Clawhammer Supply BIAB Review

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Everyone still happy with the system and it's performace and quality? Thinking about doing an a la carte with the kettle, pid controller and element. I have a hydra chiller. I'll probably just start out like my propane setup and adjust strike temp for grain temp through beersmith and insulate the kettle and let it go. I'll add a pump down the road. Just want to brew indoors during the winter.
 
Well after two years I have zero complaints. I have made a lot of beer and to date they have all come out as predicted. You will need to ensure you have a good grain crush so you hit your numbers.
 
@smbdyshero or anyone else, what size is the element (tc) port? Is it 1.5" or 2"?

Thanks in advance.
1.5 for sure. If you want to get to a boil quick I recommend adding the hot stick at brewhardware. For those days when you are in a big hurry. I got one and over the last two years I have used it twice. It does come in handy when you need it for sure.
 
Did you calibrate yours? Seems my thermapen is reading a couple degrees lower during mash. I know there is an offset adjustment but didn’t mess with it. Controller seemed to read lower then when water was heating up. Now seems to read higher during actual mash. Just using PID setting. With my set point at 152. Also the heat led going on and off is indicating the element is being turned on and off correct to maintain temp?
 
Did you calibrate yours? Seems my thermapen is reading a couple degrees lower during mash. I know there is an offset adjustment but didn’t mess with it. Controller seemed to read lower then when water was heating up. Now seems to read higher during actual mash. Just using PID setting. With my set point at 152. Also the heat led going on and off is indicating the element is being turned on and off correct to maintain temp?

Having the same issue with my system I got less than a week ago, ruined a batch today when I mashed in, the temp spiked to 165 (was supposed to be 150) took the whole mash to get it down. cant seem to figure out the settings, I tried the Auto tune and still the temps aren't right, Fluctuating from 1 to 10 degrees. Have you figured it out?
 
Not yet. I adjusted the offset at room temp with my Thermapen. It wasn’t off much. I think the problem is with the auto tune and how fast the probe reads. The sides, bottom and lid of my kettle is insulated. While heating the Thermapen reads higher. So I tried setting controller to manual 100% and wait til it got to around 140 then killing the element. To get the reading to level out before setting it back to auto temp set point of 152 then starting auto tune all while recirculating.

While the controller seems to hold steady for the most part my Thermapen reading is different during an actual mash. I’ve been babysitting the mash manually stirring and adjusting set point on the controller which really doesn’t help the PID.
 
Can anyone comment on recirculating rates? Have any difficulties with balancing the flow rates?
 
Back
Top