Unboxing the Nano from CO Brewing

[wildseedgrrrl]

It's here and in the garage. Water test, cleaning, and turning on the bloody thing this morning, but first breakfast. Will probably do a quick throw out brew with some random grains.

 

[30Bones]

Was told today they were waiting on the mesh for baskets so it slowed some going out, min should be shipping in a few days

 

[jabba11]

Was told today they were waiting on the mesh for baskets so it slowed some going out, min should be shipping in a few days

well 5 weeks is certainly less than the lead time they quote on the site. I do hope mine comes that fast but like I said before Im content to get it quality built in a reasonable time frame. I have set a few things up including getting gfci etc but am waiting for the unit to arrive to design and create a ventilation system etc.

 

[30Bones]

For now this will be used in an apartment so I am not getting to nuts. I have a vent fan and a ton of stuff for a home setup, but I may not buy for a year or so

 

[jready]

It's here and in the garage. Water test, cleaning, and turning on the bloody thing this morning, but first breakfast. Will probably do a quick throw out brew with some random grains.

Hey! I have that same stand for mine!

 

[wildseedgrrrl]

Cleaned and rinsed and then filled and measured for gallon marks to put on the sight glass. That pick up tube is pretty sweet. I got all but a few ounces, not including what was in the lines. Tomorrow I'm brewing a saison.

 

[wildseedgrrrl]

Sorry about the crick in everyone's neck while trying to view pics. I can't seem to figure out how to get them to turn.

Brew Day!

Went off without a hitch. Filled my kettle with 10" of water and got my water up to strike and mashed in 7# of grains. I didn't want to overdue it. Collected about 6.25 gallons of wort and boil went off without a hitch. I had about 3/4 gallon of boil off, which was surprising. Hit gravity and then some. I'm brewing again on Sunday. Brew day was done in about 3 hours and 45 minutes.

10" water at 57.4 degrees
Element on @ 815 going up to 160
142.5 deg @ 834

I thought I was going to lose a lot more in temperature when I added the grain than I did, but I hardly lost anything, so next batch I'll just heat to mash temp.

Mash in at 842 @154 deg
Mash 848 -948
Mash out 949-959 @168 deg

Took me a bit to get the basket raised and the arm out of the way.

Boil from 1020 - 1120

EOB gravity 1.049

I was truly impressed with this system. It blew my expectations out of the water.

 

[30Bones]

Very awesome. What size kettle did you get and what is your crush gap set to?

 

[NYY]

I just received my 15 gallon home system. Couple of questions:

Is the basket supposed to have feet? Or does the bottom just sit on the elements and temp probe?

The recirculation arm attachs with a screw. Is There supposed to be a hole for the screw to go through on the basket/kettle? The fit does not seem tight?

There are no connections for the pump. Does the system usually come with these connections or is this something I need to purchase?

 

[jready]

I just received my 15 gallon home system. Couple of questions:

Is the basket supposed to have feet? Or does the bottom just sit on the elements and temp probe?

The recirculation arm attachs with a screw. Is There supposed to be a hole for the screw to go through on the basket/kettle? The fit does not seem tight?

There are no connections for the pump. Does the system usually come with these connections or is this something I need to purchase?

No feet, the bar on the top holds it above the element.

Just tighten the screw it'll hold.

You should have received triclamp fittings for the pump, were they checked off on the packing slip? I was missing a few pieces then I realized they hadn't been checked off they showed up a few days later

 

[NYY]

Thanks. Appreciate it!!

 

[sabo38]

I ordered mine on April 1st. The wait is killing me! Lots of great info in this thread though

 

[jready]

Thanks. Appreciate it!!

Happy to help! When you gonna brew?

 

[NYY]

Gonna be a bit. Need to run electric first. Can't wait!

 

[DarkStormBrewing]

I ordered mine on April 1st. The wait is killing me! Lots of great info in this thread though

I did too. I called them after 2 months and he said Thursday that its ready and waiting on a basket, should ship yesterday or today. So soon!

 

[jready]

I did too. I called them after 2 months and he said Thursday that its ready and waiting on a basket, should ship yesterday or today. So soon!

So worth the wait! You will love it.

 

[pretzelb]

I thought I was going to lose a lot more in temperature when I added the grain than I did, but I hardly lost anything, so next batch I'll just heat to mash temp.

I noticed that as well. I can't figure out why but I also heat just to mash temp.

I hope to brew my second 10g batch today but I didn't set up my water last night so I might run out of time.

 

[jgoldsworthy]

I noticed that as well. I can't figure out why but I also heat just to mash temp.

I hope to brew my second 10g batch today but I didn't set up my water last night so I might run out of time.

I'm not a thermal engineer, but my guess would be thermal mass. Normal mash would be 1/2 the amount of strike water and thus less BTUs.

 

[wildseedgrrrl]

First Official brew day today was 5 gallon batch of Munich Dunkel and with this crazy heat we've been having I had to add water to my kettle toward the end of boil to get back up to what I'd need to hit 5 gallons in carboy and still ended up under. It had to have been 90 degrees in the garage at 10am. Ugh. Good side was that I had equally amazing efficiency this batch. My friend, Jeff came by to watch it in action because he'd stumbled across the website and was on the fence but leaning towards the dark side. LOL. I think watching today's brew day pretty much convinced him that this system is the way to go.We were done in about 4 hours. Still better than my previous brew days that were pretty much all day affairs.

So I have a question for folks: Who likes their sight glass? It seems pretty useless to me since I measure my liquid in kettle it never fully integrates with the rest of the wort. I'm considering adding a whirpool arm or just closing it off. Any suggestions?

Tomorrow will be a milk stout from a BIAB kit from work. We're not sure if it's still good since we've had it in the shop for so long, so I'm brewing it to see if they're worth keeping in stock. Lots of keg cleaning tomorrow to make room for all this beer I'm brewing!

 

[pretzelb]

For those wondering about capacity of the 20g kettle it seems to be near 16g of water and 22 lbs of grain. My calculations had 16.3g of water and it was just too the top. I think from now on I'm going to hold back 2g no matter what for sparge on a 10g batch.

View attachment 1465174896017.jpg

 

[pretzelb]

So I have a question for folks: Who likes their sight glass? It seems pretty useless to me since I measure my liquid in kettle it never fully integrates with the rest of the wort. I'm considering adding a whirpool arm or just closing it off. Any suggestions?

I'm on the fence. I bought a steel ruler to measure volume and I prefer to use it since a few websites like Priceless BIAB calculator will give estimates in inches for your kettle. Plus to be accurate you need to adjust volume by temperature and that can only be done with a rule I think.

The one good thing is you can easily see if the pump is draining too fast on a 5g batch in a 20g kettle. Other than that I'm not using it for volume.

I did get some plugs to help clean the kettle after taking the probe and heating element out. You could get these caps and pretend it wasn't there. I also saw a brewery that replaced it with rubber hose.

 

[pretzelb]

For those interested I tried to document my brew day times similar to the other poster. Here goes:

12:30 - start adding water using two single gallon jugs - configure new pH monitor while jugs are filling
1:00 - done with water and pH meter, adjust grain mill and start to mill grain while water heats to 154
1:33 - water at 154 add grains, stir
1:44 - mash start
2:44 - mash done, hoist grains to drain, set temp to 168
3:00 - stop grains from dripping, set heat element to 95% (should have done that at mash end)
3:25 - boil start, clean basket, clean grains
4:25 - boil end, start whirlpool for 5 min (might go longer next time)
4:35 - stop whirlpool, let settle for 5 min (might need this to be longer also)
4:42 - start filling first carboy
4:46 - start filling 2nd carboy
4:53 - end filling both carboys, start cleaning
6:03 - end first wave of cleaning which includes a 6g rinse cycle of PBW at 110 degrees (I made some mistakes here so this took long)

After this I come back in 30 minutes and drain, then add more water to run a rinse cycle, then come back later to add Starsan and drain

 

[pretzelb]

Here are a few tips/ideas from my brew day today.

1. Calibrate the probe. I think mine is off by 3 degrees. The instructions are a bit crazy but I think I'm going to at least check with an ice water bath to make sure. Can't believe I didn't think to do this before.
2. Check your evaporation rate. I think my numbers are way off because my evaporation rate is nothing what I thought it would be. I'm getting a good strong boil but my gravity readings are not moving like they used to when I had propane. I'm going to run a test and see if things have changed now that I'm using electric. Doesn't make sense to me but it can't hurt to try.
3. Setting the grain mill to 045 seems to work, at least with the first time I tried it. I'm going to stick with it.

 

[wildseedgrrrl]

Nice! @pretzelb that's the best deal on caps I've seen. I take a measurement and temp when I draw a sample and adjust. I tested my probe and it was reading fine.

Weather I knew was going to effect evap I just couldn't have guessed how much. Not unusual to have to add back water at the end of boil. I think my initial water was low but workable.

This hot garage is going to screw with everything for a bit.

 

[DarkStormBrewing]

For calibration, I would aim to calibrate it at boiling since you will be using the probe mostly from 145F to boiling. Ice water is better than nothing, but if you can do it at a higher temp I think it would be most accurate.

 

[jgoldsworthy]

I agree that some calibration (ice water) is better than nothing, and also that calibrating on the high end (where you plan to use it most often is better). However, don't forget that boiling isn't always 212 degrees. It's dependent on your altitude and also the barometric pressure. Boil at my house is 206 + or - a degree or two depending on the pressure.

 

[DarkStormBrewing]

Yes indeed, I was thinking of using an accurate thermometer to compare. I calibrated my probe to 150 F using a thermopen. Good point.

 

[pretzelb]

Even though I still have to figure out a few things, as a long time 5g brewer, I find it so cool to be doing 10g now that I find myself peeking every so often. Makes me smile when I see this.

View attachment 1465262823761.jpg

 

[Howhownow]

Managed to sneak in a brew after work last night, something I never would have dreamed of before.
5G, 70% efficiency (consistent with first batch!), less than 4 hours.
I mashed in at 8:15 and was totally cleaned and yeast pitched before midnight. I still think I can shave 15 or so minutes without getting in a hurry, but this time is amazing if you consider 60 minute mash and boil. Plus I did a 15 minute whirlpool hop addition.

 

[sabo38]

Just got an email this morning. Mine should be here on Friday!
Are you guys just using the water calculation sheet that CBS has or something else?