Brewzilla 35

[west1m]

With my Anvil 10.5 I go with 5.5 gallons mash water and then sparge until I hit 6.5 gallons and pull out the grain tub.

 

[Mark Farrall]

You'll probably get better mash efficiency with the sparge step. How much depends on a heap of factors, but even without an efficiency increase it will allow you to work out how much water you need to add to hit your target. Just take a quick refractometer reading and sparge with whatever you need to dilute it to your boil gravity. It should be a bit over after that but close enough. Once you're getting reliable numbers you can start working back to full volume for the simplicity.

 

[Craigerrr]

What is your efficiency in your recipe? I was missing way low at 70%, knocked it down to 62%, and over shot numbers a bit. Last brew I bumped it up to 64%, and was just a smidge under my numbers. I mash with about 22 liters (5.8usg), I find that any less and the mash is too thick, any more and there isn't enough room for everything. My brews are usually around 6% ABV. As I was advised in this thread, I don't start recirculating until about 15 minutes after doughing, and I stir a couple times during the mash as well.

 

[BOB357]

I guess Ill cut down on the mash water. What's the difference if I use 7 gal for mash vs 4 gal mash and sparge with 3 gal?

In case you missed this earlier in the thread:

Your Brewzilla is very like my Digiboil as far as volumes and limitations go. With the large volume of recoverable dead space I find efficiency begins to drop after about 11 lbs. of grain due to the limited amount of water available for sparging. The efficiency decreases exponentially as the grain bill is increased, so just another pound of grain can make quite a difference, shooting consistency in the a$$.

As @thunderwagn said, grain crush is really important. I have my mill gap set to .042" after playing around and finding that gives me a happy medium between efficiency and recirculation flow. I also went to a 90 minute boil too. For batches with more than 12 lbs. of grist I've gone back to using my cooler MLT and using my old MIAB method.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/threads/emiab-2-vessel-system.11338/

@Craigerrr corrected me and said that the only difference was the programmable controller.

 

[Craigerrr]

[QUOTE="BOB357, post: 121811,
@Craigerrr corrected me and said that the only difference was the programmable controller.[/QUOTE]
That and the pump

 

[Over The Cliff Brewing]

It's a great day. I think I finally got my Brewzilla dialed in. I brewed my Run The Gauntlet IPA and based on the recipe I was a bit over on both pre boil and post boil gravity by .005. I'm a happy camper right now. Got to go finish cleaning up.

 

[Over The Cliff Brewing]

Here's the fermenter less than 24 hours

 

[Craigerrr]

Here's the fermenter less than 24 hoursView attachment 12994

Nice rubber ducky clip there!

 

[GFHomebrew]

Here's the fermenter less than 24 hoursView attachment 12994

That is one clean ferm chamber mine looks like a wort bomb went off in it.

 

[Over The Cliff Brewing]

4 month old chest freezer and I don't brew that often. The duck is the ferm chamber mascot.

 

[Donoroto]

Brewing the Piwo Grodziskie and (trying to) using the step mash/ programming feature of the Brewzilla 35 3.1.1. And having troubles I think.

The instructions say it will start the timer at the beginning of the first step, then it will wait for the system to reach temperature before starting the timer on subsequent steps. But in Step 2, the timer started as soon as the first step was done.

Am I doing something wrong here? A photo if step 2, timer counting up (shows 17 minutes) but temperature not yet there... The step 2 indicator is flashing. Posting from my phone, so image is inverted, sorry. Maybe 'cause the BZ is from down under??

 

[Craigerrr]

That is odd, mine seems to work fine as far as the timer not starting until the next temperature is reached.

 

[Donoroto]

That is odd, mine seems to work fine as far as the timer not starting until the next temperature is reached.

Well, I reset the timer for step 2 once it hit temperature, lets see what happens at the end of this step.

 

[Donoroto]

Dammit! It beeped to signal the end if step 2, and a minute later the timer went form 00:00 to 00:01.

 

[Donoroto]

Ah, got it. The instructions also say there are two modes: one that starts the timer immediately, and the other that starts the timer after temperature is hit. As it turns out, I was in the wrong mode. We'll see what happens at the end of this step.

I hate when I have to read the instructions.

 

[Over The Cliff Brewing]

Just want to brew beer. We don't need no stinking instructions.