My electric brewery build

Ok... Totally off topic, but...

MadGus said:

Ok... Totally off topic, but...

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???

Aluminum pot with a 15 pound turkey frying away @ 327 degrees. 5th year running tradition for my family on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas, Paul!

MadGus said:

Aluminum pot with a 15 pound turkey frying away @ 327 degrees. 5th year running tradition for my family on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas, Paul!

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To you also..

Ok.. Turkey fry... I was really worried..

It's alive!!!! PID programming and full process with water (to clean and observe heat loss) scheduled for tomorrow. Looks like brewing will happen on Friday or Saturday!

That's awesome

Bad ass!

WOHOOO!! How did you do your false bottom and boil kettle? Does your boil kettle use a screen or whirlpool? Looks fantastic! Nice work and fast. Castermmt

Brewing the wife's Kolsch this morning. 28 degrees f outside and I'm in my slippers and shirt and pants brewing indoors in the winter. It's a pretty good feeling brewing whenever you feel like it despite the weather outside:rockin:

Awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

False bottom from Midwest





And after a lot of HBT research, went with a 300 micron stainless screen cylinder to filter hop pellets.

Next to last post from me on this build. Got. Sweet cover as a Christmas present from my parents. Obviously, the bikes have to get hung up somewhere else, and I'll probably put up a sheet of stainless on the wall behind the kettles.

HUGE thanks to Kal, Paul, Kevin, and so many others for their inspiration and guidance.

Nice job man! Congrats and enjoy the fruits of your labor. I'm sure I'm going to have a few questions as I approach the final steps of my build.

Even the cover looks slick! Is that custom made just for your brewery?

+1. more info on the cover! want!

Yes, the cover was custom made. I leave all of the silicon hoses hanging off the front of the kettles, and the cover fits over it all very nicely. Contact info for the company that made it below...

Creative Covers
3638 W 84th st
Chicago, IL 60652

Tel: 800-970-0901
Fax: 888-777-9380
www.creativecoversinc.com

By the way, all of the ingredients for brew day #1 have been obtained (making 10 gallons of something between an Abita Turbodog and a DFH India Brown). Looks like I'll be brewing tomorrow!

That's awesome Gus, congrats and good luck with the pilot batch!

Nice, keep us posted

If I get off early enough today, I will be brewing tomorrow... You will still likely beat me to the finish line. Good job man, let us know how it works!

SWMBO has other ideas for today than brewing. Looks like tomorrow... BadNews, you may beat me after all!

Swift Creek Brewery - Brown Ale Recipe (12 Gallons to fermenter/carboy)

18lbs Pale Malt
3.5lbs 80L Crystal Malt
1lb Chocolate Malt
1lb Brown Sugar (90min)
0.5oz Chinook (90min)
1.5oz Chinook (10min)
3.0oz Williamette (10min)
2.5oz Williamette (dry hop secondary)
2pkgs Irish Ale Yeast (White Labs #WLP004)

OG/FG: 1.067/1.018

First batch on new system... it was a LONG day (7.5 hours total time), but an awesome brew. Smoked a cigar with Kevin (father in law), made the following changes to recipe on the fly... did not carmalize brown sugar (boiled and added from stove), only mashed for 60 minutes @ 154, did mashout for 20 minutes, boiled for 90. Did not add 5 minute hops, will dry hop with these. Hit 94% efficiency (if you include the 0.5 gallons I discarded because I wanted to leave some headroom in carboy and fermenter) 1.067 on 12 gallons, as opposed to 1.057 recipe OG based on same volume and 80% efficiency. WOW. Several things I need to change next time, or soon:

1) priming the wort pump... think about the order in which you open valves here - lost about 20 minutes to this
2) heat up a full 24 gallons in HLT... I started with 20, and ended up adding 4 gallons to HLT during mash, and this brought temps down for 15 minutes or so
3) 5 ounces of hops is about all the current hop strainer can handle, but it worked like a champ! will need bigger (and deeper) one for IPAs
4) relocate all RTD probes (castermmt was right)
5) immersion chiller got below 100 degrees within 20 minutes, but need to build CFC soon
6) must figure out a way to ferment 15 gallons soon, and I don't want to go with two 6 gallon carboys and a 7 gallon stainless fermenter

Three weeks until I keg this batch!

1) i usually hook up one end of a hose at a time. Hook up to the HLT output, then raise the hose just above the water level and open the valve. the hose will fill. then close the valve and the water level in the hose will stay put while i hook it to the pump. then hook up the output and raise it above the water level, then open the HLT output valve and the pump valve. never had any problems doing it this way.

2) you can always use more sparge water. i always heat a couple extra gallons.

4) you may also be able to get away with a new, longer probe.

MadGus said:

6) must figure out a way to ferment 15 gallons soon, and I don't want to go with two 6 gallon carboys and a 7 gallon stainless fermenter

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A buddy of mine just got a one of these in to try out...

http://morebeer.com/search/104258///Speidel_Plastic_Tanks

Great points, slakwhere. I thought about switching up to longer probes, and guess I'll look at the cost of that versus putting t's on my kettle outputs and plugging the sight glasses.

Mike - $65 for a 15gal plastic fermenter does seem like a reasonable solution to my problem. My 7 gallon stainless conical would certainly be lonely (or get sold).

Would be better if they had an intermediate size between 16G and 30G to allow for krausen on a 15G batch, say an 18G size. However, I'll get some feedback from my friend and forward on to you.

You beat me to it. I brewed water and PBW, but everything worked with the exception of the internal wiring for the temp probe on the MLT, which is just there for info anyways so no worries.

I really found the probes in the Tee to work great - you have to keep the pump running, but if you want good circulation and event temperatures in your HLT you'll keep the pump going anyways.

I also found the pump priming thing to be a fun activity. I need to put a gutter system in to allow me to use this feature, but I put a Tee on the inlet side of the pump. One side goes to the pump, one side has a hose QD to attach to whatever I'm pumping from, and the other has a valve that goes to a 90 and then it's open (hence the gutter). I had this setup on my previous rig, and all I have to do is open the valve on the Tee, and it bleeds out all the air to the pump head. I then close it and off I go - no worrying about holding hoses at whatever height and trying to do quick connections to prevent drips. You can also use it to pull samples of wort during various phases of the transfer to get readings.

Good job!

usfmikeb said:

Would be better if they had an intermediate size between 16G and 30G to allow for krausen on a 15G batch, say an 18G size. However, I'll get some feedback from my friend and forward on to you.

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Caught up with my friend, he's got a 12G batch fermenting in one of them. Not surprising, but the handles aren't made for use when full, which you'd expect to be the case when you're talking about 100 lbs of liquid. He used an airlock, and the 12G has broached it a couple times already, so a 15G batch will definitely lose some to a blow off tube.

You'll be happier for it... good move.

hey gus, do you have your cp all labeled yet??

Yep!

Looks great Gus! I'm still on the fence......Control Panel vs BCS 640

That looks Damn good Gus!! I should have some of the equipment for the element build today, the rest of it should be here before the end of the week

Hoppo - I don't think you're near Virginia, but if you are, come by for my next brew session... Might help you decide.

Yaksha - good to hear! Good luck with the build... Start a thread so we can all follow along!

Gus,
Im planning on it...

Hi Gus,

Question for you. Did you get the 100 qt pots or the 120? I'm guessing 120 because the inside diameter of the 100 qt is 18 3/4 and the midwest false bottom is 19 5/8.

104qt pots. Which fit the false bottom perfectly


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MadGus said:

Here are a few pics of the brewstand build. Obviously, this is another Kal-clone build.

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Can you tell me approximately how long/wide this is? I'm measuring out my garage space is and I just am wondering how wide it needs to be.

Thanks