KegLand Questions and Answers

[Budbongo]

RAPT temp controller issue
I purchased a RAPT pill a couple of months ago, set it up but haven't been able to use it as my brewery is in a remote location and I had no internet. I now have internet and have also purchased a RAPT temperture controller. I set everything up, took a few resets to get everything talking to each other. I had to manually download the latest firmware for the temp controller to set up the bluetooth link with the pill. Set the pill to bluetooth and to be the main temp sensor, taking readings every 15min. The internal temp probe is mounted inside my fermentation fridge. Dropped the pill into my fermenter (fermzilla 27l) and receiving good signal with everything showing up in app.rapt.io
However the temp controller displays the pill temp (and SG) for about 2 minute every 10min, the rest of the time it only shows the built in probe temp. Unfortunately the heating/cooling appears to be triggered by the displayed temperature on the temp controller, hence for approx 8 min out of every 10 minutes the heating/cooling is determined by the internal probe temperature & not the pill. This is obviously not ideal. I was getting a 4deg difference between the 2 probes. (the heater is a 30w Mangrove Jack heat belt)
I made a few adjustments to the internal probe (stuck it to the side of the fermenter and covered in insulation) and the heat belt (loosened so it sits around the metal support frame the fermenter sits on) and with manually lowering and raising the target temperture I have managed to stabilise the fermenter temp to around the control temp of 20deg. I have attached the latest graph from the temp controller.
The only thing I can think of that I could of done and didn't is check for new firmware for the pill.
I now won't have access to the brewery for the next 5 days or so, I am monitoring everything from the app.
Is there anything else I should do to fix this?

 

[KegLand-com-au]

RAPT temp controller issue
I purchased a RAPT pill a couple of months ago, set it up but haven't been able to use it as my brewery is in a remote location and I had no internet. I now have internet and have also purchased a RAPT temperture controller. I set everything up, took a few resets to get everything talking to each other. I had to manually download the latest firmware for the temp controller to set up the bluetooth link with the pill. Set the pill to bluetooth and to be the main temp sensor, taking readings every 15min. The internal temp probe is mounted inside my fermentation fridge. Dropped the pill into my fermenter (fermzilla 27l) and receiving good signal with everything showing up in app.rapt.io
However the temp controller displays the pill temp (and SG) for about 2 minute every 10min, the rest of the time it only shows the built in probe temp. Unfortunately the heating/cooling appears to be triggered by the displayed temperature on the temp controller, hence for approx 8 min out of every 10 minutes the heating/cooling is determined by the internal probe temperature & not the pill. This is obviously not ideal. I was getting a 4deg difference between the 2 probes. (the heater is a 30w Mangrove Jack heat belt)
I made a few adjustments to the internal probe (stuck it to the side of the fermenter and covered in insulation) and the heat belt (loosened so it sits around the metal support frame the fermenter sits on) and with manually lowering and raising the target temperture I have managed to stabilise the fermenter temp to around the control temp of 20deg. I have attached the latest graph from the temp controller.
The only thing I can think of that I could of done and didn't is check for new firmware for the pill.
I now won't have access to the brewery for the next 5 days or so, I am monitoring everything from the app.
Is there anything else I should do to fix this?

The pill bluetooth transmissions should be more frequent than this. If the temp controller doesn't see a BLE transmission for 130 seconds it will default back to the built-in probe. So if you are using the Pill as the BLE device you should keep the transmissions every 20 seconds. I think the default might actually be 5 or 10 seconds which seems to work well.

We specifically have done this so your temp controller is not heating or cooling too much. If you only have transmissions every BLE 15min you can easily overshoot and over heat or over cool the fermenter.

Also BLE is very power efficient so I would not be too concerned about running the unit flat as even with very fast 15second transmission frequency you will still easily have plenty of battery power to get through even long fermentations.

If however you still want to extend your BLE frequency then you need to also change the 130 sec to something longer. For instance if you go into the settings menu you will see a setting called "Sensor Timeout" with a default setting of 130sec. I dont really recommend doing this but if you really want to change your BLE frequency you should also be changing this number at the same time.

 

[rockofclay]

A while ago there was talk of you guys getting corny keg liners in to do cask ale style beers. Any progress on that?

 

[KegLand-com-au]

A while ago there was talk of you guys getting corny keg liners in to do cask ale style beers. Any progress on that?

We are struggling to find a bag supplier to make exactly the bag that we are after.

The bags worked well 80% of the time but in 20% of the testing we had issues rupturing the bag. This is particularly the case if you transport the keg half full, if you do not fill the bag correctly or if you over-pressurise/overfill the bag. So we are looking at ways to make the process more robust before we launch this product.

 

[fifis101]

The same idea would work to dispense pre-carbed beer with water pressure too right?

 

[KegLand-com-au]

The same idea would work to dispense pre-carbed beer with water pressure too right?

Yes we did do this and this worked quite well.

 

[aJackTar]

Dunno if this has been asked before but have you guys considered making a mesh malt pipe for the brewzilla similar to the clawhammer design? I feel like this would solve some of my issues with grist ending up in the final product and or the pump. Yes I understand that I can use a bag but I have enough things to clean up now without adding to it.

 

[TwoCrows]

BrewZilla Gen 3.1.1 Super Sale 35L ~ $350! 65L ~ $480!!!

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Dunno if this has been asked before but have you guys considered making a mesh malt pipe for the brewzilla similar to the clawhammer design? I feel like this would solve some of my issues with grist ending up in the final product and or the pump. Yes I understand that I can use a bag but I have enough things to clean up now without adding to it.

Yes we did testing with similar baskets but they simply resulted in less efficiency and we do not hear of people blocking up the pump in the BrewZilla. As you might be aware all Brewzilla units are made with a pump protection screen at the bottom of the boiler and if any particles can fit through these holes they will be too small to block up the pump.

If we put blocking the pump aside though and just look at grist in the boiler I generally do not find this to be much of an issue either as I just re-circulate during the mashing and with very little recirculation I find that the dish base on the BrewZilla Gen 4 will pickup those solids and then re-deposit them back into the malt pipe where they should be. By the end of the mashing process at most I might end up with less than a quarter of a teaspoon of grist in the boiler at most and I really don't see this to be something to be concerned about. I could be wrong though and good to hear what others think on this subject?

I can say for sure though that if you use one of these mesh baskets that have mesh all the way to the top of the basket you get significantly less efficient extraction of the sugars. This is what we determined from our tests.

 

[aJackTar]

Cool, thanks very much for the response. I have actually got the pump blocked a couple of times but all it took was for me to blow in to the recirc hose to unblock it.

 

[reddog]

I can confirm that the pump on the Brewzilla gen 4 has insufficient pressure for the output to reach my kitchen ceiling, only just though.

Thank you Kegland design team.

 

[dkril]

I can confirm that the pump on the Brewzilla gen 4 has insufficient pressure for the output to reach my kitchen ceiling, only just though.

Thank you Kegland design team.

For completeness: how high is your kitchen ceiling?

 

[reddog]

For completeness: how high is your kitchen ceiling?

2.4m I reckon it's good for 2.2m.

 

[reddog]

It's a lot easier to clean the floor than the ceiling.

 

[bduza]

Question with kegging (the 8L oxebar and mini 360 regulator with sodastream bottle).
Is there any need for a 1 way check valve on the gas line? I was sure I saw it recommended somewhere but now that I look again to make sure I get the order right, I don't see that advice anywhere.

 

[Shotgun07]

Bottling from a fermzilla

This may have been asked before but I searched and couldn’t find it. Here is my dilemma I bought a starters brew kit with a standard white fermenter. While it is sufficient for now I’m already looking to upgrade it as I just don’t think it’s the best thing. So my question is, I know fermzillas are more suited to pressure fermenting/transfer but is there an easy option for bottling out of a fermzilla. I want to go with a conical so when I upgrade to a keg system in a while I will already be part way setup. Thanks in advance

Tim

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I can confirm that the pump on the Brewzilla gen 4 has insufficient pressure for the output to reach my kitchen ceiling, only just though.

Thank you Kegland design team.

Yes it's fair to say that the pump included in the brewery is not very powerful but if you are talking about the Gen 4 65L this pump can be easily upgrades as we have the mounting holes in the base for this particular upgrade so the upgrade is easy to do.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Question with kegging (the 8L oxebar and mini 360 regulator with sodastream bottle).
Is there any need for a 1 way check valve on the gas line? I was sure I saw it recommended somewhere but now that I look again to make sure I get the order right, I don't see that advice anywhere.

I personally do not use a check valve, but I am particularly careful. If you are the type of person who might possibly tip the 8L Oxebar keg sideways and then pull the PRV this would result in sucking beer up into the regulator.

So if you can always remember to use the PRV on the keg rather than on the regulator then technically you could get away without the check valve but it comes down to "do you trust yourself"

 

[reddog]

Yes it's fair to say that the pump included in the brewery is not very powerful but if you are talking about the Gen 4 65L this pump can be easily upgrades as we have the mounting holes in the base for this particular upgrade so the upgrade is easy to do.

I wasn't complaining I was grateful.

 

[crowmanz]

Yes these small bench top kegerators are a top priority for us now and I think we should have them finished at the end of this year. In fact we have a question for you guys. We were wondering if you would be interested in us working with small micro breweries to supply them the 4L PCO 38 kegs so micro-breweries can package beer into these kegs and then supply them to the public so you can dispense them with the small bench top kegerator? Is this something you would like to see. The kegs can be used for home brewing too but sometimes it's nice to be able to purchase commercial beer in a compatible keg system to what you are already using in your home brew setup.

NOTE: The 4L PCO38 kegs will be much less laborious for micro-breweries to fill than packaging cans or bottles and they will be about 1/4 of the packaging cost.

Any updates or sneak peaks you can provide of the mini kegerators?