I clamp it on my elbow thats 1 inch, its very tight and can pop off if bumped but works, I think its designed for a street elbow though
Brewing a 10 gallon Schwarzbier and it's wide open and going well. The recirc arm rotated and sprayed my walls with wort. This needs a serious fix. So frustrated with this one single aspect of this system.
I may get it welded to the basket the. Add a tangential port on the side for whirlpooling. May kill my no hose change setup is all.
What mash efficiency do you get?Brewed my 5th batch. So far I am pretty disappointed. For the two years I previously brewed in my cooler tun I never had an issue hitting my numbers. I have yet to hit my numbers with this. A few other observations, the basket needs to be taller, when your doing ten gal batches you have to raise the basket up otherwise the grain spills over the top. 5 gal batches no problems. The recirc arm is nice, but again, you have to have the basket lowered for it to work. Mine is a year old and I think they mount on top of the kettle now so this may not be an issue.
Overall I am glad I bought it, except for the terrible efficiency I get no matter what I do. It does speed up the brew day which is nice by making everything in one place and easier to clean.
Brewed another 10 gallons last night. 7# of wheat malt and rice hulls. 23# total grain bill and 17.7 gallons of water were maxing it out. Mash eff was 76%, brew house was 67%
I am not sold on the solid side basket at all. None of the water between the kettle and basket touches grain until the basket is raised. Is this a big deal? Probably not. I am trying to think up a better option for recirculation, there is a ton of temp stratification in this system from top to bottom. So far my ideas are to order a new full mesh basket or devise some way to recirculate things better.
In the for sale section here. It attaches with tri clamps.
I looked around and didnt see it. is there a specific name for it?
I think I am going to use some bolts to raise the screen up the top of the kettle... this will keep the grain from going over the sides with ten gal batches. This way I wont have to use my pulley to suspend it like I do now...
he is sending me a new recirc piece to see if that stays attached better.
Mine is the nano brewer home also, but I did have the whirlpool port added so I guess that's why it's welded on.
I do 5 gal batches in the big 20 gal kettle so if my chiller was cockeyed resting on the element half of it would stick out of the wort.)
I am sure 5 gal batches will be manageable, but I am also sure that you will need to make some accommodations. Here's how it is in the 20 gal kettle...
- You need about 4 gallons of water in the kettle to get the bottom of the basket wet.
- The recirc arm comes down to about the 10 or 11 gallon mark, meaning, a typical 5 gal batch mash with ~8 gallons total volume is WELL BELOW the wort return. So, the returning wort will splash like crazy unless you modify the return.
It was actually really easy to modify the return. I got a foot of the thick-walled silicone hose from my LHBS, with an ID big enough that I could muscle it on to the return. Then I used copper wire to wrap the hose with enough coils that I could bend it and aim it. It's ugly, but actually works pretty well. The copper makes it just strong enough that it doesn't wiggle around even when the pump is running full speed.
Between extending the recirc arm and increasing the volume of your batches I am sure you can adapt. Extending boil time means you can't play with first wort hopping though, but that's not the end of the world.
Why the Down Under instead of the Home, unless you aim to use the whole 25 gal sometimes? The 20 gal Nano Home with the cool touchscreen is a couple hundred bucks less than the 25 gal Down Under.
Let us know what you decide!
Enter your email address to join: