GUTEN

[mynameisrodney]

I pretty much just use the auto mode to delayed heat strike water. I don't understand it well enough for a full auto run.

I have it set to 25C 3kw for 1min.
Then 3x 3h 25C 300w
Then 3kw to 65

Start that program about 10pm. Takes a few min to get to 25 then starts beeping and I press the button to make it quiet.

Then in the morning I just go to manual mode and whatever my actual strike temp is.

 

[BrewLizard]

Thanks guys. This makes sense. So ultimately you need a 1 min step at a temp that it will reach quickly so that you can be there to click it along to the next step. After that, it will auto-step until the boil stage.

It's also a bit of a shame that you have to hack it to ramp to boil with full power with a 99°C step. This means that you lose the safety feature of it pausing before boiling, and could result in it boiling all your grains. I'll need to give it some more thought, but it might be better to just boil at 2000 W-ish and cop the slower ramp time to keep the safety feature intact.

 

[duncbrewer]

Thanks guys. This makes sense. So ultimately you need a 1 min step at a temp that it will reach quickly so that you can be there to click it along to the next step. After that, it will auto-step until the boil stage.

It's also a bit of a shame that you have to hack it to ramp to boil with full power with a 99°C step. This means that you lose the safety feature of it pausing before boiling, and could result in it boiling all your grains. I'll need to give it some more thought, but it might be better to just boil at 2000 W-ish and cop the slower ramp time to keep the safety feature intact.

I started with just the manual method but have grown with confidence using the auto program.
Sadly the software doesn't dial back the power automatically instead just turns on and off. This is why I have the high watts between temp changes but only for a minute and the interval seems to compensate for the overshoot that would occur if I didn't have that.

Overall it has been more controllable than the robobrew but all of those steps being programmed and checked does make my head spin.

I'm still refining but getting happier. I have the 1 minute at 99 Celsius as a bit of a safety feature as I would get a boil over with the lid on at full power and it reminds me to check the wort is boiling, add hops start timer etc. But I still find I sometimes press the wrong button to stop that beeping alarm.

 

[BrewLizard]

Doing my first brew now (8.5 L batch of Meanbrew's Dark Mild). I'm doing an 8.5 L batch, which is my go-to atm, as I'm loving no-chill with cooling, fermenting and serving from the same 9.5 L keg.

The recipe uses 13.28 L of starting water, of which I heated and reserved 2 L for sparging. The total grain is 1.4 kg + some rice hulls (a few handfuls, which was surprisingly only 50 g or so).

Thought I'd share some thoughts:

• I was pleasantly surprised with the mash fluidity, even though there's only a few litres above all that dead space.
• Important: you need to press start/stop BEFORE doughing in, or it fights to keep the water at your strike temp and then your mash ends up too hot.
• The telescopic overflow pipe is way too tall at the shortest to have any use as a safety feature. I'll be making my own custom fixed length ones from threaded 316 SS pipe (I ordered a 100 and 150 mm).
• The mash is prone to getting stuck (TODO: more rice hulls). I kept my BIAB grain crush at 0.8 mm, which is very fine. This leads to a rather empty bottom chamber and hence fluctuating mash temps. This will improve when I install a shorter overflow pipe and can run the pump faster.
• The top screen seems useless at directing return flow evenly. I think I'm going to make a spray nozzle with a barb, similar to the Clawhammer Supply system. It will also mean one less thing to clean at the end.

At the boil stage now, and I'm at 88% efficiency based on crude refractometer numbers. Will be very happy if I can hit 80-85% when it's all said and done.

Next step is to try a 5% ABV beer (this one is 3.8%).

 

[duncbrewer]

Doing my first brew now (8.5 L batch of Meanbrew's Dark Mild). I'm doing an 8.5 L batch, which is my go-to atm, as I'm loving no-chill with cooling, fermenting and serving from the same 9.5 L keg.

• Important: you need to press start/stop BEFORE doughing in, or it fights to keep the water at your strike temp and then your mash ends up too hot.
• The telescopic overflow pipe is way too tall at the shortest to have any use as a safety feature. I'll be making my own custom fixed length ones from threaded 316 SS pipe (I ordered a 100 and 150 mm).
• The mash is prone to getting stuck (TODO: more rice hulls). I kept my BIAB grain crush at 0.8 mm, which is very fine. This leads to a rather empty bottom chamber and hence fluctuating mash temps. This will improve when I install a shorter overflow pipe and can run the pump faster.
• The top screen seems useless at directing return flow evenly. I think I'm going to make a spray nozzle with a barb, similar to the Clawhammer Supply system. It will also mean one less thing to clean at the end.

At the boil stage now, and I'm at 88% efficiency based on crude refractometer numbers. Will be very happy if I can hit 80-85% when it's all said and done.

Next step is to try a 5% ABV beer (this one is 3.8%).

Doughing in I do this just before and during the 1 minute at a couple of degrees below mash temp stage. Stops overshoot, then the mash is done with less watts.
Agreed pipe too long, I use my Robobrew one for small grain bills.
I have quite the opposite problem and think it all runs through too fast and that's with a really fine crush using Maltzilla and I use a bit of glucanase instead of rice hulls.
Agreed needs a spray or sparge manifold running on the recirc tube. I struggle to keep the mash bed covered with wort because it runs through so quick. On the rare occasion I've had a lot of sticky adjuncts it has worked but the pump is running flat out to keep it covered.

I'm having a crack at an 8% smoked porter at the weekend and grain bill 10.5 kg for 25 litres in fermenter so we'll see what efficiency I get.

 

[BrewLizard]

I'll try to 3D print a spray nozzle prototype and machine it out of aluminium when I get a chance.

What's the consensus on the false bottom vs. helix coil situation? I can definitely confirm that the bazooka screen clogs too quickly and isn't helpful.

A false bottom seems easier to clean and is less fiddly than a helix coil, but I'm keen to hear if it adequately keeps crud out of the tap and pump inlet.

Cheers

 

[duncbrewer]

I'll try to 3D print a spray nozzle prototype and machine it out of aluminium when I get a chance.

What's the consensus on the false bottom vs. helix coil situation? I can definitely confirm that the bazooka screen clogs too quickly and isn't helpful.

A false bottom seems easier to clean and is less fiddly than a helix coil, but I'm keen to hear if it adequately keeps crud out of the tap and pump inlet.

Cheers

I've got a spray nozzle on the way from China at the moment, adjustable and was going to use it on my steam condenser.
Current nozzle I have on steam condenser was removed from a new garden sprayer ( made of brass) .

I don't use the hop spider, I started with the helix and then made a trub trapper which has worked well. Photos of it

https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/advice-on-all-grain-equipment.103108/post-1569445
cuts down on kettle loss and very little trub into the fermenter.

I also made a whirlpool going back in via the tap, awaiting parts for a 1/2 inch solution. Can see the whirlpool in the photo at about 10 o'clock.
The recirc goes thru coolossus and then the whirlpool.

 

[JimmyMcFiddlesticks]

What's the consensus on the false bottom vs. helix coil situation?

False bottom is so much better.

 

[mynameisrodney]

Doing single batches in the 70L I didn't find the false bottom was doing much because almost half the batch is underneath it. I dont think it gets a thick enough layer to properly block the holes, and so as soon as I start draining it just pulls through and gets stirred up. I actually got the least amount of trub into the fermenter the time I forgot to put it in.

Very different story with my double batch. The false bottom had a very thick layer on it and stayed solid apart from a few spots around the sides.

 

[duncbrewer]

Note I didn't use the helix on the tap just as a dam.
False bottom was fine on the robobrew I had before.

 

[Ballaratguy]

I'll try to 3D print a spray nozzle prototype and machine it out of aluminium when I get a chance.

What's the consensus on the false bottom vs. helix coil situation? I can definitely confirm that the bazooka screen clogs too quickly and isn't helpful.

A false bottom seems easier to clean and is less fiddly than a helix coil, but I'm keen to hear if it adequately keeps crud out of the tap and pump inlet.

Cheers

I use both the false bottom and the helix coil. Works a treat and with a 6 Kg grain bill I might get about 1/2 litre of trunk in the bottom of my snub nose fermenter
And it pumps out beautifully when the wort has been cooled down to 25 - 30 deg

 

[mynameisrodney]

Ok so I brewed a high gravity (1.081 not including candi syrup going into fermenter) Christmas beer on the weekend. I decided to do an extended boil (2.5h) to give me more mash/sparge water to play with as I thought the mash would be too thick if I didn't. I ended up with some scorching on the bottom of the kettle. Hopefully the batch isn't ruined, I couldn't taste it in the sample I tried, but in the past I have found scorching easier to detect once the beer is finished fermenting.

I kept it at full power for stepping up to the boil, and for boiling, as I'm only getting ~4lph boil off where others are reporting 5. It hasn't been an issue in any of my other batches, but I guess now I'll drop that down.

For people brewing high gravity beers in the Guten, whats your go to process? Do you try to keep some water aside for sparging or just do full volume? What brewhouse efficiency do you end up with for your bigger beers?

 

[duncbrewer]

For people brewing high gravity beers in the Guten, whats your go to process? Do you try to keep some water aside for sparging or just do full volume? What brewhouse efficiency do you end up with for your bigger beers?

I'll let you know, going to do a 25 litre fermenter volume, 1.085 baltic porter today so we'll see how it goes.
Planning on 25 litres with the 10.5 kg of grain ( less than normal 3 litre / kg) and then sparge to 30 litres, 90 minute boil ( I get much less boil off as using condenser hood ). Should be about right with kettle loss for fermenter. Grown a big starter that's just settling.

Expecting to use about 15 litres of sparge. I'm boiling with about 800 watts with the lid on.
Still learning.

 

[mynameisrodney]

Awesome, keen to hear how it turns out!

 

[Coalface]

Ok so I brewed a high gravity (1.081 not including candi syrup going into fermenter) Christmas beer on the weekend. I decided to do an extended boil (2.5h) to give me more mash/sparge water to play with as I thought the mash would be too thick if I didn't. I ended up with some scorching on the bottom of the kettle. Hopefully the batch isn't ruined, I couldn't taste it in the sample I tried, but in the past I have found scorching easier to detect once the beer is finished fermenting.

I kept it at full power for stepping up to the boil, and for boiling, as I'm only getting ~4lph boil off where others are reporting 5. It hasn't been an issue in any of my other batches, but I guess now I'll drop that down.

For people brewing high gravity beers in the Guten, whats your go to process? Do you try to keep some water aside for sparging or just do full volume? What brewhouse efficiency do you end up with for your bigger beers?

Was there much downtime between sparge and boil? I do kettle sours in the warmer months, where I let the lacto go for a couple of days in the guten after the mash. I learned the hard way that the proteins all drop to the bottom and good stir is needed before boiling....

 

[mynameisrodney]

Was there much downtime between sparge and boil? I do kettle sours in the warmer months, where I let the lacto go for a couple of days in the guten after the mash. I learned the hard way that the proteins all drop to the bottom and good stir is needed before boiling....

There wasn't. I also run the pump on the way up to boil to try to keep movement over the element. Maybe I didn't get this switched on straight away this time, cant remember. Possibly would have been worse than normal due to high gravity and 1kg of rye in the mix.

I actually did a kettle sour a couple of brews ago. Same deal there I run the pump through the whirlpool arm while its coming up to temp.

With my old BIAB setup I only ever ran ~75% max power while heating to avoid scorching and this worked really well for me. With the guten I was expecting the heat to be spread across the base more, but the scorch mark was a well defined ring.

 

[duncbrewer]

@mynameisrodney et al
Little update on the Smoked porter I did yesterday.
Aiming for 1.087 and 25litre in fermenter. Grain bill below, milled after conditioning at 0.5mm on the maltzilla. Total 10.53 kg.
Used 24 litres of mash water, doughed in at 63 on full power and then mashed for 90 mins at 64 with 700watts.
Slow wort flow during first 40 minutes of mash, temp up and down a bit and had to keep adjusting the flow to try and get the bed just covered.

Mashed out at 76 and then sparged with 14 litres of water at 76.

Pre boil I was at 28 litres so thought with a couple of litres of boil loss I would get to 26 litres and then about one litre of kettle loss. Didn't do a pre boil gravity ( ***** ).

Only managed 24 litres of 1.081 in fermenter. So BHE was 60 % with this.

BUT took malt pipe off after sparge and let it stand over ferment bucket ( it's a perfect fit ) later during boil saw 3.5 litre of runoff aided by a bit of a squeeze and this was 1.055. Thought maybe a small partigyle brew could be made.

Then I poured 4.5 litres of boiling water over the grains ( 2nd sparge) and left it to drain (overnight about 6 hours).

This morning 9.5 litres in the ferment bucket and 1.071 so I boiled this up and hopped it to same ratio and have put it in a separate fermenter with some kveik there was 8.4 litres and OG of 1.077 in the fermenter. Note open boil different boiler and just half hour boil.

So I'm puzzled using brewers friend BHE calculator and compensating for the gravity and volumes I got in the 2 fermenter suggests 32.4 litres at 1.080 and a BHE of 78.84 % .

Overall that's not bad for a highish gravity beer but the time frame for the full extraction not that practical. My problem seems to be at the sparge extraction stage. Certainly not a stuck sparge as the sparge ran through well, it was not a floating mash bed or covered with water all the time just sprinkling on the grains for about 15 minutes.

Therefore next time if I sparged 16 litres of hotter water perhaps after a really good squeeze and aimed for the same 25 litres I could be in the ball park and I'd need to boil off about 4 litres. But the time for the second lot of runoff was several hours so it's not that useful. Maybe just add the second runoff in increments during the boil? Any ideas?

Finally I just noticed when I was grabbing the grain bill that I'd put the supernova down as an acidulated malt not a base malt. Correcting this suggested I needed 10.65 ml of lactic acid in mash water. But I'd added sodium bicarb as well ( not sure why ) and when I removed that from my water profile it was only wanting 3.5ml to get to a mash pH of 5.2. Was charging around and didn't check the pH ( lesson learnt) or my head as to why I added bicarb, I gave up using it in my profiles a while ago but the porter profile I was miles off for HCO3 so perhaps that was the reason.

Might put this conundrum in a new thread later

 

[mynameisrodney]

Thanks for the write up Duncan.

Are you sure on those gravity readings? Seems a bit weird to get the second runnings almost as high as the first. Only thing I can think of is that there were pockets of the mash that weren't flowing, so your squeeze got that very high G wort out. Do you stir during the mash?

My brewhouse efficiency was 68% btw, sorry I realised I never posted it. I used 42.5L of water though. I'm ok with 68 if its consistent. Just need to fix the scorching.

 

[Jazzafish]

@mynameisrodney et al
Little update on the Smoked porter I did yesterday.
Aiming for 1.087 and 25litre in fermenter. Grain bill below, milled after conditioning at 0.5mm on the maltzilla. Total 10.53 kg.
Used 24 litres of mash water, doughed in at 63 on full power and then mashed for 90 mins at 64 with 700watts.
Slow wort flow during first 40 minutes of mash, temp up and down a bit and had to keep adjusting the flow to try and get the bed just covered.

Mashed out at 76 and then sparged with 14 litres of water at 76.

Pre boil I was at 28 litres so thought with a couple of litres of boil loss I would get to 26 litres and then about one litre of kettle loss. Didn't do a pre boil gravity ( ***** ).

Only managed 24 litres of 1.081 in fermenter. So BHE was 60 % with this.

BUT took malt pipe off after sparge and let it stand over ferment bucket ( it's a perfect fit ) later during boil saw 3.5 litre of runoff aided by a bit of a squeeze and this was 1.055. Thought maybe a small partigyle brew could be made.

Then I poured 4.5 litres of boiling water over the grains ( 2nd sparge) and left it to drain (overnight about 6 hours).

This morning 9.5 litres in the ferment bucket and 1.071 so I boiled this up and hopped it to same ratio and have put it in a separate fermenter with some kveik there was 8.4 litres and OG of 1.077 in the fermenter. Note open boil different boiler and just half hour boil.

So I'm puzzled using brewers friend BHE calculator and compensating for the gravity and volumes I got in the 2 fermenter suggests 32.4 litres at 1.080 and a BHE of 78.84 % .

Overall that's not bad for a highish gravity beer but the time frame for the full extraction not that practical. My problem seems to be at the sparge extraction stage. Certainly not a stuck sparge as the sparge ran through well, it was not a floating mash bed or covered with water all the time just sprinkling on the grains for about 15 minutes.

Therefore next time if I sparged 16 litres of hotter water perhaps after a really good squeeze and aimed for the same 25 litres I could be in the ball park and I'd need to boil off about 4 litres. But the time for the second lot of runoff was several hours so it's not that useful. Maybe just add the second runoff in increments during the boil? Any ideas?

Finally I just noticed when I was grabbing the grain bill that I'd put the supernova down as an acidulated malt not a base malt. Correcting this suggested I needed 10.65 ml of lactic acid in mash water. But I'd added sodium bicarb as well ( not sure why ) and when I removed that from my water profile it was only wanting 3.5ml to get to a mash pH of 5.2. Was charging around and didn't check the pH ( lesson learnt) or my head as to why I added bicarb, I gave up using it in my profiles a while ago but the porter profile I was miles off for HCO3 so perhaps that was the reason.

Might put this conundrum in a new thread later
View attachment 120811

How good are partigyles... Always worthwhile if you have a bucket handy to make starter beers and yeast cakes.

If you ever forget to measure preboil gravities, you can calculate the difference using the known volumes and post boil gravity.
Preboil Volume x Preboil Gravity = Post boil Volume x Post boil Gravity
Therefore
Preboil Gravity = Postboil Volume x Postboil Gravity / Preboil Volume. Note it needs to be the volume in the same vessel, like the kettle. So assuming you got the anticipated 26L in the kettle... You would have had a preboil gravity of ~1.075 (24 * 81 / 26)

I always find that when you push your equipment past the sweet spot, the efficiency tends to suffer. That said Efficiency will drift a few percent between brews even when inside the sweet spot.

Best thing about electric kettles is the evaporation rate is predictable and consistent. These days I undershoot my efficiency in recipe calculators (set it ~5-10% lower than my average). So I am able to predict and hit my target gravity every brew using the equation above, paired with known evaporation and dilution. Simply letting the volume vary with efficiency (usually get a bit more volume) and locking in the gravity I want to achieve.

I'm not sure why the brewers friend has such a big change, but I wouldn't worry about it. If your beer is good, all is good.

 

[duncbrewer]

Thanks for the write up Duncan.

Are you sure on those gravity readings? Seems a bit weird to get the second runnings almost as high as the first. Only thing I can think of is that there were pockets of the mash that weren't flowing, so your squeeze got that very high G wort out. Do you stir during the mash?

My brewhouse efficiency was 68% btw, sorry I realised I never posted it. I used 42.5L of water though. I'm ok with 68 if its consistent. Just need to fix the scorching.

Positive on the gravity readings double checked them as seemed odd.
Yes I do stir doughing in and during the mash.

Our efficiency on first runnings nigh on the same I note.

I don't think that it was over the equipment sweetspot probably nicely mid range really.

Next time I'll pay more attention to the water and pH. Then sparge a bit more and hotter.

The mash is efficient but the extraction isn't, trouble seems to be the flow of sparge too easy straight after mashing, almost need to squeeze it all to get it a bit stuck so the water finds it harder to get through.
I'm wondering if the maltzilla crushes so well that I have lots of husks intact but with crush on the inside and lots of conversion that the sparge runs around.