My eBIAB build

Finished up with an eKeggle build this past weekend. Loosely based on an Instructable (http://www.instructables.com/id/Electric-brewing-system/), but modified in a number of ways. Additional pictures are at https://picasaweb.google.com/107792868001472962528/Brewery

The keg isn't as shiny as Bobby_M's, but it seems to have taken a decent polish. Sorry about the sideways picture, I'll see if I can fix that. It'll probably be a few weeks before I can brew on this, but I'm looking forward to it.

i like it! great job and compact

very nice. any chance of a picture of the inside? I'm curious how the element looks and if you're using a pickup tube. I'm currently working on a kettle, also using a guinness keg funny enough.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f244/biab-keggle-build-411144/
Apologies for any hijacking

I'll see about getting a picture of the inside, but it may take me a while. I am using a pickup tube; right now it's right in the middle, maybe 1/4" off the bottom. I'll have to see how that works; I may adjust it.

Ask and you shall receive...

nice! are you putting in a false bottom?

I'm not planning on a false bottom at this point. I'm figuring that, between a fine mesh brew bag and using a hop bag, I shouldn't have too much gunk to deal with. After a brew or two, I might change my tune.

danb35 said:

I'm not planning on a false bottom at this point. I'm figuring that, between a fine mesh brew bag and using a hop bag, I shouldn't have too much gunk to deal with. After a brew or two, I might change my tune.

Click to expand...

You're not worried about melting your bag having it directly on the element?

No; my belief (based largely on the BIAB threads here) is that the element is surrounded by water, so it isn't going to (i.e., can't) go over 212 F. I also don't expect the element to be firing much, if at all, during the mash. Again, I'll see how it goes, but burning the bag isn't something I'm worrying about FWIW.

I have a 4500W element in each of my heated keggles. I inadvertently touched one of the elements while heating and it was HOT, but not blister/burn your skin hot.

please let us know how it works out without a false bottom, it would be useful for me to take it out so that I can do smaller batches.

Did a dry run this weekend. A few more wraps of teflon tape fixed the leak at the temp probe. I'm getting a bit of overshoot on the initial heat-up, so I'll probably need to tweak the PID settings a bit. However, the temperature then settled in very nicely, so I'm not too worried about it yet.

Then brought the water to a boil and kept it there for an hour at 65% power. At least with water, this gave a rolling, but not excessive, boil. Boil-off was 1.25-1.5 gallons after an hour. That is, when I first shut it off, the level was down about 1.25 gallons, but when I came back later to drain the water it was showing that it'd lost another quart. Further evaporation from the hot water? During the boil, the temperature probe read 211.5 +/- 0.3 degrees, which is close enough to correct for my altitude.

Now I just need to clean out the keg, and I'll be ready to brew next weekend (assuming all the ingredients come in as planned).

I am curious what you are using for your element housing. It looks like some sort of PVC housing, but I cannot tell exactly how you did it. Let me know....In the process of my own element-housing-woes.

The element housing was a couple of PVC pipe fittings, glued together, and machined on my lathe. IIRC, it was a 3/4 - 1 1/2" bushing (I bored out the inside diameter of this to just fit over wiring end of the element) and a 1 1/2" screw cap. I'm sure I'm using the wrong names for these, but I'm pretty sure that's what the parts were. I then drilled a hole in the side for the 10/3 cable, another (smaller) hole for the ground wire to exit, and glued it to the element with JB Weld.

I had my first brew with the new system yesterday, which was a lot of firsts--first on the new system, first all-grain, first BIAB, first no-chill. All in all, everything seemed to work well. I had a bit of trouble with temperature stability, though. I'm sure at least part of the problem is that I need to dial in the PID settings, but convection in the keggle has to be part of it. I'm noticing that, when initially heating the water (and when bring it to a boil), the temperature will rise and fall even though the element is on 100% power.

The easy, and expensive, answer is to recirculate with a pump. What else might I try?

BTW, the lack of a false bottom doesn't seem to have hurt the bag at all.

Pump will make your life easier... but stirring every few minutes helps. Usually when heating strike water I have my pump running constantly

danb35 said:

I had my first brew with the new system yesterday, which was a lot of firsts--first on the new system, first all-grain, first BIAB, first no-chill. All in all, everything seemed to work well. I had a bit of trouble with temperature stability, though. I'm sure at least part of the problem is that I need to dial in the PID settings, but convection in the keggle has to be part of it. I'm noticing that, when initially heating the water (and when bring it to a boil), the temperature will rise and fall even though the element is on 100% power.

The easy, and expensive, answer is to recirculate with a pump. What else might I try?

BTW, the lack of a false bottom doesn't seem to have hurt the bag at all.

Click to expand...

Even a small, relatively inexpensive ($75 or so) solar pump should make an enormous difference.

jeffmeh said:

Even a small, relatively inexpensive ($75 or so) solar pump should make an enormous difference.

Click to expand...

Spend the extra cash and get a Chugger pump with a ball valve and fittings, you'll use it for other things as well.

Subscribed.... I've been thinking about electrifying my HLT....

Guess how this happened

magic?

danb35 said:

Ask and you shall receive...

Click to expand...

What is that you have around the hole of your keggle? Just ruined my bag and would love that solution...