Unboxing the Nano from CO Brewing

SSBrew - 728
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.
Dockside_Brewing said:
Where did you purchase the sparge arm? Any close up pics on the attachment?
Click to expand...
Its a left over from my cooler and garage days honestly so its like 9 years old and while I can find a few pics of ones like it online I cant find one in the states like it for sale still. Looks like maybe guys have been making them themselves . it just so happens that the phenolic holder it comes with wedges up underneath the cross arm quite nicely. Short of that it just connects via a quick connector to the pot and after I pull the malt pipe I turn it on and let it go full speed. I honestly WOULD like a smaller kettle nd malt pipe for 5 gallon batches but cost has kept me from doing it.
 
FWIW when I brew 5 gallon batches I regularly actually brew a 7 gallon batch and that seems to give me certainly more than I need but also allows for trub dumping etc. That's really how I get around the constraints of doing a true 5 gallon batch. Last weekend I brewed a milk stout. ~12 pounds of grist 10.13 gallons of water. 1.056 OG. I held back a gallon like normal so 9.13 gallons in the pot. It was about as tight as ID want to get and yet the grist WAS covered completely but barely. 7.23 gallons into the fermenter. Ill bottle the extra.
 
does anyone have settings they can share from beersmith? we are using the profile from Colorado Brewing but we keep missing our target OG and not getting enough water after the mash. thoughts?
 
jabba11 said:
if I could buy the topsflo motor ITSELF at a reduced cost I may go back to it. I mean if my chugger craps out at least I can buy the one with the plastic head and mount my stainless to it. Honestly the setup I created works pretty dang well though and I no longer have to worry about all the weight hanging on the fitting on the pot.
Click to expand...

You cant buy the motor itslef, but you can buy the cheaper plastic models and swap the motor. Occasionally they do come up on ebay as well.
 
milo_leon said:
does anyone have settings they can share from beersmith? we are using the profile from Colorado Brewing but we keep missing our target OG and not getting enough water after the mash. thoughts?
Click to expand...

I’d say you need to adjust your grain absorption rate until your calculated prebuilt volume equals the actual prevail volume. The equipment profile considers kettle/equipment losses and boil off rate only.
 
I just updated my grain absorption rate in beersmith. They have two in the settings, one for standard mash and one for BIAB. Since I select BIAB I upped that one. I am brewing tomorrow so I will let you know how it goes.
 
1.8 gph on the boil off with condenser and .82 grain absorption rate for BIAB seems spot on for my system. I am using the 25 gallon Nano. I think I am going to try .039 on the crush for the next brew down from .042.
 
Here is an update from my previous posts on efficiency issues. It turns out my theory was correct. I just finished brewing a cream ale today with a 12 lb grain bill.

I made all of the adjustments I talked about previously. Ditched the steam condenser and upped the boil off to 1.5gph per hour. Also have grain absorption set in beer smith to .80, which is spot on.

The water to grist ratio for this brew was about 2 quart/ lb of grain. My previous batches were 1.25/lb. I think efficiency takes a hit at 1.25 and slowly rises as the mash thins to about 1.65qt/lb where the efficiency gains begin to diminish with this system. Keep in mind that 3.5 gallons resides below the baskets, so you should always subtract 3.5 gallons from your water estimate before calculating the grist ratio with this system

Anyway, my efficiency jumped from 62% to 74.5%, so really happy with that. The brew day was super smooth. Grain absorption, post mash volumes, and boil off rates were spot on!

Beer demand has been high so I’m going to be jumping up to 12 gallon batches soon and will be employing a sparge step. Going to use a 5 gallon coooler and preheat the sparge water with the rest of the mash water and drop out what I need for sparging before the mash. Of course, I’ll ensure I hit the ideal grist ratio of at least 1.65qt/lb.

If anyone has any tips on how you set up a sparge process, I’d be interested in hearing
 
prosperbrews said:
If anyone has any tips on how you set up a sparge process, I’d be interested in hearing
Click to expand...

Pull the grain basket, let drain as you start to heat to boil. after it's drained some, start pouring water over it, trying to pour everywhere.

I use a 1 gallon polycarbonate measuring cup. 2 gallons to pour for a 10 gallon batch should be fine.
 
Just want to say thanks for all the detailed testing guys. I am getting ready to pull the trigger on the 20gal system and this will help me ramp up much quicker.
 
I pull about 1.5 gallons its on its own heat source with a temp controller. I open a valve on it full open as its hanging right after pulling it. Then I let it hang there until the wort just about reaches boil and I Pull it off and set it in a plastic tub.
 
SanPancho said:
You cant buy the motor itslef, but you can buy the cheaper plastic models and swap the motor. Occasionally they do come up on ebay as well.
Click to expand...
ive never seen a topslfo with the same body style that the head ould properly mate to or flow rate. If you know the model let me know Id be interested in doing it as a back up as I have kinda moved back to using my chugger.
 
51EeEsL19BL.jpg

SanPancho said:
post a pic of yours. ours were swappable.
Click to expand...
its a TD5
 
huh. maybe im confusing it with another part we swapped. ive seen topsflo pumps for solar stuff and could have sworn it was a straight swap.

the motor seems the same, but i think you're right about the body mounting. hole pattern and plastic looks different on the cold water pumps and the "home brew" pump vs the td5.
 
I sometimes hear talk about how you cant get clear wort with a system like this. Simply not true. getting it out of th ebasket takes a little more patience but the filter is not the problem.
 
I'm thinking of installing a Unistrut Trolly above my 25 gal Down Under and getting rid of the hoist bar that came with it. My system is setup in the basement so I can attach everything to the basement ceiling. I'm looking to make getting the grain basket out of the kettle an easier task for one person. Has anyone installed something similar? I'd appreciate any pictures.
 
First two brews in the books for the 25 gallon nano. The first went great (blonde ale) with a 9.5 gallon batch to test the system. The second one (chocolate porter, 7.5 gallon batch, 11.8 gallons mash water) not so great, specifically the mash.

Doughed in without rice hulls initially, quickly added later as I found I could not recirculate like the blonde ale I brewed initially. Bad temp differential from under the basket to top of basket (180 vs 140) as recirculating was a trickle even with stirring (pump throttled way down to avoid element scorching. I’m guessing it’s a combination of batch size and no ss manifold. I’m using the solid sided 800 micron basket that came with the system, and crushed at about .035. There were no adjunct grains in the recipe.

To drain the basket, I had to continuously stir and uncover the mesh, resulting in the picture below. That was after the whirlpool at flameout. Looks and felt like bits of grain (plus trub) from trying to drain the basket manually, a problem I didn’t have with my blonde ale. Is this beer going to taste poor based on what looks like a lot of grain particles during the boil? Any other recommendations when doing a small test batch sizes before scaling up to 10-15 gallons? Or what to do when the basket won’t drain more than a trickle and avoid disturbing the grain bed. An email to CBS, they said minimum batch size is 7-8 gallons for the 25 gallon nano.

Thanks

IMG_2723.JPG
 
1) Do you stir the grains other than the initial dough in?
2) Do you use a hop spider or basket?

Also your whirlpool fitting is in the wrong spot. It needs to be to the left of the pickup tube to form a clocckwise whirlpool
 
1) Yes, I stir usually once or twice throughout the mash and stop when it’s close to drain the basket in order to help filter the wort. I added about a pound of rice hulls to that batch and still had a trickle through the grain bed.

2) Yes, I suspend a stainless mesh hop spider during the boil and whirlpool.

I’m thinking that I could have recirculated in the mesh hop spider prior to boiling. I believe it’s 300 micron and would have caught quite a bit.
 
You may want to open that up to .038 to .042. That may be part of you stuck mash problem. .038 is the smallest I will go. Also how many pounds of rice hulls did you use? A lot of the true in the kettle looks like hops.
 
I added about .75 lb for the 7.5 gallon batch and it didn’t seem to help. I’m about 100 percent sure the trub was not hops as I have never seen that in the kettle before.

I will look into opening up my crush size for next time. The weird thing is, it did not happen for my first batch with the system, brewing a 9.5 gallon batch with the same crush. That’s why I think it’s a function of mash thickness as well.
 
The amount of debris also varies by the different types of grain. I find the darker the grain the more debris. Also raising the basket slowly while continuing the circulation over the mash (kind of a vorlauf) will keep the debris to a minimum. I have only used the SS manifold and have never had a stuck or slow draining mash. I usually run wide open except when my water volume exceeds 22 gallons then I have to slow it down a bit.
 
Thanks, good to know. I will try recirculating with the ss manifold once that comes in and opening my crush. Any issues with the ss manifold tipping or clogging or any general tips/tricks with it?
 
The ss manifold is really straight forward, no issues. I usually stir3 times during the mash, initial dough in, 20, and 40 min.
 
If the mash was thin enough, @Spin711 would the float on a Blichmann autosparge interfere with the SS manifold? Does the manifold sit well below the water line on most of your batches?
 
I
swimIan said:
If the mash was thin enough, @Spin711 would the float on a Blichmann autosparge interfere with the SS manifold? Does the manifold sit well below the water line on most of your batches?
Click to expand...

It does sit below the water line but not sure why you would need the Blichmann Auto Sparge? You just adjust your flow after you dough in. I set it to maximize the amount of water going over the grain but also keeping the element covered. Usually just two adjustments when mashing.View media item 69402
 
It is more a curiousity. Even dropping the flow rate (no ss manifold) I had a hard time with even temps, stuck mash, and keeping my element submerged. I now do a k-rims setup and use a autosparge. I was wondering about using the manifold in my MT... I wish I had been able to figure out the trick though.
 
swimIan said:
It is more a curiousity. Even dropping the flow rate (no ss manifold) I had a hard time with even temps, stuck mash, and keeping my element submerged. I now do a k-rims setup and use a autosparge. I was wondering about using the manifold in my MT... I wish I had been able to figure out the trick though.
Click to expand...

Which system do you have?
 

Similar threads

Hop
Brewtools B40Pro Questions - Jaded Hydra, 110V vs 220V
Replies
23
Views
957
McMullan
McMullan
J
Height Needed for BIAB Hoist?
Replies
14
Views
730
Jmezz
J
kotamoore23
120/240v DIY PID Controller Help
Replies
17
Views
1K
whoaru99
W
David Coy
Power 1 and/or 2 Anvil Foundries at 240 from a 30 amp 240 spa panel
Replies
4
Views
625
David Coy
David Coy
B
Dual output RTD options
Replies
5
Views
265
matt_m
M

Latest posts

Back
Top