Understanding the Brewzilla Gen 4 - Consistent Mash Temperatures - Part 1 - Bluetooth Thermometer
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- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
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The best video about this topic! No more significant temp overshoots here. Many thanks! 👍
Glad it was helpful!
For PID-regulators with a slow input-to-output response a high integral time and a low derivative gain will help you get that oscillating curve flatter
Great video, really good seeing actual utilisation not theoretical....keep up the good work 🍺🍺
Glad you enjoyed it, cheers !
Excellent explanation and an advert forcwhy it's worth dialling in your pid settings. Keglands video on pid combined with this video is a must have imo
I used to use PID but with changing grain amounts and water amounts it needs tweaking all the time, I went back to no PID after this video and have had no troubles. PID is ok when things are consistent. Cheers
Thanks allot bud. 3 brews in to my 65l and have been having a nightmare learning this beast last time out I started to sus this out and now you have confirmed my recordings. All the brews have come out great. Many thanks
Great to hear! Cheers mate!
Great video! I would love to see a video similar to this, including the PID. Thanks!
Thanks for the info! I am having temp control issues too and am glad to know there's a solution.
No problem! Hope it helps mate!
awesome video. today was my first time using the BZ 65L with the thermometer, and l had a hard time raising the temp for mash out. things are much clearer now thanks to you
Awesome 👍 cheers mate!
Thanks for this video. Just bought a Brewzilla and this helped me understand the temp settings a lot better
No problem 👍
This is so useful! thanks a lot.
Glad it was helpful!
I have the same setup and used it quite a few times now. In my experience it's all about proper circulation without too much resistance through the grain using the pump. A proper grain crush, and not too much of it, as well as stirring once a minute while the mash is thick during the first 20 mins or so are by far the most important. Proper circulation evens the temp difference between builtin probe at the bottom and the top of the mash and if the flow through the grain bed is restricted too much, the numbers are way off, much larger than the potential gained precision when using PID. The wort near the bottom will produce too many dextrins etc. It's just a fundamental issue with the RIMS system design like most home brew kits are, grainfather, brewmonk, brewzilla, etc. Many breweries use motorized stirring during the mash and heat through the sides of the vessel instead with fx steam and that's just better in many ways.
Yeah there's heaps of different commercial solutions but to be honest 99% of the breweries I visit, which is many each year of course in this business, rarely heat during a mash, they may add more hot water if needed sometimes for an adjustment at the start, anyway convo getting away from the Brewzilla now. I found the PID extremely difficult for 4 step mashes, to be honest the 35L is a tough call for 4 step mashes, unless you are adding hot water each step or decoction, though still possible without that, but I'd drop some early steps that should be quick, because the days you want it quick are the days it will play games hahaha and just stick the last couple of steps, I prefer decoction anyway. These days my 35L are usually just for sparging, the thin mash pipe is troublesome unless you work it, as you said. The 65L in comparison is a ton less work, wider but thinner mash bed, my single batches get done in the 65L unless doing something specific for a video. There's a ton of bad advice given on forums about double crushing grains and a bunch of other things that just make these brew days harder for beginners instead of easier! Cheers!
fantastic relevant content -thank u
You're very welcome, cheers mate!
Hi all, pretty late comment on the post… I’m new to the home brew scene definitely not a pro… one thing I’ve found after having to replace my brewzilla controller and not getting accurate temp readings was using the heat distribution plate. I’ve found they work effectively and true to the description. Basically work like a temp controller and set your differences within 2 degrees ( max) either side hot and cold. I found this is the sweet spot and have found my system so much more efficient 👍
Don’t mess with the PID settings either… tip for newbies , I learned this the hard way myself 👍
That plate was made because of me, I use it in all of my systems lol cheers!
I sure wish Kegland would make the target temp display font bigger. Or at least make it bold font. My old eyes aren't what they used to be. I wrote them and asked for a fix. We'll see. Thanks for the great content. I am loving the BZ Gen 4 65L and hope that the BT thermometer and diversion plate help rein in the temps.
I'm starting to wonder if the recommended mash temperatures are correct, when using BT probe, to actually maintain these temperatures in the grain bed.
Without BT control, the actual mash temp is much cooler overall. But that method always gave good beers!
I'm noticing that doing same recipe, with or without BT, gives very different beers. Using BT control, the beer ends above the expectd FG; and tates maltier/ richer. So guess this is down to higher temps, giving more Dextrins.
Those recommended temperatures were decided, before accurategrainbed temperature graphs were available.
It;'s interesting to see the differnce in your readings, between the inbuilt sensor and the BT probe, even though you seemed to have a good recirculation rate.
I'm finding that with slower recirculation, when doing recipies with high % Wheat or Rye, the difference between readings is greater. Though I dont see any great overshoot in BT readings.
A 5C diff setting, results in a step mash temp change time of 10 -15 minutes. Any less diff, and the steps would take forever.
Hopefully program profile, will eventually be updated to allow control of all BZ4 settings.
Got one of these early in play as an upgrade from a G30 (handles ftw) and I absolutely hated it, but between the bluetooth thermometer and the diverter plate it’s like a new machine - no issues since. It does like the high flow reirculation high though, and good crush is vital.
Glad you got it sorted, I struggle every time with new equipment, I've had this since release too, but I'm always over confident changing systems, thinking it'll be the same or extremely easy change over and its rarely the case lol Cheers mate!
Love the videos as always, but gotta ask where you got that sweet hat?
Thats a Fixation hat, going to try and get my own made shortly. cheers mate! fixationbrewing.com.au/products/fixation-corduroy-cap
Great informative video, thanks for that. I'm still new to all-grain brewing having only 4 brews on my 35l gen4 (all turned out great) but tomorrow will be my first time using the rapt bluetooth thermometer and the heat exchanger dish. Fingers crossed it all goes well.
Good stuff! Hope it goes well mate.Cheers!
I used both last time and I think it worked better. I struggled to get it to boil though. I had to turn off the whirlpool circulation and the boil got better. Right now I don't think I can get the 110v to boil much off. Maybe a half gallon in an hour.
@@HomeBrewNetwork my brew day went very well, 6 points over my target OG lol. No real issues using the thermometer and heat exchanger dish.
Started off using 6c for the allowed sensor diff but it was swinging wildly from the 68c I had set. Once I set it to a diff of 3 it stablised with no more than 1c either side of 68.
Thanks again for the video without it wouldn't have had clue what was going on. Cheers mate 👍
@@carlkessler303 When boiling I always set it to roughly 10 degrees higher then boiling point, but that is an old habit from earlier models, and other systems, but I guess that wont work with any profiles since timers wont start until it hits temps. I rarely use the profiles, especially not for the boil. I guess you knew to bump all the settings up for the boil, dont want the soft settings of the mash, and also ditch the temp probe. Half gallon isnt too bad, think most of mine settings have always been around 3L which isn't too different. If youve seen the very expensive braumeisters they hardly boil at all. Cheers!
@@TwoMorbid Thats great to hear! Cheers mate
Great video, thanks for sharing.
I'd argue that there is a problem with the software in the PID algorithm when using the Bluetooth probe which needs this work around. It's not very user friendly as you can't yet program the changes you need to do in the RAPT portal to set up a profile, so is a very manual hands on method of brewing(ok for most of us).
I've used the PID with the bottom probe only and it runs like a dream once ive set it up, but try it with the Bluetooth probe and I can't get it to work what ever I try and having seen keglands advice, it looks like it just doesn't work with it.
Cheers
I don't use the portal for anything but observation on ferments, I don't use it for brewing, I just don't see the need or want for it. I know some people want this automated system but I think its a bit of a stretch for a budget unit. Though yes, Mash profiles do work now especially that it waits till it hits the temp before starting the timer. It is improving all the time, I guess I should keep an eye on it but I just don't use it. I did use the probe with the PID I think it worked from memory, the settings would need tweaking though since I'd set the PID up to work with the probe at the bottom. They are updating things all the time in the software, again I should try and keep an eye on it, my interest travels elsewhere when my system is working satisfactorily for me. Cheers!
Very informative, thanks! I also struggle with the differences in reading between the BT probe and the internal probe. I'll try and crush the grains a bit coarser next time. I assume the water to grain ratio also matters. Do you use theBrewfather number of 3,2? I guess a higher ratio also increases the flow.
Yes water to grain matters, but more importantly its the crush. I dont use water/grain ratios in single vessel systems they just dont work except for a very small window. I keep it simple, up to about 5kg is 20L mash in, above that 21-22L mash in whatever fits well. You adjust these setting in your profile set up. Cheers
Im very new to brewing and get so much useful info from your videos. I’m curious what you think about using a voltage controller to have control over the power going to the element? Allowing the element to stay at a steady output instead of it turning on and off all the time causing a fair bit of fluctuation in temperature? I’ve seen it used for destining just wondering if it would work for this as well?
I don't think that would work with this model, maybe an earlier version, but I could be wrong. This model you can turn the element power down and once its adjusted and at temp it keeps temp pretty well. Cheers!
Hi Gavin. Excellent video. How much is your flow valve open? About half the way open?
Yeah was about halfway on this brew. Cheers mate!
I have the diversion plate and I've found the mash temperature variation pretty minor overall, especially coming from an insulated system with no way of actively heating my mash other than more infusion steps. Having brewed on a fairly basic steps. The end result is what matters
Yeah they made the diversion plate because me hehehe ;)
Great video. Silly question, how to you calculate your strike temp to begin with, or do you use software? Cheers
its usually about 5c above mash temp, though software and taking the temperature of your grain will be more accurate. Cheers!
Hi Gash many thanks for a great video! I used very similar setting to yoursalf but slightly lower powers setting than you. I have been unable to brew for ages due to injury but did my first brew last week with the Bz 35L after using a GF S40 for several years. It went really pretty well for a first time of using I tend to crush my grains quite course at a 1.5mm gap I think this really helps the recirc mash eff was 83% which is not too shabby for mash and sparge. I wonder if you have anything to say about using PID with the Brewzilla? I had very limited temperature variation just using the method you showed but some have said PID works well too and I wondered if you have tried it?
I've used both methods many times, I find no advantage of using PID, you can dial in PID but as soon as you do a beer that is different alcohol or size the PID will need adjusting. Either way, whatever makes you happy and works for you, it really doesn't matter. The mash is the easy part, everything after that is much more important. Sounds like you have yours working perfectly! Cheers mate!
Thanks for that reply I reckon I stick with the Rapt BT method you showed I had a pretty steady system with minimum over shoots.@@HomeBrewNetwork
Hey Gash! I have the 65L, with bluetooth thermometer, heat exchange dish and neoprene jacket but still having big differences with temp (65C on top and 72C on bottom) so I have to stir every 5-10min 😓. With PID the difference reduces but still exists. Do you stir?
I will try reducing the power and histeresis. ATD is set to 1
Not unless I'm doing a huge temp change. Though stirring a couple of times during the first half of the mash is always good even if not having temp issues
Good vid. I got my bluetooth thermometer a bit ago, but it looks like I need to calibrate the unit as the bluetooth and unit are pretty far off... you said you had a vid for calibrating the unit?
First test. Either full of water on brew day or just put about 10L in it, and the bluetooth probe. Heat to say 65c with pump on, put the lid on and walk away for 20mins. Check the temps, just make sure it hasn't just finished a heating cycle and compare the temps. They probably wont be exactly the same but should be very close. If not the Brewzilla does have temperature calibration. Of course you need something you think is reliable for reading the temperature. There is a 2 step calibration. So you heat the brewzilla to 65c for first calibration, again let everything settle in and be running the pump to even out the temperatures. Take a reading and you set the first calibration step to that reading. Bring it to the boil and do the second calibration at boil. Its really easy, but make sure you have enough water in it, no good doing it with 5L in it. Preferably at least 20L. Some people do the first calibration step with ice so its close to zero, but we don't use the brewzilla at those temps, we want it accurate at mash temps! Cheers
@@HomeBrewNetwork Thanks!
@HomeBrewNetwork Great tips, thanks! I think I need to recalibrate mine as I did it with ice and then at 65 or so. With the PID, heat dish, and no Bluetooth thermometer, it seems VERY temperature stable with little overshoot. However my last couple of brews have not fermented out as predicted so I'm thinking it's reading lower than it really is. I'll give your process a go, thanks!
What brand of stainless fermenter is that at the beginning of the video?
That's a bit of Frankenstein.. its part Nano-X, part Brewbuilt, part Fermzilla. Cheers!
1 question, If I wanted to upgrade and get this unit , simply for the screen being up top now and not having to bend down anymore, is it easy to use without using any of the bluetooth crap and using like the old Robobrew , totally manually
Its depends what you want to do, if you're just doing a simple single infusion mash, sure it's easy! It gets tougher doing step mashes, but step mashes are tough in any of the 35L systems. The difference with this one is there is much less dead space, there's good things about that and not so good things. Your flow is much more important so you always have wort on the probe and elements and its one of the reasons some people have overshooting issues. You don't need the bluetooth thermometer, it just helps people that are constantly checking the mash and wondering why the top and bottom often read differently. Getting the new one isn't going to make your beer taste better but it might save the knees on your jeans :)
@@HomeBrewNetwork Cheers, think I'll stick with my Robobrew V2 until it dies, had it welded up a coupla times, and a coupla other issues over the years , but it is easy to use and most important of all Makes good beer
I'm curious, one interest of the PID would be to have this fine tuning of power done for you, what is the issue if you use PID with the external thermometer? Also, would you keep the same hysteresis and max diff with the bigger unit?
I'm not sure their PID has a learning part to it, which is strange, but I've never heard it mentioned, I could be wrong though. The reason I did it this way is to keep it simple, it's easier to understand than the numbers the PID uses, even though the setting parameters are very similar in function. Yeah I'd try the same settings, I haven't needed to fine tune the 65L as much, but I will after all this testing. Cheers
@@HomeBrewNetwork most of the PID learning algorithm doesn't work that properly. But normally it should stay the same when you have the same mass to heat. There are some great tutorial on how to calibrate PID
@@j4nch Can you add a link to the tutorial you've found useful, please?
Hello. I bought brewzilla gen4 35l. Yesterday I heated water and turned the system on to calibrate the system. However, as soon as I reduce the heating and pump below one hundred percent power, the system turns the resistance and the pump on and off instead of reducing the power. It is clear that this is not a healthy way of working for the system. How can I make a setting?
Dont use the pump %, you throttle the pump speed on the recirc arm, Cheers!
@@HomeBrewNetwork thank you for answer. Pomp is ok. But what about resistance? is it normal? I think I heard those sounds in your video. I guess it's a normal situation. Simpler machines did not have such a principle of operation.
What fermenter is that next to your bz?
That particular one is a NanoX but they still have issues sealing, if interested I'd be looking at the brewbuilts, www.kegland.com.au/products/26l-brewbuilt-x2-jacketed-stainless-steel-conical-unitank-fermenter?sca_ref=3981103.tEyKVMKmq5 Cheers!
Is there a certain hop spider that works with the brewzilla gen 4?
Any will work, unless it's some weird size!
@@HomeBrewNetwork appreciate it!
To be fair this is an issue with all brewing units of this type, especially if they're tall and narrow. Can these setting changes be programmed into profiles so you don't have to keep changing settings between steps? Otherwise it severely reduces how "automated" the system is
Yep it is a problem with all 35L skinny ones, its why I use my 65L most of the time even for small batches. No they cant be programmed in yet, but Ive never looked at these as automated systems, Ive never used them that way, brewing is too organic in my opinion. Though I do hear some people expecting it to mill the grain and keg it for them too. For budget systems they do very well. Brewing in manual is the only way to go. :) They can be used via wifi, and yes they can run mash profiles, but the strike temp and grain temp is up to the user, thats the main bit, get that right and the machine cruises. Cheers!
Agreed, I've never liked the idea of "set and forget" brewing, it just doesn't sit right. They are quite heavily promoted as such though
@mkeysou812 really, wow didnt know I refuse to watch UA-cam channels that are run or backed by shops so I dont watch many brewing videos these days, all the other big channels are sponsored or they work for or own shops, I don't watch them
There's a BIG problem with the Brewzilla and it's the temp probe can be very far from displaying the right temps.
I recently bought the gen 4 and it was off 4-5 degrees celcius around the 60-70 range. And the 2 point calibration is quite complicated to get right.
The calibration is easy now, just put in some room temp water, set the first calibration, boil the water, make sure its at least half full preferably full and set the second calibration there, keeping in mind your elevation adjustments for boil temperature. Cheers!
@@HomeBrewNetwork I'm a novice in brewing and during weekend I had first all grain brew on Brewzilla. No RAPT thermometer. But I calibrated built in thermistor with external thermometer to range of mash temps (point 1 - 55 °C, point 2 - 80 °C) with 20 l of water. I guess this is much better for reality as we are not interested at all to have right temp at the cold side and precise temp at the boiling point. We know it's boiling.
I'm a geek and web developer and from my previous experience of building 3D printers, I also calibrated Steinhart Hart curve for specific type of thermistors up from 100 °C upwards as a basic plastic starts to flow at 180 °C. So was not interested about trying to achieve precise temps at the bottom of the spectrum, I simply did not care.
Anyway, my brew went great and got to precise SG before boiling. Gravity after boil was 3 points lower than intended due to not so strong boil. So ended up with 28 l of 1.045 (11° Brix) intstead of 25 l of OG 1.048. More beer for me :D.
Might get Rapt Thermometer if I try multistep infusion later due to faster heating response of the heating element but now I'm just getting in :)
@@ZhuJo99 That's exactly right, its silly to try and calibrate it at 0c for instance, because we are never near there for mash temps. Also since you're new , don't stress too much about temps being exactly right, some people just lose their minds when its 1 or 2 degrees out and not even the best beer taster in the world could tell the difference in the beer, there probably isn't any difference. The mash really is the easy part in brewing, as long as you have a good crush and can get some flow in the mash, stir it a few times if needed, it'll do itself. We all used to mash in a bucket/esky/cooler no recirculating, put hot water and grain in, shut the lid and it did itself, the beer didnt get any better once we got these fancy systems. Its only that people can see a digital temperature display that updates constantly that they started freaking out, in the cooler/esky we just had one dial thermometer in one spot and everything else was static, we all were happy, in reality, the other end of the mash tun was probably a different temperature, or the top, or the bottom. There is on mash tun that is the perfect temperature throughout the whole mash tun. Anyway enjoy your brewing and good luck with the next batch. Brewing is a weird organic thing and just when you think you have everything down pat, it'll throw a curve ball at you lol Cheers!
@@HomeBrewNetwork thanks! Well I went really fast into it. We have great book called "Pivarka" (beer brew book) here in Slovakia from pals from Czech Republic which has plenty of great info and full of great photos. So while I had some rough idea on brewing, I've got most details from this book. Decoction, multi step infusion etc.
Czech guys are not used to do mash tun like in USA (buckets covered with sleep bag) but had been building their own 3 vessels etc ever since. Here in Czech and Slovakia (and Poland too) to improvise and build from what you can cheaply get is a tradition. Some mind left overs from commie times when everything was hard to get :).
I have limited space so bought all in one instead. It went pretty fast from my first attempt from extract few months ago (which tasted good but was lacking depth). Fermzilla, pressure kit (still not full under pressure), two weeks ago finished implementing temp twister for controlled fermentation with ice water from car fridge (works fine). And recently, brewzilla as I have found jar pot is not going to make it (it scorched and it took hours to get to boil).
Anyway, the only problem during my first brew in brewzilla was to ramp up temp for mash out - as it was at 76 °C at the bottom while still 65 at top. Will stir it next time. Second, to get below some point during cooling. Have no running water in my workshop so I had to bring it from the shared toilet, using ice etc.
I said „heck with it“ when it was at 35 °C, pumped it into Fermzilla, closed, covered it with CO2 to prevent infection and left it few hours to cool down.
Will do it to little below 50 °C next time (without CO2 blanket as Fermzilla is not rated for that at such temp). Just to stop DMS creation, alpha acids from hops making beer bitter etc and get nice cold break.
Crush was fine, did it at 0,40" (1mm) and it was fine, nice hulls and no problems sparging. Actually I don't get why people are not doing sparging to "save time", my went fast in about 15 minutes to 1.010 out on refractometer when I stopped (about 12 liters of water calculated by brewfather and it matched). Refractometer is calibrated with correction factor from hydrometer
Brewzilla gen 4 65 having problems with my pump clogging and half flowing can you please help thanks
Also I tend to over shoot my mash by about 1.7 Celsius so I now set my target temperature around 65.3 to compensate
There's no reason your pump should be clogging, junk shouldn't be making it to the pump, make sure you take the recirc pipe out of the grain before you turn the pump off each time, make sure you're not overflowing grain down the handle holes, there's no other way grain can get down there unless you have a hole in your mash pipe! If it's during the boil, just don't pump during the boil, there's absolutely no need and can stress the pump with the bubbles.
A lot of false pump clogs are air locks, the pumps can seize or at least stop when not primed, or full of air which can come from pumping when boiling.
Give some more detail on when and how its "clogging" cheers!
@@HomeBrewNetwork I've had issues with clogging too. Last brewday for example. All was whirlpooled and nice and clear but when I tried to pump the wort into a cube, nothing happened. Open the tap to test, but nothing came out of there either. What fixed it was turning the pump off, and blowing hard into the recirc tube. Of course, this destroys the effect of the whirlpool with all the floaties back in the wort. When the cube was full and it came to clean up, the same thing happened. Blowing into the recirc tube pushed out a whole heap of grain bits and then the tap and pump were working again. Why this happens, I can't figure out. I always take the tube out of the mash before turning the pump off and from what I can see, no grain makes it through the sides. The only explanation I have is that when stirring the mask, the paddle scratches along the screen of the malt pipe and pushes bits of grain through the screen. But on the other hand, this should be re-introduced into the mash by means of recirculation. I've been scratching my head about this one a fair bit.
@@tomwidauer8376 So you're whirlpooling fine? and then it blocks when nothing is happening? That's very strange!
@@HomeBrewNetwork I should have mentioned that I whirlpool by hand. I give it a vigorous stir until a vortex forms in the middle and then let it sit for 20 minutes. That has always worked fine for me.