GUTEN

[wide eyed and legless]

Hi WEAL, struggling to picture the setup of more than one helix and an Elbow? I have a helix with bot ends screwed into a Tee piece. Can you explain the set up?
cheers.

Using the tee piece set up, you are left with larger gaps between the spiral, using the elbow pointing along a more natural curve the spiral wants to follow leaves a lesser gap. Using one helix is fine in no chill because the viscosity is less than cold wort. Two helix works with cooled wort a 19 mm capillary connector and a capillary end cap.

You don't have to use a capillary elbow you can use a stainless threaded elbow.

 

[kadmium]

https://grainfather.com/the-trub-experiment/

Using the tee piece set up, you are left with larger gaps between the spiral, using the elbow pointing along a more natural curve the spiral wants to follow leaves a lesser gap. Using one helix is fine in no chill because the viscosity is less than cold wort. Two helix works with cooled wort a 19 mm capillary connector and a capillary end cap.
View attachment 118818
You don't have to use a capillary elbow you can use a stainless threaded elbow.

Just want to say thanks for all the help.

Also, so I can picture this in my head a little easier, I chill with a copper IC. So you reckon a T piece with two helix's and end caps on them, will do a good job of filtering cold wort?

I know I said I'm not super bothered by trub getting into fermenter, but if I can spend $40 and have a neat solution with minimum effort then why not?

Watch out WEAL. Before you know I might be posting of gelatin fined wort preferment

 

[wide eyed and legless]

https://grainfather.com/the-trub-experiment/
Just want to say thanks for all the help.

Also, so I can picture this in my head a little easier, I chill with a copper IC. So you reckon a T piece with two helix's and end caps on them, will do a good job of filtering cold wort?

I know I said I'm not super bothered by trub getting into fermenter, but if I can spend $40 and have a neat solution with minimum effort then why not?

Watch out WEAL. Before you know I might be posting of gelatin fined wort preferment

Hardly surprising reading the trub experiment from the Grainfather community, pretty difficult to avoid trub into the fermenter when the wort is being pumped out. I would be more inclined to heed the words of George Fix, Gordon Strong, John Palmer as well as Kunze than someone involved in promoting the Grainfather. Take that and Brulosophy with a grain of salt.

 

[bird]

Hey Kadmium. I know it's a bit late. But this Is my sparge setup. Keggle for a hlt and use a boat winch and a couple of pulleys To slowly lift the malt pipe as the sparge water flows in. Gets me around 80% efficiency most times. I have the 70lt guten and even doing a 60lt batch I can get about a half hour fly sparge till the guten is full and then wash the grain with the rest of the sparge water till I hit my volume.

 

[kadmium]

Hey Kadmium. I know it's a bit late. But this Is my sparge setup. Keggle for a hlt and use a boat winch and a couple of pulleys To slowly lift the malt pipe as the sparge water flows in. Gets me around 80% efficiency most times. I have the 70lt guten and even doing a 60lt batch I can get about a half hour fly sparge till the guten is full and then wash the grain with the rest of the sparge water till I hit my volume. View attachment 118848

Hey that's awesome. I did pretty much the exact thing, but just lifted the pipe and ran water from the pot over it.

Just bought 2 bags of malt so a mill is on the way. Will see how I go!

I'm brewing tomorrow will take a photo of my setup!

 

[kadmium]

Ok, so I ran the Guten today with a simple grain bill:

5kg MO
500g Oats
100g Carapils

Added 100g of hops naked throughout the boil varying times etc. Used whirfloc.

Started with 22L, added 10L of sparge for a total of 32L. Preboil was around 27L and I ended up with 18 in the fermenter.

There was a HEAP of break material at the bottom, I used a helix with T piece which worked very well. (WEAL would be proud) so I ended up with around the same volume of clear wort as last time. I just added the trub last time. This means I am 2L short so next time I will start with 2L more.

However, it put my BH efficiency back to 60% cause I ended up with 18L in fermenter. I have attached a photo of the trub left behind. You can see I had to cut it off before I reached the valve, which is why I reckon there was around 2l left there.

Thoughts?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

You have got slightly more than 2 litres more like 3, as you have said in previous posts 30 litre mark is in actual fact 32 litres, the two litres is the dead space below the tap. Loss to boil, you never mentioned boil length, I lose 5 litres/ hour so if it was 3 litres left in the kettle then your 27 litres pre boil was actually 26 litres, or that is 4 litres of trub in there.
Take off the tee piece and use an elbow you will extract more clear wort.

 

[Sidney Harbour-Bridge]

Ok, so I ran the Guten today with a simple grain bill:

5kg MO
500g Oats
100g Carapils

Added 100g of hops naked throughout the boil varying times etc. Used whirfloc.

Started with 22L, added 10L of sparge for a total of 32L. Preboil was around 27L and I ended up with 18 in the fermenter.

There was a HEAP of break material at the bottom, I used a helix with T piece which worked very well. (WEAL would be proud) so I ended up with around the same volume of clear wort as last time. I just added the trub last time. This means I am 2L short so next time I will start with 2L more.

However, it put my BH efficiency back to 60% cause I ended up with 18L in fermenter. I have attached a photo of the trub left behind. You can see I had to cut it off before I reached the valve, which is why I reckon there was around 2l left there.

Thoughts?

View attachment 118858

You could filter that lot, I use a coffee filter, boil it and add it to the fermenter (when it's cooled) or freeze it in plastic pop bottles and use for yeast starters or some of each.

 

[kadmium]

I just wish KK would make a false bottom!

 

[Fro-Daddy]

@CEO Keg King any update on the jackets for the 70L?

 

[Sjek]

Hi everyone, I have a question about the 70L Guten. Anyone tried a no sparge double batch of about 40L? I'm wondering if the unit is big enough to hold 9kg-10kg of grain, 55L-60L of liquid and still has enough head space to recirculate the wort..

Also, anyone used the mash programs for a delayed start so your strike water starts heating up an hour before you wake up in the morning? I was thinking that you could prep everything at night, turn on the unit with with the first mash steps being 8hrs at 20C and then the next step being your 70C strike temp. This way it would it would be idle overnight and start heating just before you wake up so you're ready to brew when rolling out of bed.
I heard the Guten starts beeping at the end of a mash step and it doesn't automatically go to the next mash step unless you press a button. If this is right the above delayed start idea wouldn't work..

 

[bird]

Hey sjek. I think you would be alright at 55lt plus 10kg of grain. 60lt might be pushing it. I haven't tried as I Sparge But on a 60lt batch I'll put 12 to 13 kg of grain and 45lt of strike water and be around the 54 to 55 lt mark. You might have to block the holes on the malt pipe like wiel does so the water doesn't bypass the grain while recircing.

 

[Fro-Daddy]

@Sjek I have done a double batch of a dark mild (3.5%) with no sparge on my 70L, putting 44L in to two cubes.
Due to the sight glass, you can only fit 67L in the unit. So when you use your software, just make sure that total water + grain is less than that and you will be fine.

 

[Sjek]

Hey sjek. I think you would be alright at 55lt plus 10kg of grain. 60lt might be pushing it. I haven't tried as I Sparge But on a 60lt batch I'll put 12 to 13 kg of grain and 45lt of strike water and be around the 54 to 55 lt mark. You might have to block the holes on the malt pipe like wiel does so the water doesn't bypass the grain while recircing.

Thanks Bird. I guess WEAL simply uses a small silicon bung for that?

And how about the mash steps, do you have to push a button to go to the next step or does the unit automatically go to the next step?

btw 12-13kg of grain would give you 60L of about 1.040 - 1.045 wort?

@Sjek I have done a double batch of a dark mild (3.5%) with no sparge on my 70L, putting 44L in to two cubes.
Due to the sight glass, you can only fit 67L in the unit. So when you use your software, just make sure that total water + grain is less than that and you will be fine.

Thanks Fro. I was thinking you'd need filling well under the top level of the malt pipe to allow for the water/wort level to rise when recirculating?

 

[bird]

Thanks Bird. I guess WEAL simply uses a small silicon bung for that?

And how about the mash steps, do you have to push a button to go to the next step or does the unit automatically go to the next step?

btw 12-13kg of grain would give you 60L of about 1.040 - 1.045 wort?

Think weal runs a price of ss threaded rod and nuts to secure it.

Have never used the mash steps only manual mode.

Yeah generally around 1.046 with sparging I can get up-to 80percent Efficiency but with full volume I think efficiency takes a hit.

 

[Fro-Daddy]

This is 58L of water and 9.5kg of grain. Once the recirculation starts the level drops slightly, and if you have good flow through the grain bed you shouldn't run in to a problem.
You can only fill up to the holes in the malt pipe unless you block them with something like WEAL does or prop the malt pipe up.

 

[Sjek]

Cheers Fro. Good to see you can do a ~5% beer no sparge double batch. That might get me over the line to update my current system. If i can delay the start that would seal the deal for sure. I believe the Brewzilla is able to do that, it's good feature for time poor people.

 

[Fro-Daddy]

I'm pretty confident you can delay the start, but I only use manual mode and do other things while heating water.

 

[kadmium]

Cheers Fro. Good to see you can do a ~5% beer no sparge double batch. That might get me over the line to update my current system. If i can delay the start that would seal the deal for sure. I believe the Brewzilla is able to do that, it's good feature for time poor people.

I'm pretty sure the Guten only pauses before mashing out into the boil step to make sure you're there.

I have a series of steps on mine (70 strike, 67 mash, 76 MO) with 1 minute pauses in between with power varied. Never press button other than to go to boil from what I remember. Think it's for safety.

I would program it like this if I were you:

1. 5c @ 100w (8 hours or what ever you need)
2. Strike @ 2500w (1 minute)
3. Mash @ 1000w (60 or what ever)
4. Mash Out @ 2500w (1 minute)
5. Mash Out @ 1000w (10 m)
6. 99.5 @ 2500w (1 minute)
7. Boil @ 2000w (60 or what ever)

The reason for the 1m steps is so that you can go full whack power to ramp temps, but you don't want to mash at 2500w so by putting a 1 minute step it will ramp to mash out at 2500w, hold for a minute then drop to 1000w.

The difference between the Guten and Robo (unless they updated it) is you need to make your step times inclusive of heating time as the robo starts timing straight away. The guten only starts once it hits temps.

Thats just indicative of my own single temp mash with Mash Out, but hopefully you get the idea.

Edit: you can obly have 1 boil step which is why the 99.5 step.

 

[Fro-Daddy]

I think the steps can be a maximum of 3 hours each, so if you wanted to do it overnight, you may need to replicate step 1 above a few times.
The 1 minute steps are a great idea, never considered that. You can also bump it up to 3000w on the 70L.