Brewatron

Hello All,

First time poster and I thought I would kick things off with some pics of my new build. I decided to go with hard line and sanitary fitting throughout and I'm pleased with how things are coming along, albiet slowly. My welds could have been better, and I had some problems with my argon back purge so I got some sugaring on a few of them. I'm hoping to have this finished by the end of May, or early June at the latest. I'll post more as I progress.









The full gallery can be found here

http://picasaweb.google.com/haggismaximus/Brewatron9001#

Hell of a first post. Some very nice pics there.

Man, you stole my idea! My system that is in the works is all tri-clovers! Beautiful.

Wow. Welcome to HBT.
That is impressive. So you're going with electric HLT and RIMS but gas fired BK?
Don't you want the RTD probe on the output side of the RIMS tube? That's where I've seen them and where mine is.

wow, looks great. I really like how those fittings make the element connections so clean (pun half intended)

Where did you get your valves? Nice looking brewery!

Thanks for the complements everyone.

@bendavanza There on the end of the tube there is a end cap with a temp probe threaded in. The tee fitting is the input side, I just have not welded in the output fitting fro the tube yet. In total there are five temp probes, two for the RIMS, and one per kettle.

@cascadia Got the valves off eBay, first four were super cheap, last two were spendy.

@bendavanza going gas BK for now. Eventually would like to upgrade and put another 2" ferrule on the bottom and make it full electric.

Wow, that's a beauty!

One of the best around. Welcome to the group!!! Absolutely great work!!!

What are you planning on doing for chilling?

Wow! What can I say other than you are setting the bar at it's highest yet.

@cascadia We have some 5/8 copper on the way and will be making an immersion chiller with whirlpool.

Wow, great build! all that blind and you are going to use copper..... tsk tsk

Beautiful. Can you offer a few details or a term for that kind of piping so that I can google it? Thanks.

WOW man,
That's BEAUTIFUL!

So, if a guy was to ship you some kegs??? :rockin:

I'm getting ready to buy Blingmans - Your keggels make Blichmann look like a K-Mart special!

Gonna follow this build.

Post more pron!!!

that is awesome ! Beautiful!

@imerg

Not sure what you mean by piping? If you referring to the sanitary fittings welded onto the kegs those those are ferrules, and would come up under tri clamp, tri clover, sanitary fitting, etc.

win.



got any build pics?

@Haggismaximus - Yes I think I am. I'm still nailing down all the terms. Right now, although I haven't started actually brewing, I'm trolling the DIY projects for design ideas, trying to pin down the engineering and, in this case, where the materials came from. I'll do some googling. Thanks.

Edit: Here's a little introduction to "tri-clamps" for people like me.

Nothing fancy, but here are some pics of the bracket for the fluid routing manifold I made tonight. Really happy with how the welds came out, much better then the kegs, sadly.

The holes will have 1/2" ferrules welded on and then the valves will connect right up to them. Will have a pass-through directly across from one of the larger ones to the small one so both the HLT and RIMS can use one line into the top of the keg.

@vabrew540 No real build pics, most of the time I don't have a camera, save my iphone, as I am building this at my parents place.





http://picasaweb.google.com/haggismaximus/Brewatron9001#

what I would give to have a tig in my shop, looks great

yeah, looks nice. That flat is MUCH easier to weld than the round fittings on a keg@!

Got the Manifolds all welded up and they came out just as I had hoped. Brew partner also came over and we got our immersion chiller (5/8" copper) put together. Getting closer now.









Full Gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/haggismaximus/Brewatron9001#

Well things are taking longer then anticipated, mainly because I've been busy. Almost finished, hope to have it done, save the electronics, this week or next. Poor quality video of the pumps and manifold working. Note, the YouTube site gives a better quality then the embedded video below.

Wow, those welds are beautiful! I really like your approach....it's a little different than some rigs. Are you going to use some kind of hose with a TC clamp, or are you going to hard pipe everything?

Did you go with 2" TC pipe for the RIMS? I noticed you had some good clearance....I used 1.5" and the element touches....I hope it's not a deal breaker.

Thanks, some of the welds are much nicer then others.

I used hard-line throughout the system. If I were to do it again, I would have the same setup, but use 3/4" silicon from the fluid manifolds to the kettles and just weld on a barbed fittings to the end end-caps etc. It would still be TC throughout, but much easier to work with, hard line has been very labor intensive, and it restricts the flow a good amount. Looks nice though

The rims tube is 2" .065 wall and it is till pretty close. I don't think you'll have a problem with the interference, just end up with a hot spot.

I did not see a low water sensor in your brew kettle. IMO this is a very important device when using electric. It only takes a few seconds to kill your heating element.

Very nice rig.

Like other have said, that is one heck of a first post. Reminds me of when Lehr post his brewing rig after he had first signed up on HBT. Very innovative design, I look forward to seeing more photos!

Nice rig!
Getting down on the inside of those kegs to clean up the welds is kind of of PITA, isnt it?

Yes, grinding inside the keg sure was a hassle.

The rig is basically finished, and we've brewed on it twice so far. Welded up an Aluminum control box and got the frame painted. Just need to clean and reassemble and some final wiring and a little bit of polishing and a small amount of painting.

Here is the control box, nothing fancy, but I wanted it simple and compactish

great job!

wow. Looks great! Can't wait to see it complete

Well got it all finished and moved over to my friends place. I do have to add a heat shield for the sight glass on the Boil kettle, and maybe a few small things, but we fired it up and things worked as great. Managed to have a boil over and some volume problems since the sight glasses are not calibrated just yet, so we'll see how it turns out in a month.


https://picasaweb.google.com/haggismaximus/Brewatron9001#