes up to 1 KG (2.2 lbs) for bigger batches with wheat and oats. I have been careful to start the recirculation pump very slowly. I run the pump all the time, even while adding the grain to the malt pipe. Not exactly sure what else I can try so I'm basically giving up.
I'm really intrigued as to what I'm doing differently than others that have no problems including Kegland that has commented in this thread. Also open to other suggestions if I missed something.
Thank you.
DuncB
Well-Known Member
@renaud00
Other considerations are grist to liquor ratio, I use glucanase and not used hulls it any mash for a couple of years.
Only trouble I had with a mash was using rye that I milled to the exact size to black every hole in the bottom of the malt pipe. Glucanase did not solve this.
Do you condition your grain before milling? I find this helps.
I use a Maltzilla will which has its quirks but can use this on its finest setting and have no blockages and excellent run off.
However I'm using an equivalent of the old brewzilla 65 with different drain setup to the 4. I do use pid controller on it and step mash as well as single step.
Other considerations are grist to liquor ratio, I use glucanase and not used hulls it any mash for a couple of years.
Only trouble I had with a mash was using rye that I milled to the exact size to black every hole in the bottom of the malt pipe. Glucanase did not solve this.
Do you condition your grain before milling? I find this helps.
I use a Maltzilla will which has its quirks but can use this on its finest setting and have no blockages and excellent run off.
However I'm using an equivalent of the old brewzilla 65 with different drain setup to the 4. I do use pid controller on it and step mash as well as single step.
For the grist to liquor ration, I use the number in Brewfather which are 3.2L/Kg.
I have not tried Glucanase but thank you for the suggestion.
And I have not conditionned my grain before milling. I have tested it when using my Grainfather and agreed that it does make a small difference but didn't notice it enough to keep going.
DuncB
Well-Known Member
I use around 3 litres per kg as well, but there is added volume for the dead space below the malt pipe.
For high gravity brews i do go for a thicker mash and sometimes cheat brewfather by reducing my dead space figure.
For high gravity brews i do go for a thicker mash and sometimes cheat brewfather by reducing my dead space figure.
JoepH
Active Member
Hello Renaud00,
I have also a 65L gen4. Never had a clogged pump. Your recetculation tube has to be above the grainbed all times. When you shut off the pump there will be a suckback and that will clog the pump. I crusch my grains at 1.35 mm.
When clogged shut of the pump. Open recirculation valve. Blow with your mouth in the recerculation tube not a compressor. I use 2 liters of ricehulz with a grainbuild with oats and wheat and 1 liter when there is only barley. My batches are normaly about 40 liters.
Thanks JoepH. I do make sure the tube doesn't get into the grain bed, should have mentionned that.
Hey. Just bought Gen4 35L.
Before I go and read all 23 pages, let me ask you guys real quick.. Does this look normal to you after single 5min boil?
I just added around 10 liters of water in it and was playing around with profiles. It was quite a surprise to find this after I drained the water and took false bottom out.
Before I go and read all 23 pages, let me ask you guys real quick.. Does this look normal to you after single 5min boil?
I just added around 10 liters of water in it and was playing around with profiles. It was quite a surprise to find this after I drained the water and took false bottom out.
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I’ve had the same issue on my last 2 brews. If you figure out a way to prevent this from happening, please share!
I found a very simple way. I move the ball valve on the riser to the off position. Many times the recirculation arm is in the way so my next step is to release the cam locks, let it drain & pull it off.
Never had a problem doing it this way & I’ve done 20 batches on my Gen4 35l to date.
I love this unit. Once I realized that every batch is different & you have to make adjustments accordingly, then my original frustrations of it evaporated into the joy of some my best brews after 35 years of homebrewing.
Cheers, relax & have a homebrew!
Never had a problem doing it this way & I’ve done 20 batches on my Gen4 35l to date.
I love this unit. Once I realized that every batch is different & you have to make adjustments accordingly, then my original frustrations of it evaporated into the joy of some my best brews after 35 years of homebrewing.
Cheers, relax & have a homebrew!
I don’t think I follow. Are you saying you just don’t use the recirculation arm? Or when you do, you turn it off at the ball valve first instead of turning the pump off to prevent the suck back?
We have not noticed any change to efficiencies. The only downside is that you just have one small plate to wash and the end of the brew day. With that said it's not difficult to take apart as you just have to undo the wing nut.
Yes that looks pretty normal to me.
Can you send us some photos of your grist. It's also strange as it sounds like you are doing everything correctly. I think looking at the grist is more important that measuring the gap in my opinion. Measuring the gap gives you some idea but really you just want to only go as narrow with the gap setting as you have to based on looking at the grist.
If you are filling the malt pipe absolutely to the brim I should also say that this increases the chances of a stuck sparge. How much grain are you putting into the malt pipe?
Also do you put the malt pipe in empty and gradually add the grain or do you fill the malt pipe and then dunk the whole malt pipe into the liquid full? If you fill half and then stir and then gradually add the remainder of the grain this is the best process especially if you are doing a large batch at max capacity.
JoepH
Active Member
The second option i think. Always shut the recirculation valve first before you kill the pump. Or lift the hose when submerged before killing the pump. Never use the 60% or 80% pump settings when the hose is submerged..
Since the controller doesn’t give a clear signal the the pump is on or off, for safety I move the riser valve to off. When I pull my grain tun out I need to remove the recirculation arm. Once I drain my grains and finish steeping them, I reattach the recirculation arm and open the valve to start recirculating as I heat up to boiling.
It might be worth adding here that this particular pump we use is designed so you can dead head the pump. So you can turn off the ball valve while the pump is still turned on without risk of damaging the pump.
I know with some other centrifugal pumps this can be an issue but with this design of magnetic drive the impeller has been designed so that liquid can be dead headed and also the magnetic drive is designed like a clutch that can slip if too much back pressure is on the impeller. So I would not be too concerned about damaging the pump in this way.
With that said you are completely correct that lifting the hose or cutting it slightly shorter is a good idea to prevent suck back. If you cut the silicone hose a bit shorter and use this wort spreader device it works quite well.
I swivel the cam lock to set the arm roughly tangential to the kettle rim, which pulls the tubing out a tad. (Re-tighten the cam lock afterwards, as it tends to loosen slightly. I haven't had any leaks, geysers, or flopping hoses, but YMMV.)
The arm is a product that we are working on a new model now and I think with the new model we can resolve this issue. The new model is made from transparent PPSU so you can see the liquid level.
We will make a bit of a kit so current users can also upgrade to this clear tube too so hopefully this helps you guys a bit. The tooling for this new product is hopefully going to be finished soon and eventually this will be standard on the BrewZilla Gen 4
So in my case I never have sucked back in the arm/recirculation hose and it never touches the grist/mash. I usually use a clip to hold it above the water level.
I will take a picture of my crush next brew but I think it should be pretty good. I was using a finer crush with my grainfather and didn't have those problems. As for how I steep the grain, I just add the grain gradually to an empty malt pipe sitting in the full amount of mash water calculated for my recipe. Last batch was 10Kg for a Sierra Nevada clone.
I just conducted an experiment with just rice hulls and got the same problems. For my test, I used 2L of rice hull and afew liters of water so that the whole thing would be light enough and I would be able to lift the brewzilla and look underneath to see if I could spot something wrong. Just that was enough to get the pump clogged almost immediately. It seems like the rice hulls break in finer parts and are able to go through the 2 protection. They get into the silicon elbow under the brewzilla and the pump probably is not getting water and can't move anything from there. If I blow air in the recirculation hose, it pushes the debris and I'm ok for a minute or so before it gets clogged again. I'm surprised not everyone is not getting similar problems so now I'almost suspecting a malfunctioning pump? Maybe my rice hulls are the problem
, I will try without it for the next badge but not sure that my recirculation flow will be too good. I am including 3 pictures, one where you can see the debris in the elbow under the Brewzilla, one with the kind of debris that goes through the malt pipe into the pump from my only rice hull experiment and one that just shows how much got out.
Thank you everyone for the help!
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Yea this is almost exactly what I’m seeing, with or without rice hulls, with varying grain crushes. I basically have to disassemble everything underneath the unit and clean out all of the silicone tubing. There’s way too much getting through the malt pipe screen and the false bottom but I have no idea why.So in my case I never have sucked back in the arm/recirculation hose and it never touches the grist/mash. I usually use a clip to hold it above the water level.
I will take a picture of my crush next brew but I think it should be pretty good. I was using a finer crush with my grainfather and didn't have those problems. As for how I steep the grain, I just add the grain gradually to an empty malt pipe sitting in the full amount of mash water calculated for my recipe. Last batch was 10Kg for a Sierra Nevada clone.
I just conducted an experiment with just rice hulls and got the same problems. For my test, I used 2L of rice hull and afew liters of water so that the whole thing would be light enough and I would be able to lift the brewzilla and look underneath to see if I could spot something wrong. Just that was enough to get the pump clogged almost immediately. It seems like the rice hulls break in finer parts and are able to go through the 2 protection. They get into the silicon elbow under the brewzilla and the pump probably is not getting water and can't move anything from there. If I blow air in the recirculation hose, it pushes the debris and I'm ok for a minute or so before it gets clogged again. I'm surprised not everyone is not getting similar problems so now I'almost suspecting a malfunctioning pump? Maybe my rice hulls are the problem
I am including 3 pictures, one where you can see the debris in the elbow under the Brewzilla, one with the kind of debris that goes through the malt pipe into the pump from my only rice hull experiment and one that just shows how much got out.
Thank you everyone for the help!
In some twisted ways, it is somehow reassuring that someone else is having problems
DuncB
Well-Known Member
How does the bottom screen fit in the malt pipe on the brewzilla?
I never had this problem with robobrew or current guten 70.
Fine particles ( finer than in your picture) get through but recirculate and get filtered in grain bed.
Any chance bottom plate lifting to let a lot of grain through?
Particles look too big to get through the mesh / bottom plate holes on my units.
This would be driving me mad I feel sorry for you.
There should be no need to use a grain bag in these units that would be a "design" flaw / fail surely?
I never had this problem with robobrew or current guten 70.
Fine particles ( finer than in your picture) get through but recirculate and get filtered in grain bed.
Any chance bottom plate lifting to let a lot of grain through?
Particles look too big to get through the mesh / bottom plate holes on my units.
This would be driving me mad I feel sorry for you.
There should be no need to use a grain bag in these units that would be a "design" flaw / fail surely?
You most certainly are not! Now we just need to figure out why the heck this happensIn some twisted ways, it is somehow reassuring that someone else is having problems
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