GUTEN

[BrewLizard]

Thanks dad.

I also found a way to make filling the GUTEN with water easier. I'm stuck with a kitchen tap that has a fancy nozzle, so there's no way to attach tubing to it. The flowrate is also restricted, so filling a 5 L jug multiple times is painfully slow.

New method: plug the sink and run the tap, then connect the recirc tube and throw the open end into the sink. Pour a couple of litres of water into the GUTEN and briefly run the pump to prime the tubing. Once you turn the pump off, water will siphon from the sink into the GUTEN.

Hope that helps someone else.

 

[Ballaratguy]

Because my brewery is in a garden shed I carry hot water from the laundry up to my Guten in a 9Lt watering can. I can also keep track of the water quality that way
I also do this for sparging

 

[duncbrewer]

@BrewLizard
Go on show us your nozzle. Must fit well with the saggy bottom.

 

[djackal]

First brew on the 50l guten today.
Also first brew in my dedicated brew space.

Pros: Once I figured out how the controller work I was able to get a good mash temp and boil. Heats up nice and quick using 15amps.
And so much easier than a gas setup. Just walk away as you please and potter around doing jobs.
I was a bit higher than my planned at OG 1.065 and the colour slightly darker. But I don;t mind a higher alcohol amber ale so it should be nice if not infected.

Cons: Immersion chiller painfully slow and ineffective...will likely invest in a counterflow before my next brew.
Also the bazooka screen blocked as many on here advise. Helix coil will be bought as well I think.
Need to use a pump to transfer from sparge vessel to Guten and from Guten (tap) to fermenter. Lucky I have 2 spare.

My ispindel didn't work so I had to fish it out of the snubnose. It's back in there but still not working...I guess i'll wing it and keg/bottle at 2 weeks and hope for the best.
Also no gas coming out of the bottle. Think it's the regulator...otherwise I've got a leak.

Question: I can still ferment in the snubnose with no gas and just a spunding valve right? Gas will just release at a certain pressure?

Verdict: A pretty good initial brew and hopefully a good beer comes from it. Took an extra hour or so due to teething issues and a non-optimised setup by overall a decent experience.
Will need to spend a few extra bob at the setup unfortunately but I'm sure it will be worth it long term.

 

[Dilligaf666]

I have now completed 6 brews in the Guten 70 Litres...
I have the hang of in now I reckon - programmed start so I heat up over night.
I fill it up to just under 70 litres - heat the water to 75 - drain down to 42 litres ( the balance is used for sparge later)
12kg grain
sparge back up to 60 litres
boil..
done 50 litres wort!

 

[duncbrewer]

Brewed an IPA and a stout this weekend on the Guten 70. SmartPID controller working really well, very steady temp control and integrated with brewfather.
Getting my numbers at last it's not a mad dash all day getting ready as I go. Had time to look out the window and have a beer.

 

[hopnotic]

Nice one Dunc. Have do you find the SmartPID / Brewfather integration? In my first 3-4 brews with that setup I had two recurring issues:
1. BF kept trying to do a step mash despite my recipe being a single step mash.
2. SmartPID recipe steps getting out of sync with BF schedule.

Now I just control the SmartPID manually via BF interface, eg, switch between Devices / Batches screens or use multiple browser tabs to change temp, turn pump on/off, etc.

 

[duncbrewer]

@hopnotic
Sorry couldn't reply yesterday , I was making an imperial stout with lots of adjuncts rye and wheat and the rye seemed to be the right size to block every hole in the bottom of the malt pipe. Don't normally have problems, but first time using rye.
Think next time I'll crush it to much smaller size and perhaps pre mash it. Don't think I'll do another until next year though.

Regarding SmartPID.

In the mash profiles of brewfather there is one recommended profile that has all of the steps ie phytase, beta glucanase, etc etc.

Just change all the times to 0 minutes, don't put any ramp times in either.

In the configuration on the SmartPID there is a setting for the dough in/mash in where you set a temperature. Think this is 50 celsius you can adjust this so say you want to mash at 65, then set it to 65. My system overshoots a little say 1.8 degrees but thats ideal as I let it do that then dial back to say 63.3 and dough in.
Temp drops and is bang on. I monitor the temp of the water coming from the recirculation at the top with a separate probe set up on the HLT channel and set the kettle temp so that the water in top probe is at my target temp.

Yes irritating with the system timer getting out of sync with brewfather alerts. I am better at keeping it to task now. You can move the brewtimer points back and forward in brewfather to help with the synchronize.

I have emailed Davide about the lack of coordination between the timer and the smartpid, also want to be able to raise temp of mash to say 95 during the sparge stage rather than the hold and then have to bump up at the end of sparge / malt extraction.

Worth emailing Davide about integration the more of us that request it the better chance of development.

PS what settings do you have for you PID ie values of Kp, Kd and Ki. What sized system are you using it on?

 

[hidara]

Another SmartPID 70l Guten setup.
Works great and now that you can send recipes straight from Brewfather I'm loving it.
Seems that the guy has run out of SS faceplates so I'm putting a link to a 3D printed design. Its made to be push fit and locked in using the bracket at the back.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5507378

 

[duncbrewer]

@hidara
I've got the SS plate but I can't get it to stick well on the body of the kettle as soon as it gets warm then it unsticks the tape.
Yours looks good. I'll get one printed up. Adding a lip / eyebrow to the piece would stop any dribbles getting onto the box, currently I just have a piece of clear plastic cut that fits between the metal base and main kettle that does the job.

What settings are you using on the PID ? ie Kp Ki and Kd?

The fitting of the temp probe those little green tabs are very irritating. I found that a piece of solid core wire about 1mm fitted perfectly in and very secure, then attached this to a chocolate block ( connector block ) and then it's really easy to fit the wires for the sensor in.

I added another sensor on a long wire to the HLT side of the PID so I can measure wort inflow temperature through wortometer and the temperature of wort post chiller before going into the fermenter.

Modifying it further I've now managed to wire another NTC sensor into the same input, this is on a longer lead and I can switch between the kettle base sensor or the longer lead. This is useful for catching boil temperature as I find that the base sensor is often lagging behind the top of the wort temperature as it comes up to boil.

You need to put a diode on the return side of each NTC sensor to make it accurate.

 

[hopnotic]

Urgent warning for anyone using these $6.85 cheapass SSRs that come with the SmartPID kit. The electrical engineer I spoke to said the internals are only rated to 10 amps and are not potted (insulated). Mine was running on an 15a circuit. If you google them you'll find plenty that have melted like mine, or worse (fire).
I upgraded to a premium brand (Crydom) with beefier heat sink and thermal paste for $70. It reaches boil a little quicker now and the power cord doesn't get as warm.
You've been warned!

 

[Grok]

You may be able to stave off a melt down of these cheap ssrs by having a good heat sink with fan. If I had to use one, I would mount a cpu type fan on the side blowing across the 2 vanes of that type of heat sink, or use an old cpu heat sink and fan already mounted, or of course just buy a better quality ssr, but you still need a good heat sink when high currents are in use. I use 2 x Altronics 40A SSR mounted to one CPU heat sink with fan, works good.

 

[BeerBen]

Urgent warning for anyone using these $6.85 cheapass SSRs that come with the SmartPID kit. The electrical engineer I spoke to said the internals are only rated to 10 amps and are not potted (insulated). Mine was running on an 15a circuit. If you google them you'll find plenty that have melted like mine, or worse (fire).
I upgraded to a premium brand (Crydom) with beefier heat sink and thermal paste for $70. It reaches boil a little quicker now and the power cord doesn't get as warm.
You've been warned!
View attachment 124255View attachment 124256View attachment 124257

There has always been a large number of fake fotek SSRs around, these were known to fail as above where genuine work properly.

Google fake fotek SSRs

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Never found any reason to change anything on the Guten control, keeps a steady temperature throughout the mash. I think the trick is to keep the return pipe on full flow. I have 2 x 400 ml probes adjacent to each other in the top of the mash

8 mins in.

32 mins in

58 mins in

 

[hopnotic]

The main reason to replace the controller is to provide control via Brewfather, no longer bending down clicking buttons to change temp and pump on/off.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

The main reason to replace the controller is to provide control via Brewfather, no longer bending down clicking buttons to change temp and pump on/off.

I don't bend down, I have mine at a height I can program my system quite easily. I have a hoist to lift the grain basket, mainly because I have a 65litre Hop Cat, but I do use the hoist to lift my 40-litre Guten grain basket I then squeeze the bejesus out of it getting less than 500 ml loss to grain absorption. For a full-volume mash brewer, I will get better efficiency than a sparge brewer.
Brewing beer isn't rocket science.

 

[razz]

Brewing beer is bucket chemistry.

 

[Hip Hops Don't Stop]

"Never found any reason to change anything on the Guten control, keeps a steady temperature throughout the mash. I think the trick is to keep the return pipe on full flow. I have 2 x 400 ml probes adjacent to each other in the top of the mash"

Do you mean the plastic hose that re-circulates the mash? I thought that was supposed to be a trickle??

 

[Ballaratguy]

I found the Guten control frustrating as I couldn’t change any parameters mid brew and also due to the height of my brewery I couldn’t raise the Guten and remove the malt pipe comfortably so I got a grainfather control box and wired that in (with plugs so I didn’t have leads getting in the way for cleaning and storage)
I’ve remote mounted the control box on the wall so I don’t have to stand on my head to see the Guten control
Another advantage of the grainfather CB is that it’s operated via an app and also has 125,000 recipes and can be operated via Bluetooth on your phone or tablet

 

[hopnotic]

Another advantage of the grainfather CB is that it’s operated via an app and also has 125,000 recipes and can be operated via Bluetooth on your phone or tablet

Same deal with SmartPID and Brewfather integration. Cloud based recipes and remote device control is very popular for that reason.

I'm at my desk job and able to raise/lower fermentation temp and monitor gravity without leaving the chair. Because science