My Electric Brewery Build

[psham]

Just did a test.. First clip (the whiter of the two clips) is with ½ inch whirlpool arm, not much power on water coming out, like a slow lazy whirlpool.

The second clip is with 10mm arm, jet is a lot stronger and seems to create a more vigorous whirlpool.

For me I'm going to stick with the smaller diameter whirlpool arm.

Whirlpool with 15mm diameter arm: http://youtu.be/WB4zY9oSv50

Whirlpool with 10mm diameter arm: http://youtu.be/oTd8l4Dbub4

[Bogwoppit]

10 points if you guess the music!
I haven't a clue but it's definitely not in my collection 

[Ozbrewer]

@psham - thanks for posting that. That's really interesting. What pumps are you using?

I've definitely noticed that the coils are restricting flow and that the 10mm is slower on mine. Looks like I need to go check the pumps and see what's happening. I haven't yet tested the actual flow rates per minute yet, but will look to do that this weekend.

When I was testing last weekend I think the pumps were only pulling .7amps when they should be pulling in 1.4amps. Now, I wasn't watching that closely so I need to have a closer look at them now. The water pump recirculating the HLT water though was super fast and in line with other videos I've seen, so I think that is working properly anyway.

The other observation I had was that the volt meter measures approx. 240 / 237 volts but when the elements go on the volt meter reads around the 230 mark. So that could be having an effect on the amp meter reading when running the pumps as well.

I'm hopefully going to be doing my first brew on the system this weekend.

[psham]

No bother.. I'm using a chugger pump from the group buy a couple of month back..
I thought with the chugger that I would get a more vigorous whirlpool. It does the job but could be better..

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

@psham are you pumping directly from the kettle through the pump and back in via the return to the kettle or are you pumping through a wort cooler before returning to the kettle?

[psham]

Kettle to pump and back via return to the kettle.. No chiller between..

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

That's what I thought, Ozbrewer you might be better bypassing your cooler first to establish a good whirlpool and then while the whirlpool is spinning run the wort through the chiller, your chiller is causing friction losses due to its length and bore

[armedcor]

Oz I see you're using those din rail contactors. Are they wired up much different from the ones on the electric brewery?

[Ozbrewer]

@SA - thanks. I'm going to test again on the weekend prior to the brew and measure the rate of flow. I figured that the bore and length restricts flow and this is in line with what I've read on the US forums about my type of brew rig.

@armedcor - the contactors aren't wired exactly like the ones on the electric brewery site. The only reason is that we did a few things differently based on the brother in law's recommendation and how I wanted my system to function. We have a lot of interlocking going on to ensure that out of three elements in the system only two can be on at any one time.

However, the contactors do function exactly the same way as on the EB Site and can be wired the same way as well.

[Ozbrewer]

First brew on the system completed on Saturday. I'd like to say it was trouble free, but it wasn't - stuck the mash a good few times.

Some details - brewed a Helles Lager, 11.15kg of malt overall, 30 litres of strike water and 53 litres of sparge water. This left me with a boil volume of 70 litres. I believe I could have extracted more if I wanted, perhaps at least another 5 or 6 litres.

I use BeerSmith2 as my brewing software - they estimated a SG of 1.052, and after boil and cooling - SG read 1.052. So I was delighted I hit my starting gravities. My pre-boil gravity was 1.034 @ 65c, which was below the BeerSmith estimate.

Boil off rate was 8.5 litres per hour. I did a 90 minute boil and that left me with approx. 57 litres.

This was a stepped mash and I did manage to stick the mash. I had to stir it a good few times to get it unstuck. This slowed down the step times dramatically. In the last two steps though I managed to get the flow going and recirculate at full flow. Somehow the mash bed settled out ok. I'm guess I was getting a 10 degrees rise over 15 minutes due to ambient temperatures and the size of the grain bill. The HLT came up to temp within minutes. I'm guessing about 5 minutes and the HLT temp had stepped by 10 degrees. So the temp rises in the mash are not being limited by the HERMs coil being in the HLT, but more about flow, volume and ambient temperatures. I measured the temp on the output of the recirculation hose in the MT and it was reading a few degrees below the HLT temp, which means that I may actually be pumping too fast. But once it gets closer to target it evens out. Once the MT reaches mash temp it is the same as the HLT temp and maintains perfectly. So I need to have a think about this. Next brew with a smaller grain bill and see how that makes a difference. Earlier in the day and on previous tests my rises are at least 1 degree a minute. All in all, not so much a problem as I still hit my targets, which I'm delighted about.

The stuck mash I think is due to the mill on the grain and perhaps a little too much strike water to start with. I think I could have dropped the strike water by about 5 litres. The grain I have was pre-milled, and I believe from some reading on the weekend it's a pretty fine mill when you purchase that way. Apparently if I were to mill myself, I should be milling at .048" or even .05" for the system that I have. So I will test this next time.

Pump times - I thought this was worth noting as well. I have the chugger pumps.

Pumping direct, not through a coil but through say 10ft of tubing from HLT to BK as a test: 13 litres a minute
Pumping from MT, through 8 feet of hosing and 50ft of tubing: 7.5 litres a minutes

From what I can see on the Electric Brewery forum, this in line with what other people are getting. I was wondering if any of the chugger pump owners here have done a test and what flow rates you have seen.

I have to say it was breeze using the control panel, and everything functioned correctly there. Raising to boil was fine and the 5.5kw element set at 80% manual had no trouble maintaining a rolling boil at 13 degrees ambient temperature. Counterflow chiller brought the wort down from boiling to 16 degrees in under an hour, I would say about 40 minutes but didn't measure it to be honest.

So, I ended up with 29 litres in each fermentation bucket, that included the pitched yeast volumes. So almost 60 litres of beer fermenting away now. Samples tasted good going into the fermenters as well.

And as per usual, photo's below.

So I brew outdoors, on the deck now. Wife is delighted I'm not in the kitchen anymore, and I have to say I really like it as well. The deck is covered and water proof so no hassle if it were to rain. Here is the rig set up and the brew underway.





Inside the panel again...



Just started the boil here.



End of boil. there is a hop filter under all that.



And someone asked previously some comments / feedback on the hop filter. Well, I think it did the job superbly, and I'm really happy. I recirculated through the counterflow at full bore and not problems.





And the product in the fridge.



Overall - it was enjoyable and great to use the system. As it was my first go, I'll just need to get over the stuck mash and the rise times that resulted from that. I'm glad I went with a 100 litre pot for the BK. 70 litres for the MT and HLT are fine. Everything works as designed, so really happy overall. There is more to clean though, but I'm ok with that.

Over the next weeks I will get a parts list and links together in an excel spread sheet, and keep you posted on subsequent brews as I dial in the system. Next time I'll try to get a video as well.

[nigel_c]

Congrats. Great to hear all went well after following the build all this time.

[Ozbrewer]

Thanks Nigel, and thanks for following along. It was a long build and I'm glad I'm at the end now and being able to use the system.

[johnrm]

Is your application into revenue yet?

[DEMPSEY]

Done anymore brews on this (cheap ) kit ye put together there

[Ozbrewer]

@Dempsey - Yeah.  I've done three more so far - Weiss (Schneider tap 7 clone), Rye IPA, and an APA.

The Weiss was my first attempt at one in a very long time. I milled my own grain, used a gap size of .05", 60% wheat malt, circulated with the chuggers full open and no stuck mash. Mill gap makes a big difference - got mash efficiency of just a bit over 90%. On the IPA and APA I got upto the 95% mash efficiency. 

Hitting numbers are a lot easier now. Sparging is easy and consistency here is key to maintaining the high effeciency numbers.

Step mashing is a breeze. Temps come up pretty quick. I'm brewing outdoors, under cover though, so some thermal heat loss in the mash tun does occur, so I run the hlt a few degrees hotter. The timers to time everything are massively handy, especially for the boil kettle - setup the alarm to fire on all the hop additions, makes it super easy and I don't have to worry about missing an addition.

I use all the alarm switches for the three PIDs and two timers. Very handy on the PIDs in particular, set the alarms to go off as things reach the desired temps.

The system pulls about 42amps when both pumps and both elements are running.

Note to all brewers out there: the main fuse on your switch board in your house may have an 80amp fuse.  I looked at mine, and it has a type II / 60-80amp fuse sticker. So I rang ESB and asked them what size fuse I have. They rang me back and confirmed its 80amps. So they do keep records of this and you can find out if you want, and ask them to put in an 80amp if you need it.

I've run the system with washing machine, and dishwasher on and a few other appliances and no drama.

I calculated the running time of the elements and the amount of amps they pull and for how long, plus the run time of the panel and pumps and the amps they pull and for how long. Calculated this down to kilowatts per hour and then calculated the cost from my electricity supplier - comes in about 3.50 euro per brew session of 53 litres at end of boil. By my calculations I think this is cheaper than gas where people are only getting 7 or 8 brews out of a 11kg propane bottle (if that's correct).

I made a change to false bottom solution. I replaced the beer line tubing with silicone tubing along the edge of the false bottom, and this works like a charm. The blichmann dip tube in the mash tun works very well and it's great to be able to unscrew the dip tube and take out the false bottom for cleaning.

Overall - I really love it. It's so fun to use. I have setup and cleaning routines sorted now and they really work well and are easy to manage. I wouldn't change anything now and would build,it the same again.

I have some more pictures and a video I'm meaning to put up, along with the list of suppliers and links to everything bought - just been too busy lately, but should get this done in the next week or two.

Now that I have some brews done again, I was thinking of coming along to the Liffey Brewers meet at the end of this month.