Finally got the system...with a few unexpected surprises.
Shipping: It shipped and arrived much faster than expected.
Assembly: Took a bit of time to figure out how to assemble. The instructions that they have on the website are not quite how the new model is constructed. However, after watching the videos and thinking about it, I was able to figure it out. There is some wiring up that is required, but nothing major like working on a bread board (insert your electronic nerd comments here).
Quality: You can tell that most of the parts are very well made and constructed to a high standard. The only item that I thought was somewhat cheap was the grain basket welding that attached the frame of the basket to the mesh screen. The basket they sent had the mesh pulling away from the frame at 2 different points. You could tell that it wasn't really welded, but rather heated up to adhere to the metal. In essence, a poor design. Don't know how else to design it better, but could tell that this would be an issue in the future. Emmet said he would either send out a new bucket or discount the system that I purchased, whichever I preferred. I went with a new bucket. He even threw in a neoprene insulation jacket for free. 4 days later, it showed up.
Dry Run: I decided to test everything out with a few gallons of water in the system to see how it would work (Clawhammer also recommends doing a dry run after initial assembly). Found that I had forgot to install a gasket on the heating element clamp, so it started leaking water when I was filling it up. Thankfully it was just water and not boiling wort! Everything seems to work pretty good. The operation of the PID controller was pretty straight forward for most things. There is a sub menu for the controller if you would like to recalibrate the temp controller that seemed a bit more in-depth, but nothing that was too terribly difficult.
Overall First Impression: Take this with a grain of salt as I haven't actually brewed on the system yet. However, given my experience so far, I am thoroughly impressed with the operation and quality of the system. The only complaint I would have is the grain basket quality. Hope that they figure out a different way to make it attach to the frame. Maybe sandwich the SS mesh between two pieces of metal on the frame and weld those together. Of course, that would increase cost, but it would also resolve the issue.
P.S. I will be posting a full blown review after my brew day is complete. Probably going to brew this weekend.
