I'm finally nearly ready to build a brewpi-based brewery that molc gave me tips on a few months back. I've my design specced out (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZDN-y-vgEmwGllNokS_343XBrNwb2XBwCRy8uTjPdeY/edit#). I just need to itemise it & start the ordering. I nearly have my workshop finished (https://goo.gl/photos/aHygvHVQz5o4LYnt6), likely will finish the sink & waste (https://goo.gl/photos/N2KcamzcNFboep3N) tomorrow.
Before I blow a stupid amount of cash on this, have I forgotten anything ? (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZDN-y-vgEmwGllNokS_343XBrNwb2XBwCRy8uTjPdeY/edit#)
John
I gave up on brewpi as it wasn't ready for mashing. The functionality is there now but the gui isn't great and it's a hassle to switch back to fermentation mode after.
The ardbir is working great and can use the same sensors, so that's my rig now.
I feel ardbir is good for single vessel systems but for my multi vessel set up, I opted for a BCS 460 http://www.embeddedcontrolconcepts.com/bcs460.html
On the downside it uses thermocouples rather than the one wire probes as used in ardbir and they more are expensive, but you get a system which can be operated remotely via pc or smartphone app, plus data logging
A clean as you go system is best. If you hard plumb the system then know how you clean up. I would recommend that water from HLT passes through the HERMS coil and on to the MASH TUN. Helps clean it and then after you complete your Mash your sparge water passes through the HERMS to flush out the wort and to help clean the HERMS as well.
Quote from: DEMPSEY on March 28, 2016, 03:05:42 PM
A clean as you go system is best. If you hard plumb the system then know how you clean up. I would recommend that water from HLT passes through the HERMS coil and on to the MASH TUN. Helps clean it and then after you complete your Mash your sparge water passes through the HERMS to flush out the wort and to help clean the HERMS as well.
How does that work? Surely the nascent wort from the mashtun is passed through the heat exchanger in a herms system? Are you describing how a rims system would work? I have a herms & only after sparging is complete can I clean the herms coil. Generally I wait till boiling is complete & run a cleanup by heating water in the boiler along with some cleaning agent and recirculate it through the herms coil, pump & back into the boiler for about twenty minutes. Then do another run with just water for another 20 minutes to flush out the cleaning agent. This allows me to clean coil, tubing, pump & boiler in one go.
Shanna
It's a flush, you flush through the wort in the herms coil with your sparge water, this rinses the wort out of the coil and stops it cooling and becoming sticky before you get around to cleaning it. Cooled wort is an ideal habitat for all sorts of infections including amonst others Butyric Acid
Quote from: Sorcerers Apprentice on March 28, 2016, 03:51:08 PM
It's a flush, you flush through the wort in the herms coil with your sparge water, this rinses the wort out of the coil and stops it cooling and becoming sticky before you get around to cleaning it. Cooled wort is an ideal habitat for all sorts of infections including amonst others Butyric Acid
OK I don't actually sparge with the herms but instead pump the sparge water in to my mashtun en mass and then run the sparge water through the herms to bring it up to mashout temperature & run that for 10 minutes to complete the process. I then drain the mashtun of the sparge water. Yes butyric acid is not something you want in your beer. Is waiting for a few hours to flush the herms coil too long or should it been done straight after finishing with it? Starting to get a bit paranoid now :(
Shanna
It's a good habit to get into to flush everything directly after use, eg herms coil pumps and hoses, the best laid plans and all that can result in you being pulled away before you get a chance to clean up properly, and you mightn't get to clean up properly until the next time you use your kit, and you could end up leaving your system full of old rancid wort.
Yeah I spare using my herms coil to clean it out. Every 5 brews or so I also clean it with W5 with a full system recirc while the wort is boiling.
Quote from: Sorcerers Apprentice on March 28, 2016, 07:06:32 PM
It's a good habit to get into to flush everything directly after use, eg herms coil pumps and hoses, the best laid plans and all that can result in you being pulled away before you get a chance to clean up properly, and you mightn't get to clean up properly until the next time you use your kit, and you could end up leaving your system full of old rancid wort.
Cleaning up always happens short of a disaster happening. However no harm to clean the coil directly after use. Everything else gets used (pump + tubing) up until the chilling has finished as I recirculate my wort through a copper pipe to ensure it gets agitated to speed up the chilling. Thanks for the tip.
Molc I use W5 to clean my pump, hoses, coil etc every brewday with water heated to about 45-50C. I would assume this is sufficient to clean everything out.
Shanna
It looks like the HLT and the boil kettle are a a bit small compare to the size of fermenter or even mash tun.
I have a 3 keg set up,HLT,MASH TUN,KETTLE and a small HERMS pot. I also have 2 chugger pumps. The first pump has at the inlet 2 connections, one from the HLT and the other from the Mash Tun outlet.
I first fill the Mash Tun from the HLT via the pump and through the HERMS and into the Mash Tun.When I dough in I switch the pump inlet to connect the Mash Tun outlet so the wort now is pumped around through the HERMS and back to the Mash Tun. After completing the mash I close the connection to the pump and reopen the connection to the HLT. Open the HLT and pump sparge water though the HERMS and into the Mash Tun thus clearing the wort in the HERMS and flushing it with 76C sparge water.
While this is happening I have outlet on the Mash Tun Connected to the second pump to begin my transfer of wort to the boil kettle. For me I do the transfer via the counterflow chiller but that is not necessary.
Advantage of the first clean through the Mash Tun is while the Boil is on I can easily clean out the Mash Tun and run boiling water though the HERMS and pump and it is all done before the boil is complete.
Quote from: DEMPSEY on March 28, 2016, 09:30:55 PM
I have a 3 keg set up,HLT,MASH TUN,KETTLE and a small HERMS pot. I also have 2 chugger pumps. The first pump has at the inlet 2 connections, one from the HLT and the other from the Mash Tun outlet.
I first fill the Mash Tun from the HLT via the pump and through the HERMS and into the Mash Tun.When I dough in I switch the pump inlet to connect the Mash Tun outlet so the wort now is pumped around through the HERMS and back to the Mash Tun. After completing the mash I close the connection to the pump and reopen the connection to the HLT. Open the HLT and pump sparge water though the HERMS and into the Mash Tun thus clearing the wort in the HERMS and flushing it with 76C sparge water.
While this is happening I have outlet on the Mash Tun Connected to the second pump to begin my transfer of wort to the boil kettle. For me I do the transfer via the counterflow chiller but that is not necessary.
Advantage of the first clean through the Mash Tun is while the Boil is on I can easily clean out the Mash Tun and run boiling water though the HERMS and pump and it is all done before the boil is complete.
Ah so I see you don't continue to use the herms for the sparging process.
Shanna
No my sparge water is already heated in the HLT to correct temp
here is my set up
HLT
First pump showing the 2 inlets connections,one from the HLT and the other from the Mash Tun
Inside the Mash Tun showing the temp probe and the copper drainage pipework and the inlet with a silicone tube to bring the liquid in to the Mash Tun
Mashing. I use a second temp probe mainly because I have one but the steel temp probe has the returning wort hitting it and the reading is on my control panel.
Sparging ring fitted
Second pump showing the Mash Tun connected to the inlet and the outlet connected to the counterflow chiller which then flows into the boil Kettle
The reason for the T branch off is when my cooling of the wort via whirlpooling is complete I switch the valve to allow me to transfer to the fermenter
Hi there,
Apologies for my earlier posts, did not mean to hijack your thread. Having looked at your proposed design that I think that your HLT power source is underpowered. A 50 litre container won't heat fast enough with one 2.8KW or 3KW heating element. I would suggest that you either get something like a 5.5KW low density heating element or else double up on the smaller heating elements. I would go with 2 * 2.75 KW heating elements for the simple reason that they should be comfortably below the 13 amp limit of most domestic plugs. Running a 3KW on 13amp socket is going to leave you open to potential problems with overload/overheating, I should say that I am not an electrician so you may not want to take what I say as gospel and consult an electrician for verification of your particular requirements.
Regular supply according to ESB website https://www.esb.ie/esbnetworks/en/about-us/faqs.jsp
"For electricity supplied at Low Voltage by ESB Networks, the nominal standard is 230/400 Volts, 50Hz.. ESB Networks undertakes to deliver single phase electricity within a voltage range of 207 Volts to 253 Volts. This is in accordance with European Standard EN50160."
(kw * 1000) / volts = amps
3kw * 1000) / 230 = 13.043478261 amps.
Given you will be running these elements for prolonged periods personally I would favour the lower powered element to give you a margin for error.
One other thing to consider also is where your going to locate your brewery and whether or not the power supply in the area will be able to handle the power load that you will be putting on it. If your in a domestic setting you want to consider other appliances your going to be competing with dishwasher etc so that you can run your brewery without having to worry about tripping out the power supply when somebody switches on one of the other appliances.
You have a reference also to a herms in your design but you don't have anything in that would describe how it works or is controlled. A certain CH put together the following thread describing how to wire up PID for use in a herms. See http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/index.php/topic,9845.msg121647.html#msg121647. It might give you some ideas for a potential solution. Others are using ardbir - see http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/index.php/topic,15387.0.html for details.
Shanna
My HLT has a 3Kw element and as you can see is well insulated. Insulation is a big help ;)
Quote from: DEMPSEY on March 28, 2016, 10:24:48 PM
My HLT has a 3Kw element and as you can see is well insulated. Insulation is a big help ;)
Wood is a good insulator :) and I would agree that it helps minimise heat loss to the environment with good insulation. Personally I have to heat a minimum of 30 litres due to the position of the heating element in my HLT. I would be curious to know what is the time taken for you to heat your strike water with your HLT?
Shanna
Mine is even more than wood ???,I made the timber barrel with a 30mm gap and filled that with insulation foam :o :)
I use both the BK and HLT to heat water on the brewery, each using a 2.8kw element. 20L in the BK and say 15L in the HLT. It takes about 40 minutes, which is just enough time to measure out grains and do all my prep.
The split means the BK can come up to mash in temp while the HLT comes to the extent needed for the herms.
Some good ideas there.
- I'd left out any discussion of HERMs control, but after looking at a few, I think I'll end up going with the BCS-460. It seems a little more professional than the Ardbir
- The 70l pots I'm going to use are insulated, but I might end up doing some more insulation myself. I really liked the wood covering, very ... cool.
- I'm lucky in that I do have a 50A circuit delivered by an electrician, to a cool commando socket (https://goo.gl/photos/Fvyv9R71TJbCizeM6). Might go for beefier elements in the HLT.
.
I assume if the boiler is insulated, I'll only need a single 3kw element to keep it hot, right ?
If I'm going to use a chiller plate...is there a way to get the brew controller to control the temperature of the wort ? As in, control the flow of beer into the chiller, so that it always leaves at 30C or something ? Is that overkill, and something people control manually themselves ? If there is an automatic way of doing it...I wonder how I can get a thermometer into that outbound pipe, instead of using a thrumometer, and doing it by eye.
Dempsey, you have a 'sparging ring' - looks like a circular pipe with holes in it. This is to get the water evenly over the grainbed, right ? I've seem more convoluted, expensive setups. I like your one :)
Why do you go through the counterflow chiller, from Mash Tun to Boil Kettle ?
Do you take the hot wort from the kettle, into the chiller, and back into the kettle, for whirlpooling ? It's not cooled on the way to the fermenter ? Suddenly things seem simpler!
Actually, hold on. If you took water out of the boiler, through the counterflow, back into the boiler...it'd take ages for it to cool, as the thermal gradient would drop really quickly. It'd be far quicker to cool on the way from the boiler to the fermenter, right ?
Quote from: bigvalen on March 29, 2016, 10:26:10 PM
I assume if the boiler is insulated, I'll only need a single 3kw element to keep it hot, right ?
Yes
Dempsey, you have a 'sparging ring' - looks like a circular pipe with holes in it. This is to get the water evenly over the grainbed, right ? I've seem more convoluted, expensive setups. I like your one :)
Why do you go through the counterflow chiller, from Mash Tun to Boil Kettle ?
Do you take the hot wort from the kettle, into the chiller, and back into the kettle, for whirlpooling ? It's not cooled on the way to the fermenter ? Suddenly things seem simpler!
The sparge ring is just qualpex pipe that is easy to bend by hand and fitted into a brass T piece and drilled with 2mm holes.Yes I take the wort from the Kettle and into the chiller and cool it and at the same time whirlpool it in the boil kettle. When it is down around 20 C I then transfer to the fermenter.
Quote from: bigvalen on March 29, 2016, 10:57:39 PM
Actually, hold on. If you took water out of the boiler, through the counterflow, back into the boiler...it'd take ages for it to cool, as the thermal gradient would drop really quickly. It'd be far quicker to cool on the way from the boiler to the fermenter, right ?
Takes 15mins for 20L to get to groundwater temp on my setup using the recirc technique. The reason I do it is so the wort is not sitting above 80C for a long period of time, with the hops isomorphizing (sic)
Sorry for the delay in getting back to your email Bigvalen, but these things are best kicked around on the forum where everyone can share and contribute.
I bought the BCS 460 as I was in Florida for a week in January, I ordered it from BrewersHardware
https://www.brewershardware.com/BCS-Brewery-Controllers/ although The electric Brewery people are now also selling it albeit a bit more expenive, http://www.ebrewsupply.com/bcs-460-temperature-controller/ they also sell a complete control panel. I ordered the unit on the thursday before I left and it arrived to my hotel on the following Tuesday.
It only comes with a 110 volt power supply, I tried it on 230v as some of these power supplies can operate on either, howeve a slight puff of smoke and a pungent odour soon led me to believe that this would not be the case. I picked up a 220v supply from Maplin as it was on special at the time, I think its either 5v or 6v, I had emailed the suppliers but they don't carry a 230 v option. It needs an Ethernet connection onto your network, so you can use an old wifi router as a bridge or one of those power link wifi/ethernet extenders, which is handy for extending your wifi into the garden if you are using he BCS in your shed.
The BCS uses thermocouples and it is tuned for their particular type of thermocouples, it says that you can use other bands but the BCS first need to be tuned to accept these.
They have some 12" thermocouples on their website at the moment at a knock-down price so I grabbed a few, (12" is a bit long :P for thermocouples as they may get damaged when in use thats why I ordered a few plus a 4" one for my RIMs heater)
https://www.brewershardware.com/BCS-NPT-Mounted-Sesnors-with-Fixed-Length-Cables/
You can see that they are reduced to 45 cents each instead of the usual 20 odd dollars, however when you go into the checkout area and change the delivery address to Ireland the postage cost jumps up to $59 ??? I opted to send them to my Shipitto address for the $5 USA shipping charge and have estimated under $10 to ship from there to the emerald isle.
I powered it up and hooked it up to my network and it all worked, the display is nice and clear and it means that I don't have to spend the day in the shed, as I can monitor it from the house during heating up times and stands etc. I believe that the smartphone app is quite expensive for what it does, but I suppose that they don't sell too many, and it works remotely for free on the laptop.
The main deciding factor for me was the data logging ability and the fact that the programme is written in ladder logic, so its easy to programme the inputs and outputs, (and in my case I don't have to learn to programme with Arduino)
Regarding the rest of your brewery design, I would shy away from any hard plumbing, I believe its asking for problems. A few years ago I bought a Jacuzzi bath which was designed to drain dry after use, with all pipework sloping downwards towards the drains,however after a few goes when you switched it on a black algae which looked like tea leaves used to be pumped into the bath, I wouldn't fancy this in my beer. Your pipe runs will all have to be sloped to drain and wont look very nice as everything will be off square. In big breweries the pipe work is always full of a liquid, either sterile water, beer/wort or cleaning chemicals, they are never left empty for anything to develop within them.
Its a lot easier to use silicone hosing, which can be replaced cheaply and is transparent so that you can see any issues developing. One word of caution though, in professional breweries there is a golden rule of never letting any hoses touch the ground. All hoses should be the correct length to facilitate this, and for long runs the hose is supported to keep it up safely. If you are brewing outside the hose could end up in contact with pet/rodent excrement, you end up handling the hose and at a minimum making yourself sick. Make up a few extra dedicated hoses rather than have one long hose to do everything and end up on the floor, during its use for the shorter runs.
A quick update, the Shipitto postage charge for the thermocouples was $24 due to the size of the box.
So realistically a downside of the BCS controller is the postage charges from the states.
Edit its better to use the Shipitto Californian address as Brewers hardware is also in California