Farra Small Batch Brewery (sbb)

[malt_shovel]

So I am interested in one of these after seeing their advert in the latest Beer and Brewer.

Farra SBB

Keen to here from those who have bought one with their thoughts on what's good and what they would change.

Also really keen to hear from those who have used one and also a SABCO/ HERMS style system as a comparison.

Not too keen to start a gravity vs pump vs BIAB etc discussion, but hey it's your forum too!

Cheers

:beer:

 

[jbirbeck]

don't have one of those particular things but a very similar set up, 3 tier gravity fed, gas powered system. I upgraded it to add in a RIMS tube and pump and mine isn't that shiny...love the small footprint. Height can be a problem but my set up is geared for 90l batches so the pots are big.

The biggest problem I had with the gravity was flow rate when draining from HLT to MT and MT to kettle...but that's sorted now getting a decent length of silicon hose to effect a syphon. The other problem I had was temp of the MT dropping but that was because the walls of the pot are thin and its a wide pot too. The Farra looks similar in that it is short and squat.

 

[juddda]

don't have one of those particular things but a very similar set up, 3 tier gravity fed, gas powered system. I upgraded it to add in a RIMS tube and pump and mine isn't that shiny...love the small footprint. Height can be a problem but my set up is geared for 90l batches so the pots are big.

The biggest problem I had with the gravity was flow rate when draining from HLT to MT and MT to kettle...but that's sorted now getting a decent length of silicon hose to effect a syphon. The other problem I had was temp of the MT dropping but that was because the walls of the pot are thin and its a wide pot too. The Farra looks similar in that it is short and squat.

I currently have one on order along with a conical fermenter.

Farra also do other work for me in the elevator industry so I can vouch for their quality workmanship.

Once I receive the unit I will post a review.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[BOG]

How much did you pay?


BOG

 

[juddda]

How much did you pay?


BOG

The advertised price as in Issue #16 of B&B, plus sea freight.

The price has gone up since #16 was published but Grant will honour the price if you mention it.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[BOG]

if 16 is the latest I haven't received mine yet.

BOG

 

[juddda]

if 16 is the latest I haven't received mine yet.

BOG

PM Sent

 

[probablynathan]

Does anyone have any reviews on how the Farra system works for them?

Thinking about buying one ore similar in the next 12 months.

 

[juddda]

Does anyone have any reviews on how the Farra system works for them?

Thinking about buying one ore similar in the next 12 months.

Sorry for the delay, we are putting a review together at the moment, just working out some of the bugs and fixes with Farra at the moment.

Will post once we have everything sorted out.

Cheers,
Dave

Here is a Pic of the set-up .....

 

[probablynathan]

Thanks Juddda, cant wait to read your review.

 

[hockadays]

I'm interested in how well the counter flow chiller works, it looks like its all stainless inside, is this correct. Any idea how long it is?

 

[juddda]

Review on the Farra SBB 50 litre system

Purchasing:

We first saw an advertisement in B&B magazine (issue 16) for the Farra SBB system. Communication with Farra was great with all questions being answered promptly, and plenty of Pics and information provided prior to the purchase. The purchase price had increased from the advertised price in B&B at the time, however Farra honoured the advertised price of the current B&B edition.

An easy transaction with direct deposit, just be aware of the local bank charges at this end for international funds transfers, we chose to pay the full amount up-front rather than deposit and remainder on shipping to avoid double fees. Good exchange rate between the AUD / NZD at the time, and good communication throughout the transaction. We also chose to purchase the Conical fermenter along with the system to save on shipping fees.

I must point out at this time that Farra have provided me with equipment for many years in my main line of business in the elevator industry however I have in no way any affiliation with Farra. I have always been more than happy with my dealings with Farra and the quality of workmanship has been second to none.

Shipping:

It took a while from payment to the time of shipping, possibly due to the earthquake disruptions in NZ at the time of order placement however there was good communication with Farra at all times and they kept me up-to date with the status of the unit.

Arrival:

The unit cleared customs with no problems. It worked out around 10% of purchase price in Fees and clearance charges at this end (excluding shipping cost). Sent via sea freight, it took a bit over a week from loading in NZ to delivery to into our Warehouse in Sydney.

First Impressions:

The system was extremely well packed, and weighing in at 176kgs (2.148 CBM) with the packaging. The HLT, MLT and Kettle are manufactured in Germany, a very sturdy set-up and easy to move around with a small footprint on casters (two locking) so it does not take up too much room. A well thoughtout design.

Even though this is a system still under development, the quality looks good and an all stainless steel construction, the only dubious parts were the plastic digital thermometers for the HLT, MLT and Kettle.

It includes a stand measuring 1110mm wide x 1850mm tall, and 750mm deep, which holds the HLT, MLT and Kettle, 3 ring gas burners for both the HLT and Kettle with taps for the small, medium and large burners for each, using one of the stands in the uprights as the tube to provide the gas to the burners so there are no gas hoses to get in the way of things. The 9kg gas cylinder (not supplied) sits quite neatly under the MLT and the unit comes with a regulator.

All taps on the HLT, MLT and Kettle are stainless steel, there are low level stainless steel pickups in all vessels. The MLT has a one piece punched stainless steel screen which the pickup goes through the middle, and the kettle has a hop screen fitted. All parts can be easily dismantled with stainless steel tri-clover clamps to enable cleaning.

There is a coiled stainless steel counter flow chiller from the kettle which is about 7.2m in length fitted just below the MLT (and above the LPG cylinder), which has no problems dispersing the heat from the wort when transferring to the fermenter.

The conical fermenter measures up at 420mm wide and 1100mm high. Again, all stainless steel sturdy construction with 3 stainless taps fitted, one at the bottom to dump the sediment / yeast, one just above to transfer to the keg, and one at the top for the air-lock. The fermenter came with no fittings for the air lock so we had to purchase fittings and hose to complete this.

Dry Run and modifications:

First off we found that the crimped hose fittings on the HLT and MLT sucked air which made transfer of liquid between the vessels to be unreliable, so we quickly replaced these with Stainless Steel screwed hose clamps with silicone over the fittings. That quickly solved this problem.

The next issue is we found the MLT would not hold mash temperature without additional heat at 18C ambient in the workshop, so we lagged the MLT with a 6mm Gym Mat from Big W with Foil Sisalation tape over the top. Once this was complete we had no problems holding the temperature losing about 1 C over the hour.

We then found that the Kettle struggled to keep a rolling boil without the lid on.

And finally, the Plastic digital thermometer on the kettle melted off during operation.

We calibrated some dowels to measure the liquid in the vessels when doing the transfers, however we are looking into fitting sight glasses into the vessels to make things easier in future.

With the HLT during the sparge we found that we lost suction leaving around 10 litres in the vessel, and the same problem with the MLT when transferring into the Kettle. We are going to lower the pickups to see if this will solve the problem on the next round.

Issues and support:

We have provided feedback to Farra with the above issues, which resulted in a quick response from Ben who took onboard our feedback.

Firstly he suggested to drill out the jets in the large and medium burners on the kettle to solve the rolling boil problem from 1.25mm to 1.75mm and is going to courier over the drill bits along with step by step instructions to perform this modification.

Farra are also going to replace the temperature gauges with a stainless steel version to replace the plastic hermometers, although there is a 4 week lead time to provide these they are addressing the issue.

They are also looking into the crimped hose fittings for a solution for future units.

I am having problems uploading Pics of the unit at the moment, will try again tomorrow.

Stayed tuned for updates .....

Cheers,
Dave


Edit: Pics attached

 

[juddda]

More pics:

 

[yum beer]

Sounds like a very expensive pain in the arse to me.

You could have built it yourself and not had as many issues.

 

[juddda]

Sounds like a very expensive pain in the arse to me.

You could have built it yourself and not had as many issues.

Fair comment although I don't totally agree yum beer.

I don't have the time or welding skills to build something like this (I wish I did, my welding looks like bird crap :unsure: ), and considering it is a system still under development the issues we have come across are not that serious considering the manufacture are willing to correct them.

We will see how we go with the next batch when I get back in a few weeks time.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[juddda]

Just an update on the SBB for those that have been asking, apologies for the delay as it has been a hectic month and were running short on time:

We received the replacement stainless steel thermometers to replace the plastic ones, and the drill bits for the Gas Jet modification from Farra a few weeks ago.

It is amazing what a difference the increase in jet size made to the gas burners !

We are just waiting for the starsan, yeast and whirfloc to arrive in next weeks shipment of supplies and we will do a batch next weekend with the modified set-up.

We have also replaced the motor driving the Millmaster with a Sematic geared 24vdc motor running off a spare 12v bike battery we had sitting around. Just looking for a decent coupling that will handle the torque.

Will post pics later.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[komodo]

looks like a good bit of kit!

 

[Clutch]

Any update on this?
A friend is dead keen on buying one and has ideas of setting up a microbrewery.

 

[juddda]

G'day All,

We still have not had a chance to do a brew on this unit due to other commitments

The thermometers that Farra had sent out were not much better than the previous, the lens's melted on those and the dial too small to read. Farra suggested we weld shrouds below these to deflect the heat away <_<

We have opted instead to install "K Type" thermo couples with remote digital displays, these mods will be completed in the next week or so.

We had some feedback from Ben @ Farra last week who advises the following:

"We have recently been up in Wellington for the annual BrewNZ awards and Beervana brew festival, which has been keeping me very busy with enquiries etc. At Beervana we had guest brewers doing live brew demonstration on our unit, this was a great chance to discuss the finer points of design with the professional brewers. Slight modifications we are looking at making are;

Redesign the skirt to allow additional air flow away from the burners.
Placement of a shroud on the underside of the thermometer to shield the heat away.
Install a multi suction point mash outlet manifold under false bottom,for even sparge suction
across grain bed.
Extend the mash outlet hose to be long enough to rest freely on the bottom of the kettle."




Once we get a spare day to do a brew in between other commitments and kids sports etc we will post feedback.

We would be interested to hear back from any other owners of the SBB asto any mods that have been made ?

Cheers,
Dave