Braumeister NEXTGEN Build

[tateg]

Anyone else had any issues with getting a rolling boil ?
I have a 50lt pot which is well insulated with a 2400watt element that still can't get a rolling boil.

 

[djar007]

Have you tried the floating cake tin trick mate?

 

[tateg]

Have you tried the floating cake tin trick mate?

Really how big?

 

[tateg]

Have you tried the floating cake tin trick mate?

** double post**

 

[djar007]

Big enough to cover the wort but enough room around sides to boil off nasties.A few biab guys use one with an urn.

 

[tateg]

I have the rod in the middle though

 

[djar007]

hole cut in a stainless steel bowl and turned upside down will work.

 

[angus_grant]

50L pot with 2400W element:

I showed Ross at Craft Brewer a video of it boiling and he said it was plenty vigorous enough to get rid of DMS and other nasties.

Just a cheap stainless bowl from a kitchen warehouse on the corner of Tooheys road and Evans Road in Moorooka in Brisbane. No idea of your location though. Cut the bottom out with dremel (probably my favourite tool in the shed) and still have to go to Clark Rubber to get a seal to cover the sharp edges.

I only got a very gentle boil without bowl. I do have a square pot though (40cm * 40cm) where-as normal brew pots are tall and narrow so I lose quite a lot of energy out the top. A floating pie tin or my bowl type setup (which I copied from Edak) cuts down the surface area and promotes a stronger boil.

 

[tateg]

50L pot with 2400W element:

I showed Ross at Craft Brewer a video of it boiling and he said it was plenty vigorous enough to get rid of DMS and other nasties.

Just a cheap stainless bowl from a kitchen warehouse on the corner of Tooheys road and Evans Road in Moorooka in Brisbane. No idea of your location though. Cut the bottom out with dremel (probably my favourite tool in the shed) and still have to go to Clark Rubber to get a seal to cover the sharp edges.

I only got a very gentle boil without bowl. I do have a square pot though (40cm * 40cm) where-as normal brew pots are tall and narrow so I lose quite a lot of energy out the top. A floating pie tin or my bowl type setup (which I copied from Edak) cuts down the surface area and promotes a stronger boil.

do u have any trouble keeping the hood on ? does it slide off at all during the boil
also does the condensation run down the inside of the bowl?
cheers

 

[xredwood]

Ok progress time! It's actually mainly done, I just did my first water test and it was leak free first time!

I have designed and redesigned and rethought everything countless times but I ended up going back to basically my original plan. It is a 20L malt pipe with a male camlock fitting mounted to a skin fitting on the bottom that mates with a female cam lock attached through the base of the Birko urn then into a LBP. The drain from the urn is another skin fitting. All fittings are stainless. Here are some pictures!

I just had to throw this one in. The tools available to me were pretty lacking. I used a hacksaw for every cut and without a vice it took forever! Getting through this skin fitting was probably 90 min+


Here is the inside view without the malt pipe so you can see the female cam lock. I have not decided if I'm going to bother taking the "arms" off it yet, I don't really see the need to and this way I can reuse it if I end up changing the design.


Here you can see the view underneath the urn. This is a close up of the pump inlet which is a skin fitting to elbow to barb fitting which then goes to the LBP with another barb fitting. I was going to hard plumb everything but with the small space under the urn it got too difficult. This makes it very easy to remove the pump as well. The pump outlet (to the malt pipe) is just threaded into a coupling which goes from pump to camlock fitting.


This is how the draining will work. It sits nicely on the edge and doesn't take too long to drain, should allow me to start heating for the boil while I drain or even sparge. I will use some kind of pulley system when I figure out how I want to do that.

 

[xredwood]

Here is a view from under the urn. The only thing I have done so far is add the pump and wire it up. I will drill a hole through the side of the base so it doesn't have wires hanging out the bottom but this worked well for testing purposes. I am also going to rewire the urn to bypass the thermostat when i get my BCS460 but for now it stays as is with an STC1000 used to control temperature.


I took a few videos of the water test which are linked below:

Water test without malt pipe


Water test with malt pipe no filter plates


Water test with filter plates

 

[angus_grant]

The bowl sits bang on the lip of my 50L pot.

Condensation does run down the inside of the bowl into the pot. However a small amount does run between pot and bowl into my insulation. Do a search for edaks solution of silicon tube as a seal for his domed lid.

 

[tateg]

The bowl sits bang on the lip of my 50L pot.

Condensation does run down the inside of the bowl into the pot. However a small amount does run between pot and bowl into my insulation. Do a search for edaks solution of silicon tube as a seal for his domed lid.

does it really matter if the condensation runs back in to the boil ?

 

[Edak]

The hose under the bottom of the lip does catch about 100ml of condensation and draws this out into a jug instead of running back into the pot. I must admit though it's a pain in the but to keep on and I am not sure how much it improves my beer.

 

[tateg]

The hose under the bottom of the lip does catch about 100ml of condensation and draws this out into a jug instead of running back into the pot. I must admit though it's a pain in the but to keep on and I am not sure how much it improves my beer.

Fair enough I might give it a shot with out first, out of curiosity what kind of boil of rates are you getting ? , from memory we use the same pot with the same size element.
Cheers

 

[angus_grant]

does it really matter if the condensation runs back in to the boil ?

Not to Ross.

I've not tasted any off flavours in any of my beers, but then again I haven't really had much experience identifying off flavours

 

[Edak]

I get about around 11% boil off rate

 

[arzaman]

While this FAQ is only for beginners, there is a website that is fairly well know in the brewing community. For information on more advanced techniques, please have a look at www.howtobrew.com. It is an excellent resource!

Give to Open ArdBir a shot
Lot of new features and some bug corrections and optimizations compared with brauduino

Davide

 

[Pirate323i]

Wow, I have just spent the last 5 days reading this epic thread!
First of all I would like to pass on my thanks to everyone who has contributed, especially to Matho, who started the whole thing!
A friend of mine recently started all grain brewing, which got me thinking... His beer is great, but I am inherently lazy, so started thinking of automation...
So... I have *cough* acquired *cough* a keg and recently bought an arduino UNO to muck around with... Looks like it will have a purpose!
Tomorrow I will be visiting Big W for a 19L pot.
The fun starts now!

 

[MastersBrewery]

Wow, I have just spent the last 5 days reading this epic thread!
First of all I would like to pass on my thanks to everyone who has contributed, especially to Matho, who started the whole thing!
A friend of mine recently started all grain brewing, which got me thinking... His beer is great, but I am inherently lazy, so started thinking of automation...
So... I have *cough* acquired *cough* a keg and recently bought an arduino UNO to muck around with... Looks like it will have a purpose!
Tomorrow I will be visiting Big W for a 19L pot.
The fun starts now!

some further reading required May I just say welcome to the slippery slope hope your other half understands how expensive cheap beer can be