110v Recirculating eBIAB 2.5 gallon batches

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jammin said:
Here is how I sparge. I use a separate kettle with a veggie steamer basket in it. Thank's SWMBO ;)
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Did you notice any difference in efficiency with this? Did you have to boil longer, or did you just use a thicker mash to compensate?
 
jammin said:
Starting up the boil. Getting a nice hotbreak. I use the stove to bring it up to boil temp faster. Seems to help yield a better hotbreak as well. This is my first time with the new hop filter. Brewing a Citra/Nelson Sauvin IPA so I'll try and put it through it's paces.
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Looks fantastic and how about an A+ on the photography!
 
Finally ordered the last stuff I need from Bargain Fittings and McMaster. Pretty excited! Wort chiller included, looking at over $900... Ouch.
 
BoxBrewer said:
Did you notice any difference in efficiency with this? Did you have to boil longer, or did you just use a thicker mash to compensate?
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Sorry to respond so late. It does help with the efficiency a little. My hot water kettle is also just the right size for replacing water lost to grain absorption. So after a quick sparge - it brings my pre-boil volume right where it needs to be if I mash with desired pre-boil volume. I suppose I could just mash a little more water haha - oh well.

RVB said:
Looks fantastic and how about an A+ on the photography!
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thanks - cheers!
 
how many gallons can you guys successfully boil on the single 120v outlet/element setup? does 4 gallons work fine? (to get around a 3 gallon ending point).
i have everything else, just not the electronics.
 
4 gallons would be fine, i's hard to get much more than 5 gallons up to boil on a single 120 element from everything I've seen on here
 
Complete! Just need a final cleaning, and a few more connectors for my therminator.

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A close up of the box.

Went with 3 prong 20A 125W twist lock plugs for the pump and the element.
Not quite enough room for the male recessed receptacle. Was going to say screw it any way and have a male end going from the wall to a male end on the box, but decided that my make-shift cattle prod wasn't too safe. I just hard wired it into the box.

Was fun! Can't wait to brew on it. Learned about electrical wiring, and didn't fry myself or any components either!

Thanks PJ for creating that diagram!

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Yeah, I still want to mount the pump and therminator. and add some hooks on the sides of the stand to hold things like mash paddle, hose, etc etc. Everything else so far fits in the tool box. My new blichmann gloves, a hop spider I built for like $10, back flow hose for chiller, yeast nutrient/whirfloc (yeast when I travel with it) etc etc etc. PBW and Star-San.
 
captain_brew said:
I got the stand at home depot for $19.95. The posts have threads with feet that i'm sure you could modify for wheels.
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I have the same stand and have looked long and hard to find threaded casters that fit. No luck so far. The female threads are pretty dinky.
 
I have a question regarding the placement of the RTD sensor for you all:

I'm thinking about doing this and since I'm doing it inside already it will most likely be in the kitchen sitting on the stovetop which leads me to thinking that I could supplement the heat from the element with the burner to reach mash temp and boil. With that in mind, would the heat coming out from underneath the kettle potentially harm the cord plugged into the probe. It looks like you placed yours pretty low from the pictures, somewhere near the same height as the ballvalve.
 
^just stick the probe near the element base - that way all the cords go to 1 place.

I have a glass stove top and have no issues with heat to cord
 
Well, I feel a little dirty because I just asked for a lot of really specific electronic equipment for X-mas. We drew names and my gf's sister and mom got me and wanted to know what I wanted. I basically copy and pasted the list from page one or two of this page and said I want some of these things.
 
So I just read through all of this and am starting to get interested in eBIAB for the upcoming winter here. I have a few questions:

1st: To my understanding the contractor is used because the switches aren't rated at high enough amps? I know this design was laid out for those switches specifically but could you sub in say a 15 or 20A 120V light switch and not use the contractor? I'm electrically challenged but have a few of those laying around.

2nd: Another terminal block question. Is it as simple as hooking up the hot/neutral to one screw and then just running wires of the remaining spaces? Again, electrically challenged here.

3rd: Power source, maybe I'm just confused now but what kind of chord should be used as your main power supply.
 
cmybeer said:
So I just read through all of this and am starting to get interested in eBIAB for the upcoming winter here. I have a few questions:

1st: To my understanding the contractor is used because the switches aren't rated at high enough amps? I know this design was laid out for those switches specifically but could you sub in say a 15 or 20A 120V light switch and not use the contractor? I'm electrically challenged but have a few of those laying around.

2nd: Another terminal block question. Is it as simple as hooking up the hot/neutral to one screw and then just running wires of the remaining spaces? Again, electrically challenged here.

3rd: Power source, maybe I'm just confused now but what kind of chord should be used as your main power supply.
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1st. I think so but I'm not an electrician either! I like it the way it's designed.

2nd. Yes.

3rd. Power cord needs to be 12guage wire. I found it easy to hack up a 12g extension cord.
 
i think i'm going to go for a very simple version of this (possibly just a switch for turning on the PID) into my spare skinny 7.5gal pot. Thus i can do 3 gallons with 2000w just fine. and if i want to do larger like 5 gallon batches, i just have to put it on the stove with the element on :mug:. quite epic, and quite cheap! since i have everything already for the most part.
 
Switch the element not the pid. That way you have complete control of power to the element. My large pot is setup that way. Its nice to just shut off the element to prevent boilovers
 
Ah, whoops! thats what i meant! :)

:EDIT:

Basically, this one. But just one element and add a switch in front of the pid as well. (so i can make sure it never runs dry if i'm just plugging it in, plus i dont want to have something immediately turn on when i plug it in, that freaks me out :) )

P-J said:
You would need to modify the first diagram to add another power input circuit that is independently fed on another circuit breaker. Something like this:

And - as always - Click on the image to see a full scale diagram printable on Tabloid paper (11" x 17")



Hope this help you.
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jrb03 said:
3rd. Power cord needs to be 12guage wire. I found it easy to hack up a 12g extension cord.
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Thanks for answering all my questions jrb! One more question at you or anyone else out there on the internet: where did you find that fancy-pancy 12g extension cord with the light on it. Right now I'm just internet searching and a lot of 12g extension cords I'm finding are like 50 ft long or super expensive. What should I be looking to spend on this?
 
cmybeer said:
Thanks for answering all my questions jrb! One more question at you or anyone else out there on the internet: where did you find that fancy-pancy 12g extension cord with the light on it. Right now I'm just internet searching and a lot of 12g extension cords I'm finding are like 50 ft long or super expensive. What should I be looking to spend on this?
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I got mine at lowes. It was 15ft and I have no idea how much it was. I want to say it was around $20 or so.

Edit: here you go

http://www.lowes.com/pd_68218-66906-UTP511815_0__?productId=3191739
 
Well, step one is down and I'm getting ready to go. I hooked up my pump to a power source today and am running a test BIAB batch which recirculating the wort at this moment. I tested the pump and everything ran fine but then I dropped the grain bag in and it got stuck in the rather small piece of copper tubing I use as a dip tube impeding the flow. I had some trouble with that for a while but once I pushed the bag a bit out of the way it's running fine.

I'm going to get a diptube more like the one pictured on the first few pages here and I don't think it will be a problem but was wondering if anyone else had an issue with this? Trying to regulate temp on the stove right now and going up and down a bit but I guess that is why I need some electrical support.
 
Do you guys mash for a little longer than an hour usually? I did a stout again with my regular BIAB on the stove and mashed for 60 minutes, whereas last time I mashed for 75 (I think), and I lost like 10% efficiency. I think if I have this system and decide to do a double IPA or something, I'd want to mash for at least 90 minutes, if not a couple hours.
 
The final parts showed up so hopefully I can get it built after christmas and get a batch brewed on new years
 
BoxBrewer said:
Do you guys mash for a little longer than an hour usually? I did a stout again with my regular BIAB on the stove and mashed for 60 minutes, whereas last time I mashed for 75 (I think), and I lost like 10% efficiency. I think if I have this system and decide to do a double IPA or something, I'd want to mash for at least 90 minutes, if not a couple hours.
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I consistently get 80%+ on my system. Today I did Orfy Mild and got 83%. Always 60 min mash. I think your crush and water chemistry make a bigger difference than BIAB, or so I've read. I use a cheap corona mill and RO water with added salts and acid malt.
 
jrb03 said:
I consistently get 80%+ on my system. Today I did Orfy Mild and got 83%. Always 60 min mash. I think your crush and water chemistry make a bigger difference than BIAB, or so I've read. I use a cheap corona mill and RO water with added salts and acid malt.
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Interesting... Well that's good to know! Thanks.
 
thewhoner said:
this system is exactly what I'm looking for.

I'll be over my head trying to do it though
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Well, that's what I thought more than a month ago but since then I've been doing a lot of reading and research, asking a lot of question on this forum and pricing out parts and now I think I might just be about ready to go. I have only a little electrical experience but think I'm ready to go here. Got a few parts for Christmas, ordered a few more and have some odds and ends to pick up at home depot but I'm gonna give it a go.
 
Well now I have a problem. The 1650 element wont boil 3.25 gallons of water. ..so now im stuck trying to decide what to do.
 
that's kinda weird. have you checked in your line voltage to your power supply?

if all else fails - you could set it on the stove top for a little help.
 
jammin said:
that's kinda weird. have you checked in your line voltage to your power supply?

if all else fails - you could set it on the stove top for a little help.
Click to expand...

This is actually what I am planning on doing. Figure it will speed things up even if the element is enough to boil
 

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