GUTEN

[sp0rk]

Jeez, I thought this was an inclusive environment
no kink shaming guys!

 

[duncbrewer]

@sp0rk
I'm more worried about brewlizard makes my eyes water just reading it.

"I definitely don't enjoy putting in and taking out the false bottom. Lots of unpleasant scratching and bending."

 

[mynameisrodney]

Ian above has a good point; the false bottom sitting over the heating surface will screw up the movement of wort in the kettle; to the point where I would expect scorching. In a kettle the heated wort rises and cooler wort flows down the sides toward the heating surface. Put a big plate in there and you are going to be creating a hot zone above the element. The free movement of wort in the kettle is a fairly important part of how a kettle performs; it effects coagulation of protein, tannin complex precipitation, evaporation of DMS even hop utilisation...

I was under the impression that he FB was only for use with BIAB or a malt pipe and should be taken out with the bag or the malt. Not really something I have paid a huge amount of attention to, as it doesn’t impact on my brewing. I would also think that any well engineered system wouldn't scorch the way people are reporting. Hate to think what a false bottom would be doing to trub collection when you whirlpool at the end of the boil, it has to be playing hob with the movement of trub.
Mark

This was my thinking too. In my old BIAB setup I removed the false bottom when I pulled the grain bag for this reason. When moving to the guten, I started reading posts in the guten/brewzilla threads about how well the false bottom works for removing the trub, and no reported issues, so I thought the heat must be spreading well enough across the whole bottom of the kettle and making it a non-issue. Maybe this is the case for the 10A versions but the 15A ones get too hot locally? In any case I think I am done with the false bottom. I'll run bareback for a while and see how I go.

 

[Hangover68]

Starting to look at upgrading my basic BIAB system to a Guten , 40l or 50L.
I have only done single 23l batches so far which would make the 40l unit the ideal size but for the little extra i may as well go for the 50l.
My only concerns are the 15a requirement and doing mostly 23l batches in the 50l unit, i think i read a while ago that small batches were ago but not going to sift thru 110 pages to find where i read it.

 

[Grmblz]

My only concerns are the 15a requirement and doing mostly 23l batches in the 50l unit, i think i read a while ago that small batches were ago but not going to sift thru 110 pages to find where i read it.

What exactly is the question? None of this makes any sense. What the hell is "ago"

 

[duncbrewer]

Starting to look at upgrading my basic BIAB system to a Guten , 40l or 50L.
I have only done single 23l batches so far which would make the 40l unit the ideal size but for the little extra i may as well go for the 50l.
My only concerns are the 15a requirement and doing mostly 23l batches in the 50l unit, i think i read a while ago that small batches were ago but not going to sift thru 110 pages to find where i read it.

Well I regularly do fermenter batches of 23 to 30 litres in the Guten 70 litre.
It's not just the volume of your batch but also the gravity, if you wanted to make 20 litres of high gravity beer in one batch on the 40 you wouldn't manage it. Little more volume gives you flexibility and reduces boil stress on smaller batches.

 

[Hangover68]

What exactly is the question? None of this makes any sense. What the hell is "ago"

Typo, should be "ok". Its pretty clear what i was asking.

 

[Hangover68]

Well I regularly do fermenter batches of 23 to 30 litres in the Guten 70 litre.
It's not just the volume of your batch but also the gravity, if you wanted to make 20 litres of high gravity beer in one batch on the 40 you wouldn't manage it. Little more volume gives you flexibility and reduces boil stress on smaller batches.

I dont do HG brews yet but that is also a consideration for upsizing.

 

[Jayvan90]

Starting to look at upgrading my basic BIAB system to a Guten , 40l or 50L.
I have only done single 23l batches so far which would make the 40l unit the ideal size but for the little extra i may as well go for the 50l.
My only concerns are the 15a requirement and doing mostly 23l batches in the 50l unit, i think i read a while ago that small batches were ago but not going to sift thru 110 pages to find where i read it.

Hi Hangover,
I have a 40l guten and it’s ideal for single keg production. I scale recipes for 21l of wort into old 23l mytton rod kegs with cut dip tube, after cold crash and fining I get a full 19l serving keg of clean beer with minimum waste. If I was going to double batch I would buy a 70l but 18months in on the 40l I’m happy what I output. Hope that helps some.

 

[Grmblz]

Typo, should be "ok". Its pretty clear what i was asking.

Sorry mate maybe a seniors moment, but you appeared to be asking a couple of different questions, and "ago" had me stumped.
Fwiw a 10 amp circuit/socket will run 15 amps no problem, just think about a kettle and a toaster plugged into a 10 amp double socket, all good, just make sure nothing else is turned on, on that circuit. Will probably get fried by the correctness police for that nugget but it is what it is, and no! you will not burn your house down, worst case is you'll trip a fuse if someone turns something on.
As for size it's a bit like power in a car or bike, you may never need that extra grunt, but it's nice to have it there as an option, and I'll guarantee one day you'll wish you had the 70L. It's all about keeping your options open.

 

[duncbrewer]

Sorry mate maybe a seniors moment, but you appeared to be asking a couple of different questions, and "ago" had me stumped.
Fwiw a 10 amp circuit/socket will run 15 amps no problem, just think about a kettle and a toaster plugged into a 10 amp double socket, all good, just make sure nothing else is turned on, on that circuit. Will probably get fried by the correctness police for that nugget but it is what it is, and no! you will not burn your house down, worst case is you'll trip a fuse if someone turns something on.
As for size it's a bit like power in a car or bike, you may never need that extra grunt, but it's nice to have it there as an option, and I'll guarantee one day you'll wish you had the 70L. It's all about keeping your options open.

aye to that.

Damm this bold font though.

 

[duncbrewer]

@Grmblz
The 15A models have a different plug on them so I did have to fit a 15 amp socket in the brew room for it. But I suppose I could have just swapped the plug over especially as the socket was a dedicated RCD fused 20 amp spur to the brewery ( wife insists on calling it the laundry most perplexing ).

 

[Ballaratguy]

Or if you are electrically minded you can make up a small extension lead with a 10amp male & 15amp female. (I’ve made up a couple of these for my welders that came with 15amp plugs but the PowerPoints that I use are 10 amp on a 15 amp circuit)

 

[sp0rk]

Or if you are electrically minded you can make up a small extension lead with a 10amp male & 15amp female. (I’ve made up a couple of these for my welders that came with 15amp plugs but the PowerPoints that I use are 10 amp on a 15 amp circuit)

I did this with a decent quality HPM lead (cut the 15A male plug off and added a decent 10A one), but now the active line on the female plug has started burning :/
For reference, it's plugged into a 20A circuit in my garage, so NFI why this is happening other than shitty quality materials
Time to lop the plug off and install a higher quality female plug

 

[Grmblz]

I did this with a decent quality HPM lead (cut the 15A male plug off and added a decent 10A one), but now the active line on the female plug has started burning :/
For reference, it's plugged into a 20A circuit in my garage, so NFI why this is happening other than shitty quality materials
Time to lop the plug off and install a higher quality female plug

It's a bloody minefield, when talking about fittings/cable/flex there's different ratings for temp's according to the materials used in manufacture, for example a cable might be rated to 90c, but fit it to a plug/socket rated for 60c, pull some serious current and watch the connector melt. The problem is the cheap stuff has ratings that are downright lies, and Australia is flooded with this crap, I recently "upgraded" a couple of plugs and sockets, they were Auber 20amp Leviton 240V 20A NEMA L6-20P Plug [L6-20P] - $11.50 : Auber Instruments, Inc., Temperature control solutions for home and industry is the plug, as they were getting a bit warm, I got 30amp units from Amazon (cheap) yep! despite rated at 10amps more, up in f***g smoke, currently (pun intended) waiting on 30 amp connectors from Auber, it seems that the Yank and Pommie stuff is still reliable, EU might be ok as well, but anything from Lucky Happy Flying Dragon needs to be treated with extreme caution, caveat emptor.
fwiw This applies to cable as well, probably why you're burning the active, after several failures I've chucked all my premade leads (Big green shed) and replaced with homemade, touch wood no problems since.

 

[Grok]

It's a bloody minefield, when talking about fittings/cable/flex there's different ratings for temp's according to the materials used in manufacture, for example a cable might be rated to 90c, but fit it to a plug/socket rated for 60c, pull some serious current and watch the connector melt. The problem is the cheap stuff has ratings that are downright lies, and Australia is flooded with this crap, I recently "upgraded" a couple of plugs and sockets, they were Auber 20amp Leviton 240V 20A NEMA L6-20P Plug [L6-20P] - $11.50 : Auber Instruments, Inc., Temperature control solutions for home and industry is the plug, as they were getting a bit warm, I got 30amp units from Amazon (cheap) yep! despite rated at 10amps more, up in f***g smoke, currently (pun intended) waiting on 30 amp connectors from Auber, it seems that the Yank and Pommie stuff is still reliable, EU might be ok as well, but anything from Lucky Happy Flying Dragon needs to be treated with extreme caution, caveat emptor.
fwiw This applies to cable as well, probably why you're burning the active, after several failures I've chucked all my premade leads (Big green shed) and replaced with homemade, touch wood no problems since.

The cheap stuff can be ok, but you have to pay attention to the dry connections of the series of conductors that make up the extension cords. If there is excessive heat in one spot, at the "dry joint", then that is where the most resistance is, find the reason for that. Usually it's crap/oxidization/dirty contacts that are the problem and cleaning the metal and tightening up screws, spring clips etc will fix the issue. Use solder, or coat with solder where you can will help considerably. It's why gold coating is the best, because it doesn't oxidize. If the whole cord gets warm and stays constant, its handling the current, hot is not good and an upgrade is needed, or lower the electrical load.
It's all about resistance!

 

[mynameisrodney]

Today's efforts. Double batch of pale ale split between verdant and s04, and a single batch of black ipa.

First time doing two beers in one day. Just finished now, but I didn't start until 10am after dropping kids to daycare. Also 2nd batch got a 2.5h mash while I did dinner/bath/bed with the kids. So all in all not too shabby. Trying to cram as many in as I can as I'm getting some renos done and won't be able to brew for a few months.

3 brews in without the false bottom now. Pump has clogged on all 3 haha. But no sign of scorching. I think the clogged pump is easier to deal with, even if it is annoying.

 

[duncbrewer]

@mynameisrodney
Good effort, if you get a T piece duotight you can use one spunding valve on two brews!
Not sure how you find that metal spunding valve, mine a slightly different design with more joints on it, but the twiddly bit at the end to adjust the pressure was quite loose and changed outflow not just with twisting but also lateral pressure and need the skills of a safecracker to set it reliably. Fixed the issue though by unscrewing the end bit and putting some PTFE tape on it which stopped that problem completely and it now works quite well.
I'm just not getting the pump blockages ( touch wood ) fairly sure it must be due to no false bottom and the trub traps I made. Have just ordered a hop rocket to get the cold break out of the wort during transfer and for other uses. I think it should cut the kettle loss by 40% on a 125 gram hop in kettle brew.
Due to brew a bitter tomorrow to dispense on the beer engine in a few weeks time. Will be able to concentrate on the numbers this time as I've been a bit slack on collecting my losses and so getting final volumes and correct graities has been a bit hit and miss. But I'm getting closer to a working profile and a solid efficiency I reckon. Time will tell. Crush is good, salts and pH good, mash volume and +- sparge are areas to improve.

 

[mynameisrodney]

Thanks Dunc, yeah I need to get one of those trub trappers. I'm finding the pump goes fine until I've cooled down to about 40 and then it starts to clog.

Good point on the t piece. I have some lying around. That fermenter actually has a 15psi so my plan was to just use the blow off until fermentation was done, and then remove it and rely on the valve as long as krausen hasn't reached the lid (shouldn't, I used defoamer). The other 2 spunding valves are wide open for now anyway.

The brass spunding valve has its pros and cons. You can set it to an approx value without it being under pressure which is handy, it's not super accurate, but ballpark. Problem is that it has a slow leak. Its fine when fermentation is very active, but once it's stopped it leaks down to about 3 or 4 psi. Keg lube on the inner o ring helps, but eventually it starts leaking again.

 

[duncbrewer]

@mynameisrodney
I've had two of my metal ones leak as well.
Both had cracks in the metal joins one that the gauge connects too which I was able to replace with the spare that was left over after another of the joins on the other metal one failed.

I modified the design with different connectors to solve the problem on the one that had an inline joint failure at that time I also changed the gauge.

Pictures of the crack in the T piece
Also the modded and repaired plus PTFE, both working fine now.
I'd say that the modded design is the best especially as it hangs down and so any condensation is able to drip down ie not back into the beer thru the post or into the gauge.

I made my trubtrapper, you need some fine stainless mesh mine has holes bigger than on a hop spider but hop spider sized holes I think would be best.
The top was made from an 8mm stainless steel threaded bar for concrete tying ( bought from bunnings ) a real bugger to bend but cut okay with angle grinder, hacksaw was a nightmare. The rubber bit on the bottom was edging silicone that I bought on Aliexpress and it just slides over the edge of the mesh.
I'm going to fit some side bits on the side of the trubtrap to act as a final trub dam near the drain and to help make sure it drops in the right position. The trubtrapper on the portly gentleman website made by brewtools has a silicone guide on it that fits over the central tube on the brewtools kit. We don't have that so had to go a different route.
With the whirlpool it's working well and should be even better with the next mods ( I hope ).