hypergolic

Recipes 

Is there a way to automate the flow of wort during the sparge? I can see adding manual ball valves to the system to restrict flow but I was wondering if there was an automated way to do this. I can't imagine you would want to sparge with the full flow of the pumps.

conneryis007

Recipes 

In the words of Emeril...BAM

http://morebeer.com/view_product/27834/104599/Blichmann_AutoSparge
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/blichmann-engineering-set-forget-design-auto-sparge-137942/

wickedbeernut

Recipes 

This is what I use,

http://www.employees.org/~joestone/Sbs/Html/sparge_ring_s100_q100.htm

The sparge/recirculating ring is adjusted to sit just above the grain bed. The controller monitors the state of the float switch and turns the sparge water pump on and off accordingly.

hypergolic

Recipes 

Do you manually control the flow from the MLT to the BK then?

wickedbeernut

Recipes 

Yes and no.

MLT -> manual ball valve -> solenoid valve -> BK

The controller opens the solenoid valve. If necessary, I could adjust the flow using the manual ball valve. However, I've never found it necessary. I target a 45 minute sparge. I tend to get that with the manual ball valve wide open. Your mileage may vary.

In theory, with a continuous level indicator in the BK, you can calculate the sparge rate (say, once a minute?) and open/close the solenoid valve (or motorized ball valve) to control the flow rate. Or maybe you're pumping wort between the MLT and BK. You'd turn the pump on/off.

hypergolic

Recipes 

Gotcha, thanks for the information.

ChuckO

Recipes 

I would like to look at building a dual peristaltic pump to keep HLT to MLT synchronized with MLT to Boil flow. Should only require valves on the tank outputs for on/off control. Flow rate would be set via pump speed.