So today I finally got to brew with the Brewdevil. But strangely I can't tell you about the beer I made as it is for the 4 way brew off with
@Hoddy @dan125 and
@dave_77
Instead I will tell you about my first experience with my new machine. It didn't go well. The end, well not quite, I hope someone reads this, learns and perhaps help me get better.
The recipe was a bit last minute, something I had thought about brewing for some BBQ's but tweaked to match the English Hop rule. Last night resulted in frantic messages to Dan and Hod asking for advice on brewing with an all in one compared to BIAB ( Dan also as a BD). Recipe decided today was brew day.
Using the controls is simple enough and putting it all together was straight forward, key note - make sure you check everywhere for polystyrene, I found some hidden whilst cleaning up.
When doing BIAB I usually stir the mash regularly but this isn't possible with the BD but the re circulation must be doing some good. Luckily I have a decent sparge heater, now do people sparge with the basket still in the low position so the re-circulation still goes, or do you lift it up to pour the sparge water directly on the grain bed? I thought the latter would be best for getting the sugar out but did mostly the former. Any tips?
Another thing on sparge is without the liquid sight installed I couldn't see the markings inside the BD due to the malt pipe being there, may need to install the sight glass.
I also had some issues with the boil, Dan warned me that the temp might be out. I left the grain draining whilst getting up to boil, walked away and came back to a boil over, which is worrying as it was a small batch. I also noticed it was reaching a rolling boil at 98.3c and therefore not kicking in the timer, some adjustments are needed.
All was going ok until I went to test the chiller, luckily out of the BD, one of my connectors was leaking. I sent up my other chiller but it didn't sit in the wort enough so a mad rush to the shops for another one. All was going ok until I was transferring the wort - chilling went fast due to re-circulating the wort over the chiller. My 6 year old was keen to help so whilst i was pumping the wort to the FS2 I helped him move the hose pipe, only for the transfer tube to come out of the FS and spill about 2l all over the garage floor.
So after all that I have 22l in the FS, slightly more than planned. Dan warned me about lower efficiency. When BIAB I would build a recipe for 72% efficiency, Dan sent me the beersmith profile for the BD which was set at 60%. I didn't have enough ingredients to add more, although I did have some alternatives but thought I would get more than 60%. When in fact I hit 60.3% - but did forget to add one ingredient. Luckily I had something in the cupboard to give it a little boost.
At least cleaning seemed straight forward.
I guess next brew will be easier, just need to work out how to improve my efficiency.
