Ace electric boilers?

[Twostage]

Being from Yorkshire I would have taken a gravity reading and tasted it before dumping it :-). A lot of the conversion happens in the first few minutes and 92 is only a few degrees above mash out. It would possibly have been like a decoctation only with the taking it out bit. Might actually have turned out quite nice although nothing like you were planning. You probably don't want to be reading this :-(

To make up for that I've found three more bottles of my elderflower which I think you were interested in when I made it last year. pm me if you want one.

 

[Tony1951]

Being from Yorkshire I would have taken a gravity reading and tasted it before dumping it :-). A lot of the conversion happens in the first few minutes and 92 is only a few degrees above mash out. It would possibly have been like a decoctation only with the taking it out bit. Might actually have turned out quite nice although nothing like you were planning. You probably don't want to be reading this :-(

To make up for that I've found three more bottles of my elderflower which I think you were interested in when I made it last year. pm me if you want one.

:)

Thanks for that kind offer. I can accept that if you allow me to come by and swap you a bottle of my killer 7.8% ipa. :) We can't live far apart. Thanks.

The thing about using that wort is that the thermostat was set to 74C for the strike water. The mash when I doughed in was at the optimum temp of 68C for what I was trying to do - produce a low attenuating wort with a big mouth feel. With this design of boiler, when ever it is powered and even when the thermostat has cut off the 1500 watt element, the 900 watt one is on. That one is always on when the boiler is powered. As soon as the mash was doughed in and the temperature dropped below 74 (maybe 71 degrees) the big element would have cut in and applied 2500 watts to the mash. When it got to 74, the big element would have cut off again and the 900 watt one would have continued. I think the mash would very rapidly have destroyed the beta-amylase and would have probably made a wort that would have stuck at about 1040. Also, I was wondering about having released tannins by overheating the husks. The mash was at 92 degrees when I found the problem, In the end, I thought that the waste of a fiver's worth of grain and an hour and a half of retired man's time was probably better than chucking in a ton of hops and more time and finding out in a fortnight that the stuff was only fit for the drain. You could be right. I did think of it, but in the end, I wanted forty some bottles of APA... :) NEVER AGAIN.

 

[donchiquon]

Mine just bit me in the @*se yesterday......

It's the old model with 2500 watts and when it reaches the temperature set on the thermostat it shuts off one element BUT keeps on the 900 watt one which seems to be disabled on the new ones (somebody posted a picture showing that one end of the 900 watt element has been snipped off and is now out of circuit). The purpose of this feature on the earlier model, is to 'keep warm' the mash, though since the vessel is insulated it is a dangerous and pointless feature.

I got my strike water temperature to the ideal for my grain weight, water volume and grain temperature (74C) and STUPIDLY forgot to switch the boiler off at the mains. I mixed the grains, checked the temperature - it was perfect. Absolutely dead on my target. I then put a sleeping bag over the damned thing to keep it snug and went away.

When I returned to run off my wort it was steaming hot and at 92C!!!!! The air turned blue, but it was my own stupid fault. I had no idea how long the mash had been at an acceptable temperature before it got too hot so rather than waste hops and more time boiling unfermentable wort, I ran it off and tipped the lot down the drain and dumped 4.5kg of wasted grain into the compost heap.

How I did this stupid thing I will never know.

This put me back about 90 minutes on the brew day and I am just glad I'm not running a micro-brewery and wasting the grain by the 50 kilos.

Ouch! Never a good start to the day. Hope the second run was trouble-free.

I've just started my first AG brew with the ACE. After running through your mash technique a hundred times, I lost my bottle a bit and decided to try out the false bottom and grain bag in order to try and avoid any filter clogs on my first brew. The bag is well-fitted to inside of the boiler and I'm hoping it will still allow the grains to circulate freely.

The mash went well (I think!) and with 2 sleeping bags on the boiler I didn't lose a degree over 90 mins which I was surprised at.

I'm now on my second sparge. All going well. I'm only stirring at the start of each sparge for a few minutes to mix the water in evenly, then I leave it for 20 mins with a sleeping bag. Hope this is right....not sure if I should be stirring for 20 mins?!? :-?

I posted the pic of snipped 900w element, but I'm pondering modding the boiler in future so that the 900W element is connected to the thermostat (to give a slow boil) whilst the 1600W is switched on manually to speed up boil time etc. I'll see how my first few brews go....

 

[donchiquon]

1600w element produces a lovely rolling boil. No foam ups at all. [emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tony1951]

This is the 2500 watt boil. You can see the difference. :)

It's like it was connected to Hell or something. Doesn't half evaporate some wort.

On sparging, I have lately just been giving the grains a damned good stir at the start of each sparge when all the water is in, and then I leave the first sparge to stand for twenty minutes, then drain off and the second one for about ten minutes. The sparged wort runs off into a FV along with the first runnings.

On blocking the bazoooka filter. I have solved that problem. I bought a meter length of stainless hose braiding and replaced the bazzoka with that. Now I can drain the whole boiler no matter how much trub and hops there are in the boiler. The flow rate slows down a lot near the end, but it runs through, and I have MUCH less trub since I did that, half an inch only.

Even if your bazooka blocks completely as mine was doing with my big grain bills of late, it works fine just to bale the whole boiler out with a sterilised saucepan and put all the wort, sludge and hops into the FV. The beer I got by doing that was great. I expected it to be dreadful, but it was perhaps the best I have made.

This will work fine for you. Enjoy it. Oh and if you ever get the boiler switching off mid boil, work the thermostat back and forth end to end a few times. Mine did it once and that solved it. It came right back on and hasn't done it since.

Take care when washing up the boiler after use, not to get water into the boiler power switch. I've done that, and sometimes I have to switch it on and off a few times now to get it to come on. I have probably created minor corrosion of the switch contacts. It has done about twenty brews so it has had some use.

This is my new filter braided hose. I stuck the bazooka on the end to cap it off.

There has never been any problem draining the mash, but only after the boil. When I'm draining the cooled boiled wort, I now pull up the long filter so it stretches the full length of the wort column. This way, all the clag at the bottom has no impact and the wort just pours out until the last three inches or so and then it slows down, but the whole boiler drained in about ten minutes right to the last drop.

I got the hose on ebay - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290576775033

 

[Kman]

1600w element produces a lovely rolling boil. No foam ups at all. [emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That looks great, can't wait to take the plunge now

 

[nigelnorris]

Think mine's a dud, thermostat not even in the ball park, waiting to hear from eBay seller but he's out until Monday.

 

[donchiquon]

Think mine's a dud, thermostat not even in the ball park, waiting to hear from eBay seller but he's out until Monday.

They were v helpful when I called up with questions about the element.

To be honest I didn't use the thermostat. I used a thermometer with probe for the mash temp (and then switched the boiler off). Then for the boil the element ran continuously.

....but always nice to have kit that works properly in the first place! Good luck.

 

[Tony1951]

Think mine's a dud, thermostat not even in the ball park, waiting to hear from eBay seller but he's out until Monday.

The thermostat will not be better than + or - 5 degrees.

I use mine to achieve approximate mash temperature and check with an accurate thermometer. If I want a mash at exactly 67C, I can get one, but I wouldn't dream of relying on the thermostat.

Was yours outside this range?

 

[Tony1951]

They were v helpful when I called up with questions about the element.

To be honest I didn't use the thermostat. I used a thermometer with probe for the mash temp (and then switched the boiler off). Then for the boil the element ran continuously.

....but always nice to have kit that works properly in the first place! Good luck.

How did your brewday go donchiquon?

 

[donchiquon]

How did your brewday go donchiquon?

Hi Tony

Generally pretty good - despite taking 9 hours! Needless to say I had a great time!

I ended up using the false bottom and bag for the mash, but the grain was moving very freely. The boiler was brilliant - held temperature on the mash, drained perfectly every time, and boiled very steadily. I only used the false bottom for the boil and it caught all the hops very nicely.

I think I ended up with a preboil efficiency of 76% (if I have adjusted for wort temp etc ok). After boiling and dilution my SG was 1056 and then 1053 once I'd added a couple of litres of water to bring it to 23l. The recipe had predicted 1048-1050. I'm not sure if these results are "good" or not!

My chilled wort also had some suspended/curdled matter in it that I had not seen before in kits...is this normal?

I checked it all at 11pm and found my FV tap was leaking [emoji15] so had to decant the lot into a clean FV - luckily I'd only lost half a litre.

Overall very very happy the boiler - a great piece of kit. Thanks again for your notes on here - really useful for a first-timer!

 

[nigelnorris]

The thermostat will not be better than + or - 5 degrees.

I use mine to achieve approximate mash temperature and check with an accurate thermometer. If I want a mash at exactly 67C, I can get one, but I wouldn't dream of relying on the thermostat.

Was yours outside this range?

It's miles out, set at 40C or lower and it heats to 60C then holds there, set to 70C it ends up closer to 80. Part of the problem is it's not linear so I can't just add or subtract a few degrees.

Going in I read plenty of reviews so knew that the thermostat was only ever going to be so-so useful, mostly along the lines of stick it to 66 and leave it for half an hour to prepare for the mash then monitor it a bit more carefully once under way. But this one's just broken.

I want the thermostat working to its potential though, otherwise all I've got is an insulated boiler, which I could have bought a lot cheaper elsewhere.

I hope by the way that no one thinks that I've posted here to moan, these things happen and I'm sure this seller is responsible, so don't anticipate any issues sorting things out. Just adding to the conversation really.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I hope by the way that no one thinks that I've posted here to moan, these things happen and I'm sure this seller is responsible, so don't anticipate any issues sorting things out. Just adding to the conversation really.

Keep us posted.

 

[donchiquon]

How did your brewday go donchiquon?

A few other pics of the day including FVs with successive drain offs

 

[Tony1951]

Hi Tony

Generally pretty good - despite taking 9 hours! Needless to say I had a great time!

I ended up using the false bottom and bag for the mash, but the grain was moving very freely. The boiler was brilliant - held temperature on the mash, drained perfectly every time, and boiled very steadily. I only used the false bottom for the boil and it caught all the hops very nicely.
I think I ended up with a preboil efficiency of 76% (if I have adjusted for wort temp etc ok). After boiling and dilution my SG was 1056 and then 1053 once I'd added a couple of litres of water to bring it to 23l. The recipe had predicted 1048-1050. I'm not sure if these results are "good" or not!

My chilled wort also had some suspended/curdled matter in it that I had not seen before in kits...is this normal?

I checked it all at 11pm and found my FV tap was leaking [emoji15] so had to decant the lot into a clean FV - luckily I'd only lost half a litre.

Overall very very happy the boiler - a great piece of kit. Thanks again for your notes on here - really useful for a first-timer!

Really pleased it went well for you albeit that you had the odd snag.

On the curdled matter - that is normal. My first stove top brew had a horrible looking 'thing' in it like a morphing life form. It was so hideous I thought something really bad had happened. You will find the curdled stuff just drops out as a sort of white floury deposit in the FV. It's called trub. The kit concentrate has already been processed to get rid of all that break material.

Here is a photo of my first AG brew with 'The THING' in it. Turned out fine.

That false bottom thing looks really good. That would have saved me a lot of problems in draining my boiler which doesn't have that thing. I might try and get one of those. I suppose you have the bazooka mesh filter underneath that.

You seem to have got better efficiency than the recipe predicted as you are three points up on the range given. Well done and may this be the first of many good brews. Snags come up. The important thing is solving them on the fly.

 

[Tony1951]

It's miles out, set at 40C or lower and it heats to 60C then holds there, set to 70C it ends up closer to 80. Part of the problem is it's not linear so I can't just add or subtract a few degrees.

Going in I read plenty of reviews so knew that the thermostat was only ever going to be so-so useful, mostly along the lines of stick it to 66 and leave it for half an hour to prepare for the mash then monitor it a bit more carefully once under way. But this one's just broken.

I want the thermostat working to its potential though, otherwise all I've got is an insulated boiler, which I could have bought a lot cheaper elsewhere.

I hope by the way that no one thinks that I've posted here to moan, these things happen and I'm sure this seller is responsible, so don't anticipate any issues sorting things out. Just adding to the conversation really.

Right. That's a lot out. Is it possible to unscrew the grub screw that secures the knob and rotate it to the correct part of the dial? It may be that the shaft is just a round shaft in which case that could easily be done. If it is a ground shaft where the shaft has a flat on it, that would be less likely to work.

If you can't adjust the knob, I would be a bit inclined to just fiddle the thing to mash temperature where it was cutting out and cutting in at about 65 (+ or -) and put an indelible marker dot opposite the 65C mark on the dial. If it worked repeatably around that temperature I wouldn't be bothered. Up to you though.... :)

EDIT: Just went down to check out my boiler. The thermostat shaft has a flat on it and no grub screw. It's not that easy to get the bottom off because there isn't a lot of slack in the wires. It's not a very complex thing though.

I'd be very careful about leaving ANY of the elements on while mashing. No way the thermostat is good enough even at its best to keep an accurate enough mashing temperature. Far too much swing between switch on and switch off. Just put a sleeping bag or duvet on the boiler and it will hold for an hour within a degree C.

 

[nigelnorris]

Keep us posted.

Nice guy [Actually no idea if this trader is a guy, no names attached to any of the emails]. Offered me either a new thermostat or a refund. I didn't fancy much dismantling mine but sending it back would have left me having to research and shop all over again, so I bartered him to a £20 part refund, which he's processed straight away.

In conversation he mentioned they've got a more reliable and accurate version in the pipeline with a digital thermostat. Months away though.

I'd be very careful about leaving ANY of the elements on while mashing. No way the thermostat is good enough even at its best to keep an accurate enough mashing temperature. Far too much swing between switch on and switch off. Just put a sleeping bag or duvet on the boiler and it will hold for an hour within a degree C.

Yes, and the insulation with the lid on is very good too. Helps that I'll be working in my kitchen where the ambient temperature is fairly high anyway.

 

[nigelnorris]

Here is a photo of my first AG brew with 'The THING' in it. Turned out fine.

Gosh I'm glad to have been pre-warned and saw that in someone else's bucket before it appeared in one of mine.

 

[cheapbrew]

Congrats, it sounds like you had a good brewday and nice pics :thumb:

 

[donchiquon]

Really pleased it went well for you albeit that you had the odd snag.

On the curdled matter - that is normal. My first stove top brew had a horrible looking 'thing' in it like a morphing life form. It was so hideous I thought something really bad had happened. You will find the curdled stuff just drops out as a sort of white floury deposit in the FV. It's called trub. The kit concentrate has already been processed to get rid of all that break material.

Here is a photo of my first AG brew with 'The THING' in it. Turned out fine.

That false bottom thing looks really good. That would have saved me a lot of problems in draining my boiler which doesn't have that thing. I might try and get one of those. I suppose you have the bazooka mesh filter underneath that.

You seem to have got better efficiency than the recipe predicted as you are three points up on the range given. Well done and may this be the first of many good brews. Snags come up. The important thing is solving them on the fly.

Yikes! Looks like something out of Quatermass and the Pit! I sieved out some of the bigger bits when I had to decant to a new FV and it was just grey sludge. Good to know that it's normal!

The false bottom was excellent and kept the bazooka clear of hops so that it could deal with the smaller particles. I'm sure that ace would sell you then separately.

What sort of efficiency did you get with your with bag/without bag techniques? (Just wondering if mine fits with your bag efficiency). Again it's nice to know that I'm heading in the right direction. [emoji2]