Thinking about switching to e-BIAB with Brew-Boss

Williams 728
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jdiggy said:
I posted this question over in the equipment forum but wanted to know if anyone here had any advice on a brew stand for this equipment. I was looking at this donut cart on ebay. Seems really reasonably priced as long as it's not flimsy. http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/140742972017?lpid=82&chn=ps
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It looks solid but at 15" x 15" it isn't big enough for the 15 gallon unit which is about 17" in diameter.

I'm going to use a stainless steel wire shelving unit, they can be had for a reasonable price.
 
jdiggy said:
I posted this question over in the equipment forum but wanted to know if anyone here had any advice on a brew stand for this equipment. I was looking at this donut cart on ebay. Seems really reasonably priced as long as it's not flimsy. http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/140742972017?lpid=82&chn=ps
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If that cart was a little bigger it would make for a sweet compact system.

FWIW, post #66 in this thread shows the system I made with wire shelving, post #70 has some specific parts detail...
 
Are you able to have the grain bag from the top rack to drain? Where did you purchase it from, it looks great.

Thanks for updating me on the size. I didn't realize the 15 gallon was that big around.
 
LouBrew13 said:
Looking at this very closely, especially after seeing the entire brew day video that Darin posted on you tube.

Are any of you veteran users adding anything to your water to adjust ph or just brewing as you did prior?

Have you noticed any difference in your finished beer or is it just purely ease(which is totally ok)?
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Regarding the ph, I didn't change anything from what I used to do with my three tier system (which was nothing).

As far as the finished beer goes, I've brewed a lot of very good beer over the past 10 plus years and I must say without a doubt that the first batch I brewed with the 20 gallon Deluxe COFI system was one of the top 5 beers I've ever brewed. I wasn't the only taste tester that agreed with that. I have no doubt it comes from such precise temperature control during the mash no matter how many steps you have. It will maintain your set temperatures within 1 degree from the start of the mash through mash out. mash temperatures and their consistency are a big part of taste of the finished brew.
 
I did my wet run with a wire shelf. It was the 36" long one. I used the top shelf to hold the pulley to raise the COFI. Worked OK, but felt cramped. Barely had room for the pump and control unit. I am going to try the stainless table on casters. I am going to weld up a movable mini hoist so that I can raise the COFI then wheel it out of the way. I hope this system gives me more room to hold the controller, kettle and pump. I also found an inexpensive 10 tablet on ebay I hope to try out this weekend too. I was able to get to strike temp in less than 15 minutes with my 220v system.
 
Thank you ibrewmyown that's good to know. The brew easy system says that you need to add salts and such to your water which is why I asked.
 
I used an old office printer type cabinet and it works great. I just sprayed it black. It has door to keep everything (hoses, hop feeder, etc.) out of site and clean when not in use. I am in the process of making a "swing arm" mounted to the cabinet to mount my HF electric hoist to (now mounted on my ceiling) to make it even more portable.

2015-06-27 09.13.33.jpg
 
A bit of a learning curve with my first wheat beer. If you recirculate too fast during mash you can suck the bag down on the false bottom, pump out the liquid under it, and scorch the wort. Grumble.



Also, my stand is a rolling cart that was being tossed at work. I added the gantry and ratcheting pulley.
 
h22lude said:
You need a basket in your pot. With a basket, that won't happen.
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Just for clarity, are you saying with a basket you can't pump out all the liquid underneath the basket and scorch? If so, I'd disagree with that. I have pumped enough liquid from underneath my basket to overflow the kettle so I know if I had more head space above the basket I would have pumped the volume underneath essentially dry.

If that wasn't the intent if the comment, then carry on!

EDIT: Just a disclaimer. I don't have a Brew Boss but instead a Brau Supply system.
 
TexasWine said:
Just for clarity, are you saying with a basket you can't pump out all the liquid underneath the basket and scorch? If so, I'd disagree with that. I have pumped enough liquid from underneath my basket to overflow the kettle so I know if I had more head space above the basket I would have pumped the volume underneath essentially dry.

If that wasn't the intent if the comment, then carry on!
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The owners manual and the YouTube videos are clear that you need to throttle back the output valve on the pump to keep from pumping the kettle dry. I think this is more of an issue with large grain bills.
 
Thanks all for the food for thought all. It seems that wheat is a bit different from grains as it makes more of a sticky, goopy mess. I was also using a Wilsnerbrewer bag that had a smaller mesh than I am used to. 100% my fault and not the equipment, I am just sharing in the hopes that someone may learn from my mistake.
 
For those of you that got the COFI - is it worth it over the mesh bag and false bottom? especially since you can fit more grain with the bag?
 
I like the COFI a lot. I had previously just been doing BIAB with 5gal paint strainer bags. I feel like I get better sugar extracttion/conversion from the recirculation in the COFI and it eliminates me worry about temperature stratification in the mash. I haven't had issues yet with having too large a grain bill. I figure most of the beers I make that are 1.070 or above have a decent amount of sugar so that helps make more room for the grains
 
In case anyone was holding out for another discount, looks like we won't see one until Black Friday.
 
TexasWine said:
Just for clarity, are you saying with a basket you can't pump out all the liquid underneath the basket and scorch? If so, I'd disagree with that. I have pumped enough liquid from underneath my basket to overflow the kettle so I know if I had more head space above the basket I would have pumped the volume underneath essentially dry.

If that wasn't the intent if the comment, then carry on!

EDIT: Just a disclaimer. I don't have a Brew Boss but instead a Brau Supply system.
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I may have misunderstood the original post I commented about. I originally took it as he pumped to wort to fast which caused the bag to be pulled down onto the element.

Now that I reread it, it sounds like the pump was too fast which caused the bag to stop the wort from recirculating and pumped all the wort underneath the false bottom and caused the element to basically heat air. Is that what the original post meant?

If so, then I would agree. You can still get a stuck mash and pump all the wort from under the false bottom or basket especially when mashing with wheat or pumpkin. No need to recirculate fast when mashing.
 
h22lude said:
Now that I reread it, it sounds like the pump was too fast which caused the bag to stop the wort from recirculating and pumped all the wort underneath the false bottom and caused the element to basically heat air. Is that what the original post meant?

If so, then I would agree. You can still get a stuck mash and pump all the wort from under the false bottom or basket especially when mashing with wheat or pumpkin. No need to recirculate fast when mashing.
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This is correct. Poor wording on my part perhaps.
 
Still a bit curious though, anything that I have read, including Darren's own warning in the manual would suggest if you really did evacuate most of the wort from under the false bottom to the point where you had a "dry" element, the element would self destruct. Although after thinking about it a bit more, if you are just maintaining mash temps it probably is at a lower power level so this point may not be valid.

The first brew I did on my system was an Imperial Rye PA, which had about 1 1/2 lbs rye malt and a pound of flaked rye. I was using a Wilser bag which as noted
is much finer than the stock BB bag and I did use 1/2 lb of rice hulls. I was careful to throttle the output of the pump and never lost flow through the sparge arm. As the mash progressed I started getting very strange and varying temp readings, up, down, all over the place. Noticed that we didn't have as much excess bag over the rim of the kettle as when we started. Grabbed the bag on one side and with a bit of effort pulled it up with a huge sucking sound from both the bag and me :cross:

Once the brew was finished and I started cleaning up I found that the the bottom of the false bottom supports were bowed up a bit, the silicone feet, although intact were torn and I had four dents in the bottom of the kettle where the feet contacted it. Although there was some major "suck" taking place, I never lost flow and no scorching on the element.

I guess my point in all this is, at least in my experience it seems that it would be pretty hard to suck all the wort from under the false bottom with this system and end up with scorched wort on the element without destroying it. And possibly more to the point, if you did pump it dry, your pump would be screamin' like a banshee...

FWIW, the beer turned out great :p

I guess one question would be, At what power level would a dry element "pop"? If the controller is maintaining mash temps with occasional bursts of <20% would those levels be low enough to preserve a dry element, but high enough to scorch wort?
 
I did two brews yesterday. Mine was an American Wheat. His was a 2-row Pumpkin (pumpkin used in fermentor not mash). Both mashes went well. Used half pound rice hulls in mine because of the wheat. I usually have the flow at half from the pump.

I don't know at what point the element will "pop" but I would think it wouldn't take much power if there is no water.
 
I brewed the Centennial blonde Sunday. Brew time was 3 3/4ths hours from cold water to finished cleaning. I haven't gotten the hops boss to work but it's most likely and ID-10T error on my part. I used a counterflow wort chiller and tried pumping back into the vessel to cool-that is probably a mistake as my ground water is cold enough I should have just sent it to the fermenter. Also miss calculated water volume, so I only collected 4 1/2 gallons. My starting OG preboil was 1.040 so the efficiency is better than the first batch. I tried experimenting with the pump outlet to see if I could "choke" the system and I could not. I use rice hulls too. What are you guys using to clean your heating element?
 
I use a toothbrush but a green scrub pad would be easier. Dish soap and water. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes
 
Has anyone purchased the 20 gallon COFI version and ran 5 gallon batches on it?

I like bigger beers which require quite a bit more grain for even 5 gallon batches, but my wife likes session IPAs which do not require anywhere near the grain bill let's say a Russian Imperial Stout does. Not that I will always do a 5 gallon batch, but there's only so much Belgian quadruple I can drink myself and I want the flexibility of going between five, 10 and 15 gallon batches.
 
I have the 20 gallon deluxe system with the cofi filter and although I haven't brewed a 5 gallon batch, I think it would be 'ify' doing a 5 gallon "Big" beer. With the 20 gallon system each inch of water is just about a gallon of liquid. So you'd start out with 7 gallons +or- equaling about 7" of water. The cofi sits about 2"+ above the bottom of the pot so that leaves 5" above the bottom of the filter. Once the cofi with grain was lowered into the water, the water would rise and inch or so so now you're at about 8"- 9" total. I'm not sure the water would be high enough to cover all of your grain but at 8" that means it would cover 6" in the filter so it would be close.

I'm going to do a "Big" Belgian next weekend but I'm going to likely do 12 gallons but I will have a good idea how a 5 gallon batch would work by doing so.

I'd email Darin at BrewBoss. He responds very quickly and I'm sure he'd know.
 
boxerbrews said:
Has anyone purchased the 20 gallon COFI version and ran 5 gallon batches on it?

I like bigger beers which require quite a bit more grain for even 5 gallon batches, but my wife likes session IPAs which do not require anywhere near the grain bill let's say a Russian Imperial Stout does. Not that I will always do a 5 gallon batch, but there's only so much Belgian quadruple I can drink myself and I want the flexibility of going between five, 10 and 15 gallon batches.
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Not sure what your current system is but could you keep a large cooler setup for batch sparging and just use that when you plan to do a 5 gal imperial. Drain cooler into the brew boss kettle then start your boil. Not sure how frequently you woild be doing a 5 gallon imperial.
 
boxerbrews said:
Has anyone purchased the 20 gallon COFI version and ran 5 gallon batches on it?

I like bigger beers which require quite a bit more grain for even 5 gallon batches, but my wife likes session IPAs which do not require anywhere near the grain bill let's say a Russian Imperial Stout does. Not that I will always do a 5 gallon batch, but there's only so much Belgian quadruple I can drink myself and I want the flexibility of going between five, 10 and 15 gallon batches.
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This conundrum was what led me to design my own system using the BB controller and a custom kettle/basket. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=573718
 
Thanks for all the great info and replies. It seems to me that while you CAN run a 5 gallon batch on the 20 gallon system, it's going to require some creative steps.

While I don't want to be limited on production volume (without moving to a nano setup that is), it seems that I'd be better off going with the 15 gallon COFI system. It'll let me do 5 gallon batches of any grain bill and pretty much all 10 gallon styles. Yes?
 
boxerbrews said:
Thanks for all the great info and replies. It seems to me that while you CAN run a 5 gallon batch on the 20 gallon system, it's going to require some creative steps.

While I don't want to be limited on production volume (without moving to a nano setup that is), it seems that I'd be better off going with the 15 gallon COFI system. It'll let me do 5 gallon batches of any grain bill and pretty much all 10 gallon styles. Yes?
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I had the 15 gallon previously and did have some issues with high SG 10 gallon batches. If you brew mostly 5 gallon batches I'd go with the 15.
 
I know this thread hasn't been active in a while but figured I'd try. I'm interested in buying the 15 Gallon version but I like to do 2.5-3 Gallon experimental batches from time to time. Would there be enough liquid with a 2.5 Gallon batch to keep the heating element fully submerged in liquid during recirc?

thanks in advance
 
ShaLaH said:
I know this thread hasn't been active in a while but figured I'd try. I'm interested in buying the 15 Gallon version but I like to do 2.5-3 Gallon experimental batches from time to time. Would there be enough liquid with a 2.5 Gallon batch to keep the heating element fully submerged in liquid during recirc?

thanks in advance
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The FAQ's on the web site http://www.brew-boss.com/category-s/115.htm show the grain loads and water requirements. The heater will definitely be covered and is not an issue but the main concern is making certain the grain is covered. The chart on the FAQ's shows what is possible.
 
GrantNH said:
I got a Brew-Boss as an early x-mas present for myself. Purchased the whole system, kettle, controller, pump and tablet. Simple to set up, the APP is great. Took me a bit of playing around to fully understand all the functions in the APP and how to set up my run just the way I want it. I am very happy with the system so far.

The day I received everything I set up, ran the wet run and couldn't resist brewing a batch of IPA. My AG day with my previous set up (keggle, burner and gatorade mlt) it was easily 6-8 hours. That first batch which i started at 9:30pm I was done by 2am. My next batch which was 3 days later I was clean and done in 4 hours. Then my last batch my wife dared me to brew on New Years Eve while we hosted a party. 3 hours, hit start as the guests arrived at 6pm and pitched the yeast 3:06 min later. I did do a lot of prep work and saved deep cleaning till the next day. But the system runs itself. Very little time was actually spent working the brew. I loved the fact that I could take the tablet into the other room with me and just hang out knowing that it would let me know when it was ready for the next step.

I have barely brewed in the last 2 years. Now I can't brew enough. I told my friends with keggerators to just throw me money for ingredients and I'll brew whatever they want.

If flexibility and automation is what you are looking for I definitely recommend the Brew-Boss. I have the 15 gallon system, which is great. I love that I can brew 5 and 10 gallon batches with no issues. I also feel the price is reasonable for an out of the box automated system.
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So is that Brew Boss system really nearly 2 grand?
Jeepers!
 
I have a 20 gallon Brew-Boss system and it was worth every cent I paid for it. I doubt I could build the system myself for less, especially considering the time and effort it would take to develop such a full featured app. I have a friend who built an Induction burner system that has decent control ( albiet manual) but is still a 3 vessel system. After he brewed on the Brewboss with me he is thinking about changing it to a biab system. Also the app lets you port over beersmith files so that you can do multi step mashes with ease and prompts you for your hop additions on schedule. I have another friend with the blichman brew easy setup Its half the size and costs 300 more. The brewboss has way less clean-up time better customer support. The system my friend has is: https://www.morebeer.com/products/blichmann-breweasy-electric-240-turnkey-kit-10-gallon.html . While being a very cool system i think the brewboss does it better with the basket. The only minor issue ive noticed is that rye and some hops like to stick to the element but are easily cleaned off.
 

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