The Bulldog Brewer

[Motorbikeman]

Anyone want to give a review or opinions on these?
I am considering one for myself.   

[auralabuse]

I got the version one. I'm delighted with it. Simple to use, decent quality. I got it for the lower price and to be honest you couldn't make one for near the price. Brew day is easier by about 2 hours. Clean up is handy too as no separate mash run etc to clean.

[Damofto]

+1 ,

It makes for a very easy brew day compared to using my old Igloo cooler and boiler.  Mash efficiency is better too, according to Beersmith I got 90% mash efficiency on my last brew compared to the 78% I was getting on my old system.

The three different heat settings are ideal:

The 2500w setting will get you up to strike temp relatively quickly, I haven't timed it but I'd say half an hour or so.
The 700w setting maintains your mash temp very well but I noticed that it can take about 10 minutes or so to settle so you can see the temp changing plus or minus a degree for a time. A lagging jacket would probably eliminate this.
The 1800w setting maintains a perfect rolling boil.

The control panel works perfectly, setting timers and temperatures is very easy, so if you wanted to do a 10 minute mash out at 75 degrees it will ramp up to that temp for you and switch itself off after the 10 minutes.

Sparging is easy, just lift the mash basket out of the boiler and rest it on the support bolts to drain then add your sparge water on top and let it do its thing for an hour or so.

All in all delighted with mine as well and would definitely recommend it. 

[Motorbikeman]

does it handle the capasidy for a 90 min boil and still produce 5 gallons ?

[Fal]

I'm thinking of one myself too. I'd love to see some pics. Could you use the hop spiders from the recent group buy in it. Or do you need it?

[Leann ull]

Come on lads somebody post pics of a brewday💁‍♂️

[SkiBeagle]

I've done 3 brews on it. Very happy with it. Still can't resist a bit of CH-style fettling to improve it. Was probably a bit too much in learning mode initially to think about a photoshoot. First 2 times, I was boiling outside the backdoor as usual. 3rd time, I just tried boiling inside in the kitchen, with a couple of windows cracked. That worked out great. Close to the sink. No need for extension cables and long hoses. Very tidy. I found that I can get a gentle boil with the 700W setting. 1800W gets a very vigorous boil. It's one downside - choice between a simmer or Old Faithful. With an SSR instead of a relay, you could get a nice range of boil vigour. I use the 2500W setting for ramping - great for fast step-ups in a step mash. I measured the temperature of the boiler floor with a thermapen and about 1 cm of water. The floor temp does not exceed 100C - so I don't think wort scorching will be an issue even at 2500W, as long as you have good recirculation. I'll try it again with sugar solution to see if I can see any evidence of scorching. No sign in the beer.
Hoping to brew next weekend and I'll take some photos, now that I'm more settled on how to use it.

@Fal: you can use the GB hop spider. I just hang it off the malt pipe by one of the arms, so I can put the lid on if I want to. I use the malt pipe during the boil to gather hot/cold break. The malt pipe isn't fine enough for pellet hops which I use, but might work with leaf hops. When chilling, I turn on the pump and direct the wort into the hop spider to enhance utilisation, and also to act as a better break filter.

@Motorbikeman: capacity to the Max line is 30L with about 40mm to the top. 27L is probably a realistic pre-boil volume, or else you may get boilover or splashing. No problem getting either 19L/5USG or 23L/5UKG with some to spare after the boil. And you can always top up with boiling water if you're boil is too vigorous. I've tended to use the 700W setting since I find that gives a nice simmer, maybe boiling off a litre or so. The actual power may vary from unit to unit depending on the elements. I measured the resistance of the elements, and mine produces 748W and 1781W at 230Vac. One thing I do recommend a some anti-foam (http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/antifoam-vinoferm-100-ml-p-1597.html or equivalent). It really cuts down on boilovers and then drops out of the beer. I think this is important with the Bulldog - you don't want hot sticky wort pouring down the outside towards the electrics down at the bottom.

And as auralabuse and Damofto said, it's really easy to set up, use and clean up afterwards.

[Leann ull]

Still can't resist a bit of CH-style fettling to improve it.

Errr thanks I think

[Will_D]

Re; Wort Scorching:

You cannot scorch water! Water boils at 100C and so with enough water above the elements or the bottom of the boiler (with a under mounted heating element) you cannot exceed 100C. The water cools the element.

Now if its a wort at say 1.070 the the sugars will raise the boiling point temp to about 103C - but with enough flow/movement you will not scorch anything.

Now add hops and break material (and no stirring) and you will get a layer of crud settling onto the hot elements/bottom of boiler. This sticks, insulates the elements from the cooling action of the wort and so the element temperature starts to rise!

You now have a vicious circle of scorching!

[SkiBeagle]

True, indeed, Will! But I just wanted to measure the temperature of the vessel bottom with very little water absorbing heat from the element. Idea was to see how much the 2500W was getting spread around. I was hoping to see an aluminium heat spreader, but what we have is a cemented element onto the bottom of a steel pot. I wanted to see how effective this design is at moving watts around the bottom of the pot. Even with just water, the steel was ~100C. If there was a real local hotspot, it would rise above 100. So it looks like the element design is good enough to spread the heat.
With a step mash, it's mainly sugary water we're dealing with. 2500W did not seem to be a problem. For the boil, I found that 700W-1800W was more than enough. That's when we'd have to deal with sugars/hops/all_the_rest.
For mashing, it seemed like 2500W is not a problem. I wouldn't suggest that for the boil for exactly the reasons you describe. During the mash, we have pumped circulation. During the boil, we may not, and that would cause all the problems you mention.
I'm critiquing this design for not having an AL spreader, but it doesn't seem to be a problem.

[SkiBeagle]

Thanks for a great word!
Now, even my wife knows the difference.
Pfaffing around = investing energy into something that makes no difference at all.
Fettling = imperceptibly improving life on earth using engineering skills! 

[Motorbikeman]

was there much hassle dialing in beer smith to you new machine?

[SkiBeagle]

I just set up a new equipment profile in BS with a packaging volume of 19L to fill a keg. The main variables I still haven't dialled in properly are boil-off percentage and amount left in the kettle. I'll be paying more attention to these next day. I use a home-cooked spreadsheet based on Kai Troester's batch-sparge calculator to help figure out what the SG will be if I do Sparge, Mash dilution or No-sparge. With 4kg of grain:
Sparge (20L + 8.2L sparge): 1049.
Mash dilution (20L + 8.2L dilution): 1040
No-sparge (20L + 8.2L post-mash kettle top-up): 1036.
Last time, I tried a full-volume mash. It took a very long time to convert (~90 mins mash) though it did eventually reach target 1040, same as a mash dilution. In future, I'll stick with 16L-20L mash volume. Faster ramp-ups, faster mashing.

[krockett]

Thanks for the feedback on this lads. I placed on order for version 2 last night.

[irish_goat]

They sound like a great piece of kit. Anyone fancy doing up a review with pictures for the front page?