So, I have a Brewart...

[BeachBanjo]

The wife surprised me with an early birthday present when I got home from work today. A nice little kit from Brewart, the Beerdroid, Brewflo, Kegging kit, American Pale Ale recipe kit. Apparently it was the first one sold from Harvey Norman Maroochydore. And I am stoked! This will go nicely with my other two coopers FVs.

 

Unboxed it all tonight, will kick off a brew tomorrow.

 

 

[ben 10]

Congrats.

While it is not something I would go near I am interested to know how the end product is.

[Kradmelder]

Another Aussie who gets expensive beer stuff for his birthday from his wife? Damn, here men always have to buy them stuff. Maybe I should find aussie girls.

 

I dont see how that dog can't see the nice upright object and go lift his leg aganst it. Unless he is a she.

[Henry's Cat]

Nice dog !

[Farls]

Do you pat his head or lift his tail to make the beer come out?

[King Ruddager]

Cool dog

[mickc1525229722]

Hey Banjo, congrats excuse my ignorance s the brewart an ag system ?

 

 

 

 

[BeachBanjo]

Thanks guys, the dog is our 10 month old puppy Clancie, she doesn't fetch my beer for me yet, one day... The dog in my profile pic is our other dog Suey who is 11 years old now.

 

KradMelder, Aussie girls just seem to know how to keep their man happy (and his mind occupied I suspect).

 

MickC, the BrewArt gear isn't an all-grain kit, it consists of the Beer Droid which is a temperature controlled fermentation vessel (10L) a bit on the small side, but it is now my only temperature controlled fermenter, which means I will finally be able to brew lagers and pilsners properly. The other fermenters will continue their ale duties. The BrewFlo is a beer dispenser that uses 5L kegs, it is an interesting design that doesn't use CO2 to dispense, so I will update you all on how it goes in a few weeks.

 

There is nothing stopping you from doing an all grain batch in this equipment though, it is essentially a fermenter that you bottle to big 5L bottles. I will try some of their BrewArt recipes first though, but I think I will end up reverting to my usual extract brewing after a couple.

 

I have everything unpacked and will start getting the beer droid software setup soon. The quality of everything seems really good, the beer droid sits nicely on the kitchen bench and looks great. The Brewflo is a lot larger than I thought it would be so I have to figure out exactly where that will end up living.

[BeachBanjo]

The BeerDroid. You get to name the beer droid when you register it, I named mine "BeerDroid". If you can think of something better let me know.

 

 

And for those who might be interested, the inside of the BeerDroid.

 

 

 

[Rob44]

Gday Banjo. I just read up on the droid and it looks very nice indeed, if but a tad small and expensive. But all in good fun with a press of the button and the pre-packaged kits and not out of place on the kitchen counter. Also the sounds of the carbonation without CO2 sounds handy, i wouldn't mind one of those as a separate entity for myself. Good luck with it.

[mickc1525229722]

Hey Banjo, was going to ask if the dogs name was Clancy ;)

 

So the sachets marked Elements, Enhancers etc liquid dry?

 

Just wondering what all the bits are really ?

 

 

regards mick

[BeachBanjo]

Hey Banjo' date=' was going to ask if the dogs name was Clancy ;)

 

So the sachets marked Elements, Enhancers etc liquid dry?

 

Just wondering what all the bits are really ?

 

[/quote']

 

Clancie must be famous, have you got a dog?

 

Elements and enhancers are both dry, the elements are hopped dry malt and the enhancers are probably the same as the coopers brew enhancers. There is also liquid hops and priming sucrose.

 

I have put the brew on this afternoon, now to play the waiting game, in the mean time my Bockenator is almost ready to bottle.

[Beers Gone Wild]

What an awesome wife you have!

 

Cool looking setup, looking forward to hearing how it turns out.

[PB2]

Banjo, I like the colour coded Black Ribbon and dog to match

 

I see you already have the tap in place. If you didn't lubricate the red seal (tiniest amount of olive oil) before sliding the tap into the droid, make sure to do it from now on. Helps with extending longevity.

Also, it doesn't hurt to smear some olive oil on the lid seal to make for easier twisting to remove.

[Bird1986]

Look's like a slick system. Let us know how your brew turns out

[BeachBanjo]

Banjo' date=' I like the colour coded Black Ribbon and dog to match [img']lol[/img]

 

I see you already have the tap in place. If you didn't lubricate the red seal (tiniest amount of olive oil) before sliding the tap into the droid, make sure to do it from now on. Helps with extending longevity.

Also, it doesn't hurt to smear some olive oil on the lid seal to make for easier twisting to remove.

 

Hey PB2, I did use olive oil for the tap, I will keep it in mind for the lid seal next time also. BTW, I love the tap on the BeerDroid. For anyone who hasn't seen it, it is the same as the current Coopers fermenter taps, except it has an extended spout which you clip on the keg lines or bottler. It saves you having to shove the bottler up into the tap which might cause a leak if you are not careful.

[garvani]

Heya

 

How is the brewing going? I personally am waiting with baited breath for any updates. Ive been looking into getting one myself but have been waiting for some independent reviews which havn't eventuated yet.

[BeachBanjo]

It's still fermenting away,

 

 

 

[Chelseaboy]

Just kicked off my first brew with the Brewart System yesterday. Has anyone finished one yet, love to know how it turned out?

[Chelseaboy]

Another question chaps, I want to have a crack at making a gluten free brew for my wife. Any thoughts as to whether I could buy a GF kit and just scale down the measurements for 10l to put in the droid assuming all the necessary ingredients were there? She would appreciate any advice as she likes beer but is now unable to drink it. Cheers

[Otto Von Blotto]

I imagine you could scale down the ingredients to 10 litres just like you can with the craft beer kit, or any other method of brewing where recipes are scaled up or down. That sucks about the gluten thing though; I tried a gluten free beer once, it was bloody horrible. O'Briens I think. Tasted like a weird cider. Hopefully there are nicer ones out there than that one though.

[BeachBanjo]

Not sure about the gluten free beer, I have never tried it myself. Let me know what you think of your droid. Did you get the dispenser too?

 

My Beer Droid told me it was time to keg on Sunday evening, fermentation of the American Pale Ale kit took 8 days. So I kegged away into the 5L kegs. I was expecting the keg liners to just have a big open mouth on them, but there seems to be some sort of filter or something, I didn't take a photo, I will next time though. It could make my plan to try and clean, sanitise and reuse a keg liner a bit difficult though. I put in the hops and priming sugar which are both liquid, first time I have used liquid hops, they smelt the same as pellet hops, like heaven. Since the keg liner has a filter you will definitely need to prime with liquid primer, the pack comes with liquid sucrose.

 

Everything went as planned except I didn't tighten one of the clips properly so had a small spill, I tasted what spilled on my hands and thought was great though, so seems promising! There is a small marker on the beer droid that you are meant to fill the first keg to, but the liquid didn't quite drop down to it, after a while of staring at it and it not moving I turned off the tap and switched kegs. No spills this time!

 

The second keg seemed to have got the rest though didn't seem quite full. When I opened the droid to check there was only the trub left at the bottom. Cleaning the droid was easy thanks to the drain under the tap. I mentioned before how much I like the tap design, but I was a bit disappointed with the seal on the tap, I used olive oil fairly liberally before inserting it and when I removed it it does appear to have very minor damage to the rubber seal. it fits much tighter than the ones on the plastic coopers FVs. I might have to line the tap's hole as well with olive oil next time. I don't think it will leak, but don't want it to get any worse.

 

Now I am going to wait 3 weeks for the kegs to do their thing and that means I will have beer on tap just in time for my birthday! I am still not sure where the Brew Flo is going to live yet, but for now it is still on the centre of the kitchen bench.

 

I don't have any other brewprints at the moment to start, so I will make up a craft kit, maybe the IPL to test the lager program. I don't know if filling to 8.5L is going to be a problem or not, so I might modify the recipe to get it to 10L just in case.

[headmaster]

CSIRO have reportedly just developed a gluten free barley strain, which is now being used in germany to make gluten free beer.

 

I read that it does not result in less than 20ppm gluten in the beer, which is threshold for gluten free certification in AUS, but does get close.

 

So If you run AG I would be researching this new grain and try to buy some to give it a whirl for your cheese-n-kisses.

[WP's]

Well, I just finished a brew in my Beerdroid (Brewart). I did an Italian lager to test the temperature control. I don't have the Brewflo at present so I have bottled into 20 500ml swingtops.

 

All ingredients were the Brewprints dry ingredients except the liquid hops (which I added at the start). I used the lager program (obviously) although you can customize it to anything you want. It propagated the yeast at 24 degrees for 12 plus hours and then it went to 13 degrees and basically stayed there for 11 days. Then I got the "Keg Now" sign. I tasted it when I bottled it to get an idea, and it tasted really nice, just like a cross between a Moretti lager and a Peroni. But it was still very green and will need two to four weeks in the dark at 18 -20 degrees before it's good drinking. I have high hopes.

 

I have two 23L FV's and one 10L FV (Coopers craft series) and have a stack of ingredients, but I may use those ingredients in the Beerdroid and see how that goes. My wife likes the look of the Beerdroid but HATES the look of my industrial 23L FV's. So it may get more action than the industrial FV's.

 

But the main reason I purchased it was for the temperature control. I have found that a bit restrictive in getting my lagers and pilsners how I like them, but this is completely controllable at a reasonable price. For example you could make a lager and have it fermenting at 13 degrees for 5 days and then at 18 degrees for 2 or 3 days if you wished. You can also control it from your iPhone and check on your iPhone from anywhere (think while your at work) to see how the brew is progressing. Your iPhone tells you what mode its in, what the current temp is , how long its been brewing for and if you a complete moron, what you are brewing.

 

Next up I'm going with an American pale ale. After which I'll have a better idea of how much I'll add my own steeped and or boiled hops liquid and other ingredients.

 

I'll report back in two weeks time with the beer tasting / drinking results.

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

[PB2]

...I was expecting the keg liners to just have a big open mouth on them' date=' but there seems to be some sort of filter or something, I didn't take a photo, I will next time though. It could make my plan to try and clean, sanitise and reuse a keg liner a bit difficult though. I put in the hops and priming sugar which are both liquid, first time I have used liquid hops, they smelt the same as pellet hops, like heaven. Since the keg liner has a filter you will definitely need to prime with liquid primer, the pack comes with liquid sucrose....[/quote']*edit*It's a ribbed strip to help with laminar flow and also prevents the bag from collapsing on itself, making sure all of the beer within the bag can be dispensed.

 

...and the bags are designed for single use only *edit*