Burco Cygnet 30l boiler calibration.

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Gerryjo

Still brewing though never get much time....
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I decided to calibrate my newly acquired Burco Cygnet boiler/urn after fitting a new ball valve and as can be seen the temps are pretty good and stable.

Calibrated using 27 litres of cold tap water and overall it took 1¾ hours including documenting results and shall time a boil from cold another day.

I found that a slight adjustment on the dial varies the temperature by ± 2 degrees so will be quite adequate for mashing whether BIAB or adapting to a mash tun as I intend to do using two ANSELF brushless DC pumps which are usb powered.

Hooked one up to the boiler and was able to recirculate the water with the pump in the sink and varied the flow using the lever valve.

Must mind to calibrate that too using an old Pyrex jug.

So check out the photos below and hope it's of help to someone.👍
Shall be testing tomorrow as I'm brewing with a mate from work who's looking to venture to AG so hope all goes well.
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Gerry
 
I have the 20 litre and it had a 94deg cut out bypassed that and get a good boil.


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Check the calibration of your thermometer. Unless you live in Death Valley, the temp of a rolling boil cannot exceed 100oC. A pan of water on a stove top will do. Also check the lower end temps..Industry standard is ...equal ammounts of Ice and water, should give a reading of 0oC +/- 0.5oC
 
Check the calibration of your thermometer. Unless you live in Death Valley, the temp of a rolling boil cannot exceed 100oC. A pan of water on a stove top will do. Also check the lower end temps..Industry standard is ...equal ammounts of Ice and water, should give a reading of 0oC +/- 0.5oC
Both thermometers have been checked against my inkbird 308 which I had a calibration check with a test technician at work and it was bang on so both have been checked against that with the skewer probe -0.3 and the other +0.2.
My initial reading was 101.q which lowered to 100.7 so I'm happy with that.

Gerry
 
Had a brew day with the boiler today and totally mishap with the tap open for the sparge with three litres over the floor.
Overall quite happy as I used it to boil my stout and also a second runnings put together after mashing the grains of a Rye Pale Ale and a stout together.
Estimated boil off is around 4 litres per hour and all three brews are in chill cubes at present.

Gerry
 
Looking to try an Irish Red but I'm thinking of doing an overnight mash using the boiler itself set for 68 degrees.Has anyone tried this and if so what type of results did you get?
 
No experience with your kettle, but my gut is screaming out to suggest you at least try lagging the hell out of the kettle after hitting a circa 71c strike temp and rely on insulation to retain the heat rather than risk cooking and denaturing half your grain with direct heat input.unless you can minimise the risk with a good re circulation flow over the heat input source.

I would suggest perhaps a slow and steady temp drop of 1-2c over the mash duration(or significantly higher if overnight) will be way preferable to a variable risky cook attempting to maintain a temperature with a controller that could overheat before registering target hit cutt off. well imho that is..
 
No experience with your kettle, but my gut is screaming out to suggest you at least try lagging the hell out of the kettle after hitting a circa 71c strike temp and rely on insulation to retain the heat rather than risk cooking and denaturing half your grain with direct heat input.unless you can minimise the risk with a good re circulation flow over the heat input source.

I would suggest perhaps a slow and steady temp drop of 1-2c over the mash duration(or significantly higher if overnight) will be way preferable to a variable risky cook attempting to maintain a temperature with a controller that could overheat before registering target hit cutt off. well imho that is..

Hmmm interesting.I did think about leaving the element running but also thought about lagging the lot.
Now as for recirculating I suppose I could set up the mash tun to recirculate from the boiler though may have to think about adding another two taps or inlet valves,one for each.
Definitely some food for thought.:thumb:
 
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