Anyone buy a Guten?

[Titan]

52 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

What are the sparge volumes both of you are using, & roughly what are your gravity related efficiencies by the end of your processes. If you are both sparging different volumes, this would affect timings to hit boil/maintain boil etc. yes?

I had to check my notes on a pilsner i did last Monday, but it all depends on your grain bill and prefered mash thickness. For this brew (4.5kg grains) i had 17l mash and 14l sparge. I was +5 points on preboil gravity and +4 points on post boil 1.045 and 1.050 were the predicted numbers.

[Hairy]

11 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

If I don't learn these things Hairy, I may as well stay an extract/partial based brewer. I just want to speed up that learning process as best I can to brew better quality beer that all you AG'ers have been telling me for as long as I can remember.

I'd rather ask all the questions I think I need answers to now, then figure out the rest myself later. I don't plan to pester guys for ever.

I just want my first AG brew to turn out OK & not @#$% it because of a simple mistake of not understanding the unit & the basics involved in using it.

That's all.

Lusty.

Sorry, I wasn’t implying you shouldn’t ask questions. 

But I was also serious about just giving it a go. It is hard to stuff up. 

And set realistic expectations. The chances are you won’t hit all your numbers first go. You will only get there once you brew more and learn your system.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

11 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

If I don't learn these things Hairy, I may as well stay an extract/partial based brewer. I just want to speed up that learning process as best I can to brew better quality beer that all you AG'ers have been telling me for as long as I can remember.

I'd rather ask all the questions I think I need answers to now, then figure out the rest myself later. I don't plan to pester guys for ever.

I just want my first AG brew to turn out OK & not @#$% it because of a simple mistake of not understanding the unit & the basics involved in using it.

That's all.

Lusty.

If i got a new system  I would do the following

1. Make sure the volume markings are correct by weighing it with water in it. Mine are out by almost a litre

2.  Check the temp.  Mine is out by 2c

3. First brew calculate you grain absorbtion

4. First brew calculate your boil off rate.

It will be a piece of piss for an experienced brewer like you mate. Enjoy!!!

 

[Beerlust]

Hi Greeny.

Firstly, thanks for the reply. 

17 minutes ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

Hold the grain mate. That's it. Malt pipe = The bag in BIAB.

I figured as much. There are just other conversations that discuss this malt pipe & overflow relating issues to stuck mashes etc. that had me panicking a little as I don't understand what a stuck mash physically presents with these automated systems & how to rectify any issues quickly without ruining the brew when wort is obviously starting to increase above the grain bed & not draining through it at a reasonable rate as it should.

17 minutes ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

Don't know why you would need to adjust the length.

It does for me cause efficiency issues on my 1st gen robobrew when you make big ABV batches as it tends to compact in the pipe. A bag would allow more liquid to circulate around the grains.

From the literature I've read, this was exactly the reason for being able to adjust that pipe length. To allow more room & flow through the grain bed with higher grain weight ABV% grist beers. Beyond that statement, I have no practical sense of witnessing it, but theoretically I can definitely understand increasing that grain area space.

Thanks again, & feel free to take the p!$$ out of me. You now have earned credits in that space. 

P.S. Norris hasn't wasted any time. 

Lusty.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Beerlust

[Titan]

37 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

What the @#$% is the purpose of the "malt pipe" & why might I need to adjust its length?

Not sure this information is correct. Essentially the malt pipe is the container that holds the grain. Usually its a standard length. What they maybe talking about is (in the case of the gfather) is the tube that runs up from the bottom plate to the top plate called an overflow pipe. This is what you may need to adjust depending on the grain bill.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

6 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

Hi Greeny.

Firstly, thanks for the reply. 

I figured as much. There are just other conversations that discuss this malt pipe & overflow relating issues to stuck mashes etc. that had me panicking a little as I don't understand what a stuck mash physically presents with these automated systems & how to rectify any issues quickly without ruining the brew when wort is obviously starting to increase above the grain bed & not draining through it at a reasonable rate as it should.

Grain crush is vital for these systems. Id recommend buying a mill so you can do your own. They work better with a coarser crush. If the LHBS grinds the crap out of the grains it can cause issues with a stuck mash. 

[Beerlust]

6 minutes ago, Titan said:

Not sure this information is correct. Essentially the malt pipe is the container that holds the grain. Usually its a standard length. What they maybe talking about is (in the case of the gfather) is the tube that runs up from the bottom plate to the top plate called an overflow pipe. This is what you may need to adjust depending on the grain bill.

So there are two pipes? I've only seen one adjustable pipe that runs up the middle of the two grain plates you described that sit either side of the grain bed.

Happy to accept my description is actually the overflow pipe, not malt pipe. Don't bother explaining malt pipe to me after that, as it doesn't sound like it matters that much if it's not part of this assembly.

Lusty.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

48 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

What the @#$% is the purpose of the "malt pipe" & why might I need to adjust its length?

Hey Lusty,

As others have said it’s probably the overflow pipe in the centre of the malt pipe. You’ll want to set this a bit higher than the top of the grain bed and top screen (if you use it). This allows any excess wort to run off if you set the flow rate for recirculating too high, or get a completely stuck mash, thus preventing the bottom from running dry and protecting the elements.

[Beerlust]

3 minutes ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

Grain crush is vital for these systems. Id recommend buying a mill so you can do your own. They work better with a coarser crush. If the LHBS grinds the crap out of the grains it can cause issues with a stuck mash. 

I understand exactly what you are saying here, but I'm not going to be milling my own grains. If I have any issues with powdery grists from the LHBS I will ask them nicely to mill my grains a little coarser next time. Any grain mill spacings you work to that give a grind as you described?

Lusty.

[Hairy]

1 minute ago, Beerlust said:

I understand exactly what you are saying here, but I'm not going to be milling my own grains. If I have any issues with powdery grists from the LHBS I will ask them nicely to mill my grains a little coarser next time. Any grain mill spacings you work to that give a grind as you described?

Lusty.

When I first got my mill I crushed a little too fine. Had a stuck(ish) mash; it was draining but really, really slowly.

I just removed the top plate and stirred the mash as I sparged. It was a pain but it worked.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

4 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

I understand exactly what you are saying here, but I'm not going to be milling my own grains. If I have any issues with powdery grists from the LHBS I will ask them nicely to mill my grains a little coarser next time. Any grain mill spacings you work to that give a grind as you described?

Lusty.

I eyeball it with my grain mill depending on the size of the grains. They are variable. A bag of coopers malt i got once were super plump. The raw wheat i get for witbiers are super small so I adjust it for that. If you have a good LHBS they will be OK I'm sure.

[Beerlust]

It's interesting reading discussions on milled grain coarseness level. I'm not naive & have read many conversations from the AG'ers over the years about this. From what I understand you'll gain higher extraction/efficiency levels from finer milled grists but run higher risks of stuck mashes the finer you mill.

Don't quote me on this, but I think Greeny mentioned that he adds a smallish amount of rice hulls into every grist to assist with grain bed flow. It probably allows him to mill slightly finer, improve efficiency without restricting grain bed flow & reducing the chances of a stuck mash in the same process.

When I did the Coopers Brewery tour recently, Coopers adopt a very comprehensive filter process following the mash/through the mash. I didn't get to see it in action to see how it ran as no brew was going that day of the tour. Their grain mill is to a powder form for the mash & the impressive filtering process avoids a stuck mash & increases grain efficiency to somewhere approaching 98%+ from what PB2 described.

From what I observed, it would be interesting to find out if there is a way to adapt this on a smaller scale for home brewing.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Aussiekraut]

10 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Now that Norris has explained the programming shifts, I think I'd program any shifts when raising temperature at max power & program to hold for 1 min, then have the unit lower wattage to hold temp for the remainder. i.e. mashout completes, program max power for the unit for 1 minute to reach boil, then reduce wattage to hold rolling boil. Although purchasing the Guten, I noticed the Brewzilla 35L unit has two power switches on it. One for 1900w, one for 500w. I'm pretty sure the unit can hold boil at 1900w. The Daft Cat brewing woman also made mention in her Guten demo video there is no need to run full wattage to maintain the boil. So I will be doing something close to this regime.

 

This is the part where I'm not sure of the benefits to be honest. When Daft Cat lady mentioned this, I though it was a good idea but then I had a think about it and am not convinced. Sure, the element is using less power when holding mash temp or keep a rolling boil going but it also has to run more often and for longer than it would on the higher power setting.

Any experts on this sort of thing here?

[Otto Von Blotto]

Depends Lusty. I get better efficiency on my BIAB system with a coarser crush, not a finer one. It's a lot easier to drain the bag and get more of the wort out of the grains. I'd imagine the same would be true with a sparging setup. 

I'm not sure there's much to be gained by trying to shorten brew days. AG takes time, there's no getting around that. Fair enough making more efficient use of that time by cleaning and whatever during the mash and boil, but for me my best beers are the ones that aren't rushed through shortening mashes and boils etc.  

 

[Aussiekraut]

11 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I'm not sure there's much to be gained by trying to shorten brew days. AG takes time, there's no getting around that. Fair enough making more efficient use of that time by cleaning and whatever during the mash and boil, but for me my best beers are the ones that aren't rushed through shortening mashes and boils etc.  

You're right, you don't want to rush things. But if one cat cur out an hour by streamlining the process, better preparation, not being a wuss and cleaning the malt tube while it is hot, etc, it'd be a good thing. I enjoy sitting outside, brewing beer, playing music, dancing around like a madman  But I'd also enjoy an extra hour in the day. 

[Hairy]

I have streamlined my brew day so that no time is wasted. The things that I do are:

• Mill grain the day before
• Set up the system the night before and fill with the mash water
• Next morning I start heating the mash water as soon as I get up
• Once I have doughed in and started the mash I prepare hops, sparge water etc.
• Clean as you go. Malt pipe etc. is all cleaned before the boil has finished.

I don’t think I could actually save anymore time. The only way would be to shorten the mash and boil time but I’m not doing that.

It’s about 4 hours including cleaning. Technically I have shortened my brew day but some of these things have just been pushed to the day before.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Hairy

[RDT2]

21 minutes ago, Hairy said:

I have streamlined my brew day so that no time is wasted. The things that I do are:

• Mill grain the day before
• Set up the system the night before and fill with the mash water
• Next morning I start heating the mash water as soon as I get up
• Once I have doughed in and started the mash I prepare hops, sparge water etc.
• Clean as you go. Malt pipe etc. is all cleaned before the boil has finished.

I don’t think I could actually save anymore time. The only way would be to shorten the mash and boil time but I’m not doing that.

It’s about 4 hours including cleaning. Technically I have shortened my brew day but some of these things have just been pushed to the day before.

I do the same as you Hairy and I mash while I take the kids to school  

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeah I usually clean as I go as well. I'll mill grains while the water heats up, doesn't take long. Once the mash is underway I'll clean and put away whatever I don't need anymore. Once it gets to the bringing to boil stage I'll clean other equipment no longer needed, and during the boil I'll clean the grain bag and get the cube ready. I'll also do other household tasks during these "down times". At the end the only stuff left to clean is the hop spider and the urn itself, which I usually leave til the next day. 

I do use up a bit of time draining the bag and steeping FWH additions if they're used. The whole thing probably takes me 5-6 hours all up which I'm fine with. If I start early enough it's usually done by early arvo and I will clean everything on the day. When I start later I leave those two things til the next day. 

[The Captain!!]

My day goes,

Heat water, set alarm for 43 mins. 
Weight out grains and hops. 
Mill grain. 
Get the lawn mower out. 
mow one part of my lawn. 
Alarm goes off, dough in. 
Set alarm for 1 hour. 
mow the rest of the lawn and weed the vege patch. 
Alarm goes off, remove bag and drain. Set alarm for 40 mins. 
make some lunch. 
Alarm goes off, pour in drain wort. Set alarm for 5 mins. 
Alarm goes off, check for boil, add hops as required. Set alarm for 45 and 60 mins
fertilise lawn and vege patch. 
Alarm goes off, add more hops and clean up. 
Simples

[Hairy]

33 minutes ago, The Captain!! said:

My day goes,

Heat water, set alarm for 43 mins. 
Weight out grains and hops. 
Mill grain. 
Get the lawn mower out. 
mow one part of my lawn. 
Alarm goes off, dough in. 
Set alarm for 1 hour. 
mow the rest of the lawn and weed the vege patch. 
Alarm goes off, remove bag and drain. Set alarm for 40 mins. 
make some lunch. 
Alarm goes off, pour in drain wort. Set alarm for 5 mins. 
Alarm goes off, check for boil, add hops as required. Set alarm for 45 and 60 mins
fertilise lawn and vege patch. 
Alarm goes off, add more hops and clean up. 
Simples

Your brew day is very alarming!

[MitchellScott]

Lusty, I am a user of the BrewZilla 3.1.1 (35L) so essentially the same setup you are using.

As the others have stated, this is what I would be doing BEFORE your brew day:

1. Check the calibration on your temp probe with a good and accurate thermometer. Mine was out by 1 or 2C from memory. Calibrate as needed.
2. Feel free to do a boil off rate test before your brew day. I didn't so this, but have pretty much worked out my numbers after 4-5 batches. As the others have said, you will probably mess a few little things up. A few brews ago I didn't have enough water and therefore my OG was hiiiiiggh. A 5.3% APA turned out as 6.3%. No big deal though. I could have added some water but said fuck it and just stuck with it.
3. Get your hands on some rice hulls. Especially if you aren't milling your own grains. LHBS love to crush the shit out of grains and therefore you WILL have mash and sparge problems, I'll nearly guarantee it. My first two batches I had issues with stuck mashes and sparges as I milled too fine. I then increased mill roller gap slightly and moved onto trying grain conditioning and found it helped tremendously in providing a higher flow through the mash and also sparge without effecting my efficiency. I brewed a big stout last weekend with about 6.5kg of grains. Some of my specialty grains I milled a bit fine accidentally so added 5% of rice hulls. Never had an issue with mash or sparge at all. I will be adding a simple 5% into all my brews from now on, its a cheap and simple way of ensuring you don't have mash or sparge issues which trust me, suck major ass if they do occur - especially mash as without the correct core mash temp (low temp) your FG will end up suuuper low and beer will be dry.

Some other tips I have learn't while using this system:

1. Mash in nice and slow and ensure you are constantly stirring to avoid "dough balls". Take your time as trying to fix dough balls once they occur is a pain in the ass.
2. Once you have mashed in and given it all a good stir, let the whole thing settle for 10mins before starting re-circulation. This will allow the grain bed to settle and I found helped my flow rate when first starting the recirc.
3. You will find recirc will start slower, and as the mash does its thing and sugars are extracted, you can start to bump up the recirc more and more. Ideally, the higher the recirc the better but you don't want it overflowing into the overflow pipe (its there only as a backup). Running wort through the overflow can allow grains into the boiler section which is a big no no.
4. Get another thermometer that you can use to measure the core of your mash temp (stick it into the mash from the top right next to the overflow pipe). This is handy as the temp probes on our systems are in the boiler right next to the elements. So when doing a mash out for example, I start the mash out time from when the CORE of the mash reaches the mash out temp, not when the displayed temp reaches mash out temp.
5. Have a spray bottle of water on standby when bringing to the boil for any boil overs. If it starts to boil over, spray the shit out of the foam and it will subside.
6. Make sure you cover the overflow pipe with something when mashing in. Not sure about the Guten, but the Brewzilla came with a little rubber plug to go over it. This stops grains getting into the boiler section when mashing in.
7. The whirlpool arm is a handy attachment that helped a lot of the hot break/hops stay out of my cubes. It doesn't create an extremely huge whirlpool, but seems to do the job well enough.

Other than that, get in and give it a crack. Your first brew won't be perfect but its the best way to learn

That's all I can think of at the moment. If anything else comes to mind I will be sure to post up.

Mitch.

Edited June 17, 2020 by MitchellScott

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

On 6/17/2020 at 12:15 PM, MitchellScott said:

Have a spray bottle of water on standby when bringing to the boil for any boil overs. If it starts to boil over, spray the shit out of the foam and it will subside.

As it came to the boil on my first brew and started to foam I flicked off the big element for just a few seconds until the foam subsided. The flicked it back on and everything was easy from that point on.

[Beerlust]

On 6/17/2020 at 10:25 AM, The Captain!! said:

My day goes,

Heat water, set alarm for 43 mins. 
Weight out grains and hops. 
Mill grain. 
Get the lawn mower out. 
mow one part of my lawn. 
Alarm goes off, dough in. 
Set alarm for 1 hour. 
mow the rest of the lawn and weed the vege patch. 
Alarm goes off, remove bag and drain. Set alarm for 40 mins. 
make some lunch. 
Alarm goes off, pour in drain wort. Set alarm for 5 mins. 
Alarm goes off, check for boil, add hops as required. Set alarm for 45 and 60 mins
fertilise lawn and vege patch. 
Alarm goes off, add more hops and clean up. 
Simples

Forget it! I've just decided AG brewing isn't for me.

I had no idea I'd have to pick up all these extra tasks along with it!

[The Captain!!]

53 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

Forget it! I've just decided AG brewing isn't for me.

I had no idea I'd have to pick up all these extra tasks along with it!

My every day is this busy Lusty. Always something going on.  
Don’t forget due to fifo, the amount of time home to maintain my properties is halved.....

[Beerlust]

11 hours ago, The Captain!! said:

My every day is this busy Lusty. Always something going on.....

....except for those lazy days on a bus ride when a random fat guy falls on you!