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Colorado Brewing Nano equipment profile

Buck57

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I am looking at the Nano brew setup from Colorado Brewing.  According to Tim, the owner, it's not really EBIAB system since it does constant re-circulation during the mash.  My question is - how to create an equipment profile for such a hybrid.  Is anyone experienced with this system and how to conceptually interpret Beersmith equipment and mash profiles to it?
 
Have you asked him what profile he'd use in BeerSmith?

EDITED FOR VERSION 2.3
Functionally, since the grain is in the same vessel as will be used to boil, it best resembles BIAB. The fact it recirculates is an easy adjustment to the equipment profile. Water needed to fill the recirculation circuit gets added to the "Mash Tun Addition" field. I don't think any water is lost as deadspace during the mash, so "Lauter Tun Loss" remains at zero.
/EDIT

Most BIAB is either minimally sparged or not sparged at all. However, with this system, there is an opportunity to sparge a bit as you're lifting the basket. Flow control is achieved by keeping the grain top at just about the same level as the kettle while sparging and slowly lifting the basket as it fills. Perhaps this is the distinction Tim is making?
 
I just purchased the home nano 20 gallon system and used it twice with out any sparge necessary. Though I have had a few problems.

My problem/question is how to articulate the beer smith program as to account for this particular system. I've adjusted most of the water variables as well as I can, but I'm still producing 1.5 more gallons of wort than necessary thus missing my OG by half a point or more.

What am I doing wrong here?
 
The equipment profiles are available from COBrewSystems here: http://www.cobrewingsystems.com/pages/downloads
 
Tim at CBS told me to use Beersmith's BIAB mash profile, which should provide a full volume mash. When I tried that, the agreement between Beersmith and the CBS water spreadsheet was pretty good. It became spot on it I edited Beersmith's BIAB residual water value, under the advanced settings, to match the value in the CBS spreadsheet. (In fact Tim said BS is the way to go, and to ignore their sheet if you have it.)

By default BS uses a grain absorption value around 0.58, I think... CBS uses different units in their spreadsheet but in BS fl oz/oz it came out to 0.8 if I did the math correctly.

And as jrodmfish noted, CBS has an equipment profile for download too. It includes the specific heat and weight values for the basket and so we should be able to have BS calculate strike temperature.

I don't have my Nano Home 20 yet but this seems like it should all work.

It's going to be a long couple of weeks til it gets here.
 
The problem with the profile you can download from CBS is that the mash tun volume on the 20g system is listed as 15g. I think this is an error. If you download the BrewBoss profiles (which is a similar system) you will see their 20g system has a 20g mash tun volume. If you don't fix this then BS will think you can't handle a batch that runs over the 22lb grain area.

The big issue I'm having with BS and this system is trying to get the water estimates and efficiency numbers to agree. I can easily adjust the evaporation rate but grain absorption is throwing me. I will squeeze the grains a bit but not excessively so I am not entirely sure what to enter in BS for a new global value. I have measurements of how many gallons are absorbed but I'm not sure yet how to convert those values into the ratio used by BS.

My biggest issue is trying to figure out my mash efficiency. I think I'm only getting about 65% mash efficiency which upsets me about the CBS system. What is driving me insane today is the fact I can't really understand how BS is calculating the mash efficiency. I started a post out of frustration when I tried to do the math myself and came up with a difference of 3%.

For the equipment profile I think the main values are easy to enter and specific to the rest of your system. Those are batch size, evaporation rate, loss to trub, and loss in fermenter. This will drive what BS calculates for the water needs (the grain absorption rate is outside this profile). Evaporation rate is something you need to test as it varies. Loss to trub depends on if you use a plate chiller or don't like to pull trub into your fermenter. Loss in fermenter is something you have to figure out over time.

FWIW I think it helps to make an equipment profile for 10g batches and 5g batches. I found the loss to trub was much less for a 5g batch (less grains most of the time).
 
pretzelb said:
grain absorption is throwing me. I will squeeze the grains a bit but not excessively so I am not entirely sure what to enter in BS for a new global value. I have measurements of how many gallons are absorbed but I'm not sure yet how to convert those values into the ratio used by BS.

Just convert both water and grain into ounces. Then divide water by grain.

1 gallon = 128 fl oz
1 pound = 16 oz

(gallon absorbed * 128) / (total grain lbs * 16) = fl oz/oz
 
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