Brewzilla Brewing System First Impressions - Brew Dudes
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- Опубліковано 31 січ 2023
- We've both upgrade to electric brewing the the BrewZilla! We're catching up to the 21st century of brewing.
In this video, we reveal our initial experiences using the Brewzilla. John has the Gen4 and Mike has the Gen3. We discuss the pros and cons of the system as well as how we've been using it and what we plan to do next.
Tell us about your electric brewing experiences in the comments section.
Cheers!
#BrewZilla #ElectricBrewing #brewdudes
Check out our blog:
www.brew-dudes.com/brewzilla-...
Welcome to the wonderful world of electric brewing! I have a brewzilla (robobrew as it was called originally) but last year I ran 240V to my kitchen island (wife approved) and upgraded to the Grainfather G40 for 10G up to Batches. The best part of getting the robobrew was the warning on the box… “Warning, home brewing will cause your clothes to shrink.” And damnit! They were right! You should do a video on that weird phenomenon…
Guys, another fine video. To the point about a vigorous boil. I've read on a few different forums where quite experienced brewers participate and many indicate there is no need for a vigorous boil; just attain the temperature. I have an Anvil Foundry and brew with 110v in my garage. I leave the lid on, but not seated as Mike explained and I get a very decent boil. Thanks for all the great work you do for the home brewing community.
Tell those very experience forum members that while sterilization and isomerization happen at 212F/100C, a weak boil presents another issue. Primarily, a weak boil has a lower evaporation rate than a strong one. My primary complaint with the weak boil is the extra time required to get to my target OG and volume. I am still figuring out then if I add more grain can I hit the target from a recipe formulation issue and not wait for the boil length to get me there. Cheers! -Mike
Aussie love your channel Maaates! Here downunder we love our BrewZilla with no Chill.... 200+ brews done and going strong!!
I have an Anvil 6.5 which is specifically made for 3 and 2.5 gallon batches. I have the same problem when it comes to brewing smaller batches, like 1 or 1.5 gallon batches. For every inch in the kettle, it allows for 0.433 gallons of water or wort. The bottom of the mash tube is 2 inches above the floor of the kettle, so there’s no way to efficiently brew just a gallon. You would think that manufacturers of these systems would see the opportunity for smaller capacity systems, but I haven’t seen anything out there yet. The electric brew system is great for the reasons you gave. It eliminates the guess work and trouble when cooking your mash. I brew with a friend of mine, and there’s no way that we can consume five gallons within six months. Smaller batches are best for us so that we can experiment with different types of beer. Thank you so much for all the work you’ve done making all the beer and making these videos. Cheers!
Newer versions of the Brewzilla have fixed the issue with depth. I have heard of some people ditching the malt basket and just using a BIAB style grain back to sit on top of the lower false bottom as well. That should get you a little more usable depth. The thing is for me I just don't mind sacrificing some wort to get the batch I want. So you may need to come to terms with making 2 gallon final batch volume when all you want is one. I don't find the expense too prohibitive if I am saving my time for test batches/recipes. Cheers! -Mike
2 things make the Brewzilla rock- Add an Inkbird Sous Vide stick to help get the boil faster & use Brewfather.
I do like the Brewzilla.
The Gen 4 looks great.
I've been using the Anvil 10.5 @ 240V for some time. The problem I see with the Brewzilla is you have to buy 240 or 120V. The Anvil has a switch that allows you to use either. It is a wonderful system as I'm sure the Brewzilla is. I would love to do a test run on the Gen 4 @ 240V.
Welcome to the 21st century 😁
Regarding the "math" you referred to at the 13:50 mark, you should consider giving Brewfather a try. Your Brewzilla profile is already in there, so your adjustments would most likely be pretty slight to get everything dialed in like you would like it. It would make quick work of your water adjustments and is an all around great piece of brewing software to play around with. Not trying to come off as a salesman, but a good product is just a good product.
You could supplement the boil with over the side immersion heater.
I use a 240 v induction burner with a brew bag. It is energy efficient and powerful and throws off almost no heat. Add a thermometer with a 12" probe and an alarm, you have a semi-automated system that can brew large or small batches.
I have the Brewzilla 3.1.1 240V system. It's great but the gen 4 looks like it's improved some the main issues. I also was frustarted by the large dead space/void volume at the bottom. I think they only did this as people were crushing too fine and then either putting the pump on too fast or central recirc pipe to high so there was a chance of it running dry. I belive the void volume is smaller on the gen 4. Great video!
Another great video guys!! I don't know where the myth that you can't boil with the lid on came from. I have been brewing now since 2011 and i have experimented with lid vs no lid because i am a stove top all grain brewer and i need the extra boil the lid provides and neither me nor anyone that has ever tasted any beer i've ever brewed can tell the difference. I've never had an off flavour and i sure enjoy the procedure more with the lid on. just my two cents for you. thanks for all you both do and keep on brewing
One hack to get a vigorous boil is to get an electric immersion heat stick to add to assist the boil. You do need to find another circuit to run it on though to avoid tripping breakers
Great to see you join us on the dark side, or the 21st century as you call it.
Regarding boil times and dead space, you should forget what you know of brewing and trust the numbers that you get out of software such as Brewfather. I have brewed 3 gallon barley wine 10% ABV on the BZ30 and had no issues using the numbers of Brewfather. I still got an 80% efficiency, although my normal efficiency for medium gravity beers is above 84%. Keep boil times to 60 or even 30 minutes, Brewfather will adjust the sparge water accordingly. You also no longer need a vigorous with modern malts, a simple moving boil will do.
Would love to see a follow up “A Year of Ownership Review” or something like that
I brew on a 1st generation Anvil Foundry 10.5 and I love the convenience of having the ability to brew with 110v or 220v at the flip of a switch. When I first purchased it, all I had was 110v but have since moved to a new home. I now have a dedicated brewing space in the basement with a dedicated 220v outlet protected by a GFCI breaker. The best thing that I’ve found with these electric all in one systems is the ability to brew indoors especially here in New England (Connecticut). Love the show and the content! Cheers!🍻
I was hoping y'all would do this video! Thanks for the great work as usual!
Look forward to a possible Gen 4 review John.. 🤞🍻
Excellent stuff, Brew-dude fellas.
That review ticks all the boxes. What's good? What is not so good? How to work around the not so good? And an honest summary. Exactly what homebrewers are looking for. Ka pai from NZ. 👍👍
Thanks for the support! Cheers! -Mike
I have a 240VAC Gen3 Brewzilla.
Usually make 19-23 litre batches (fermenter volume).
23 litres is a bit too much for comfort but I can do it especially with lower OG beers.
I’ve made an Wee Heavy OG 1.084 batch of 15 litres but that was a special case with a long boil and also a separate ‘side boil’ to reduce 3 litres of first runnings to about 750 ml of syrup.
Usually for high gravity brews I will just use a portion of extract to bump the gravity.
Managing the mash temp can be tricky. Insulation, recirculation rate/mash flow rate (rice hulls really help!) and monitoring the mash temperature with a separate probe. I float the probe of a meat thermometer in the top of the mash. This has helped a lot.
Grainfather 120 user for 5+ years here. The vigorous boil is not needed as long as you hit 210 in my opinion. I’ve had no issues w it (but wort reduction isn’t normally a thing as GF calculator is excellent for water calculations). I also brew indoors and put a fan in a window so temp not as bad
The system specific GF recipe creator is great. I can see how nonspecific software wouldn’t be
Welcome to making brewing life easier -I use the brewzilla gen 4 65LT (240v-15amp) & do batches from 12lts to 45lts (due new lower malt pipe system) -it is magnificent & also now makes my older gen 3 35lt obsolete, other than as an HLT. ----all we need is for you guys to move to brewfather for your recipes & voila !!!! Enjoy your videos, keep them coming -many thanks
I'm saving for one here in Australia. Going from gas biab I'm looking forward to the step mashing & dialing in temps in general. 🍻
Nice video guys! Last year I got the foundry 6.5 (3 gal batches) and on 120v the boil is pretty tame as well.
I've been brewing on the brewzilla for a few years (gen 3) and I've really enjoyed the time savings and convenience it has to offer. I purchased a different bottom screen for the mashing step, which really aided in the sparge step (better rinse water drainage). Great unit for a great price considering it's competitor is the grainfather. Enjoyed the video, great work, dudes.
hello dudes, nice video as always, here in mexico electric systems are pretty expensive so i diy myself a 220v system with an inkbird PID controller, a kegland 3.6KW heating element and a 15 gallon keg, and it works awesome.
When I made the switch from extract brewing and partial mash to all grain. I opted for the Mash and Boil with the pump.. My pros and cons are about the same. Wish it was the 240v but then I would have to have another dedicated circuit. But mostly I find that the beers are some of the best I have made. This is going on two years now. The time it takes to come up to a boil is more than I would like on the 110v but like you said it lets me do other things like clean and sanitize while that is going on. If I could change anything about my system is that the temp control for mashing has a 5 degree + - for it. So if you want to mash at 150 F the temp doesn't kick on until you're down to 145 F to bring it back up to 150, and with the carry over it usually goes up to 154. having said that I just watch it and try to adjust while I'm brewing and don't really get that stressed out about it! I also became a user of rice hulls after having a batch scorch the bottom so bad that it kept erroring out. So now I always use them to keep everything even keel and try not to go to crazy. Love the channel.
I love my brewzilla. Good vid BD’s
I have a 220 v 65 L brewzilla gen 3, and have had it for a while now. What I love most about it beside its fairly low cost is all the fairly inexpensive add-ons you can buy. I have I steam condenser, which makes brewing in my garage (or indoor if I want) in wintertime less of a steamy wet mess with water dripping from the ceiling and running down the walls. But the best things are the larger grain basket you can buy and the boiler extenders you can add on. If I have a mind for it, I can brew 112 L batches on my 65 L brewzilla system with two boiler extenders assembled. (Which is the maximum recommended by kegland). No other brewing system has this option to my knowledge.
Thanks for your thoughts. Like yourselves I've held off buying an all-in-one for years. Partly because of the cost but also because of issues with quality between brands, design problems and availability of spares. I found a lot to like about the Gen 4 Brewzilla and now it's had time for any major issues to come out I think I may take the plunge this year (barring economic apocalypse). I look forward to hearing more about how you both get on with them.
Had a brewzilla gen3 110v for 3 years. Recently upgraded to clawhammer 240v 10g. I loved my Brewzilla was just time for something bigger. I sold it to some friends that wanted to get into homebrewing. The gen4 has less dead space then the gen3 and a larger grain basket, something to consider when deciding which one to purchase.
I studyed all the electric system pros and cons. I went the grainfather with bluetooth connect years ago based on the fact i had an app i could get notified when it was time to add hops , water salt additions and sparge etc. Since then theu have brought out the gen4 but i think the grainfather is a great bit of kit also. Id step up to the 40L for the next big ticket brewery upgrade
I went the 240 clawhammer route, it is so nice to set a temp and trust it more than LP, I also read a bunch of horror stories about those controllers and pumps failing so I opted for a system with separate units, but I was close to getting one of those all in one grainfather/brewmaster tower things
Have a RoboBrew G-3 110v that I have been using for years and use the J shaped arm to recirculate my mash water over the grain which also serves to keep the temp up where it should be.
On the RoboBrew the temperature probe is in the void space near the heating elements in the bottom of the unit so the mash in the top of the unit is several degrees cooler.
Stiring the mash is always a good idea help balance temps too. I'm alway probing my mash and the water that I am recirculating and checking that against the temp on the unit. Takes a little fiddling to harmonize the temps at times. Does take a while to come to temp- insulating has helped a lot.
Started on a cheap knock off Chinese (240v) version of the Brewzilla then graduated to a Grainfather G40 - which eliminates a lot of the false bottom liquid issues. However on both the super cheap and expensive versions I owned, what they give you is the ability to be consistent in your brewing method which, as Mike said, allows you to focus on the recipe. Also meant I could donate my old system to a friend who is now another avid convert to the hobby !!!!
Thank you for saying that about brewzilla and beer smith! It's so hard to get it dialed in on brew smith! Finally have mine down pretty well after 2 years of use though...
I wish there was a beersmith light version for the desktop. I don't care about brewhouse efficiency nor do I know to many brewers that do. I don't care about brew sheets with instructions for the brew day. I don't care about inventory or even all the branded malts and hops in the ingredient database. I just want solid recipe storage and easy GUI for building a recipe. Cheers! -Mike
Thanks, very interesting video. Seems like the 220v would be the one to go with.
You can also use the Brewzilla as a sous vide as a extra bonus if you have a vaccum sealer .
I've been thinking about giving that a try. I already have a vacuum sealer so... Cheers! -Mike
I have the chinesium equivalent. The 110v is a little under powered (1800W) I usually trip a breaker running full tilt if I'm not on a dedicated circuit. That being said it's a huge upgrade from a Coleman cooler and a pot on the stove. I don't rely on the interface so much to hold temp, it's a bit wonky. I plan to replace the controller with a raspberry pi with some proper PID software to control temps. At max capacity I get a legit 5.5 gal for ferment and a few pints of extra wort that I can use for yeast starter. I like that it's a single thing to clean and it's mostly consistent mashing my wort. What I don't like is it's a little wonky, prone to trip my breaker, I don't have a proper whirlpool, and the bottom screen is finicky and sometimes comes off. Cleaning is mostly a breeze. Chilling can take some time but I get mostly good results. I really shouldn't complain but everyone has their expectations and their reality. This is still not optimal but it's a huge improvement over gas, constant monitoring and insulation. After I replace it's brain with something more sensible I think I may actually have something I can work with without having to monitor it as closely. so I'm gonna say that electric is the way to go but you may need to make some tweaks to bring the system into your version of home.
I totally agree the 110 version is under powered, I have a Gen 2, which is even has less options than the Gen 3, if I were to ever upgrade I can use the Gen 2 easily for sparging water, I love the fact that you can set the timer to have your mash water ready, also you do have to have the lid off a little for a rolling boil, try turning the lid upside down, with your Whirlpool arm in place, I typically do 3 gallon batch also, you do have to watch out with extract kits it will go darker color on you because of the long boil, last thing make sure you're outlet is a 20 amp it will make use of the 1500 watt element, which actually should be 1600 watt and still safe, most houses outlets are only 15 amp some houses have dedicated outlets for appliances like KitchenAid mixer or food processor those outlets should be 20 amp
I've just finished my first two batches with the Gen4 35 liter, I'm very happy with the purchase. I have two questions:
1. If I use the PID function, do I still need to turn down the power to ~ 30% during the mash?
2. is there a delayed start function like in the older models? If yes, how do I access it's
Prost and keep the videos coming;)
I brew on a 10.5gal Anvil Foundry with 240v. Love the speed and convenience. However I find the malt pipe super annoying to clean. I bought an Anvil 10gal kettle and false bottom, I want to use the Foundry as boil kettle and as my strike water heater. I just haven’t figured out how to maintain mash temp or step mash during recirc in the new mash tun. Think I may rig up a hot plate underneath, hooked up to a thermostat. Anyway, if I can figure out something simple, it’ll allow me to do 8-9 gallon batches.
Its great for brew in a bag. I use a wire basket and it works great
In your you tube video you were concerned that there was to much space between the basket/grain and the false bottom. I thought using the bag could help with that
Yeah, I've been brewing 10 gallon batches. I just don't have the time for smaller batches anymore. I sacrifice variety, but at least I know that the beers I'm making are going to be good. This thing would be just a fancy mash ton for me.
Please tell me how you manage to consume 10 gallons of beer. How long does it take to drink it all?
@@KevinPeffley takes twice as long as 5 gallons. I don't have time to be brewing beer every month. I only brew like two or 3 times a year.
If you are going to expand your camlock goods or triclamp goods, be cautious. Not all camlock goods are the same. The worst isn't horrible, but the better ones are worth the buy. I bought some Amazon stuff, and instantly regretted it once I got my first shipment from Bobby at Brew Hardware. Everything I have gotten from his outfit is superior to that which I have bought elsewhere, but the cheaper will get you through. I am not saying cheaper is junk, it's just cheaper for a reason. Cheers.
Gotta agree, I bought a couple cheap camlocks recently, to add a couple adapters to my existing system, and they suck. Fitment is inconsistent. I’m half scared that they aren’t even stainless. Better to just spend on the good stuff.
@@grahamhawes7089 I had some machining issues on the Amazon ones. The accompanying gaskets were thinner as well.
with big beer i start the mash before bed ,,and finish it when i get up
Man, what happened to the intro music guys? I missed that..
Does it hold a consistent mash temp? I use the digiboil 220v (brewzilla but only the kettle and heating element - way cheaper). Without recirculation I find the heating element always overcorrects when the temp starts to drop.
Temp stability is rock solid. I have had no issues there. And I use only one element to maintain and ramp my steps. Cheers! -Mike
Haha sneaky Mike.
Have you tried brew in a bag on the your brewzilla.
Why? I mean I am seeing great process control using the malt basket. What is the advantage you think? Cheers! -Mike
replace the bottom valve with a 1500 w element ,,and you will get more speed and biger boil
Interesting idea. Cheers! -Mike
Why would you want to recirculate during the boil?
I dump my grains and clean my malt pipe while my Robobrew 110 gets up to a boil.