MyHERMS (automated) build

Ok, I think it's time to start a thread showing the state of the art of my HERMS build and give updates until this will start to run properly.

For me it's the first AG system, but I've chosen to follow an automated route, with the brewtroller core to manage my system.

Basically it's a single tier, three kettles with two of them gas powered (HLT and BOIL).

Kettles are around 26Gallons each, I wanna go big!

My water and wort flows have already been discussed here

The system is going to have 10 motorized valves, 7 of them with two ways and 3 of them with three ways.

Two March 809 pumps will power all the different flows.

Gas is managed by the usual Homeywell items, the same you can see here (thanks to sawdustguy!), with two banjo burners, these.

I've insulated the mash tun, I really like the way wood gives to kettles!

This is my false bottom




To cool down the wort I will use this one.

Three sensors for the temperature and three analog thermometers as backup are available.

Volumes will be monitored with the "bubbling system", here explained.

Now some photos of the actual parts, partially assembled.

This is my motorized mill


The three kettles, the stand is not already planned. I will go with a temporary choice.


The two pumps, some valves, the sight glass


Other valves, assembled together


Other valves...


Valves with the water hose


Pump #2 with the valves tower!


XLR connectors


Sight glass with triclamp adapters to 1/2" and hose couplings


Analog thermometer and the sensor wire on the insulated mash tun


The ss hoses that will be on HLT and Boil kettles for the volume sensors system


The counterflow chiller


Here is where the beer will be served chilled


Inside view of the kegerator


That's all folks! More updates as soon as I could spend some (nice) time on this!

gm

(I have to find the way to show properly vertical images... )

I love to see DIY builds. Nice mash tun with the wood addition

Can't wait to see the finished setup and the beer from it.

Nice work! How is the wood secured to the mash tun?

For the mash tun insulation I've used insulation foam, some insulation material, thermoresistent glue and the wood.

Here you see almost all before the work



It's not difficult to do, if I did it you can do it for sure!

This is the insulated mash tun



To complete the mash tun I think to add two ss belts in order to compress together the wood and the other insulation materials in case of future leaks.

Some proceedings in my build.

I've found someone very cheap to weld the xlr connectors to the 16 cables I had laying around. Now the cables are ready!

In the meanwhile I decided to brew a 90% pilsner 10% wheat beer in the BIAB style, using just one kettle.

some pics of my first AG experience





On of the banjo burner, so powerful, with the handmade windshield





The temp setup










Failure is not an option!



my assistant



some wort left, whirlfloc did its job!



I'm quite happy with my first AG experience, breewsmith says I've reached 72% and the beer fermenting seems quite good for a rookie.





Coming back to my build, I had to reduce the size of my ss herms coil

from this



to this



and here it is inside the HLT kettle



this is the current mess I'm working on with the brewtroller setup



today is the right day to weld the 12 switches (10 valves and 2 pumps). Still 2 to do for the burners.



some silicon then to better insulate and fix the joints among the small wires



Next in list are the volume sub-system and the digital temp probes to finish. Time is never enough!

What is your source for the automatic valves and how much did those set you back?

drac0 said:

What is your source for the automatic valves and how much did those set you back?

Click to expand...

Here it is: http://www.tfjt.com/en/index.asp

around 320 $ for 7 two ways ss valves and 4 three ways brass valves, all 12 V and 1/2" size.

Plus shipping from China to your door.

Awesome build! I am also in the middle of a design for total pre-boil automation, with BCS.
The stainless tubes, is that for a bubbler volume sensor? Ever tested this method, how does it work for you, is it reliable and consistent? I'm most likely going with float switches.


Haha! What is wrong with this picture?

Click to expand...

Budzu said:

Awesome build! I am also in the middle of a design for total pre-boil automation, with BCS.
The stainless tubes, is that for a bubbler volume sensor? Ever tested this method, how does it work for you, is it reliable and consistent? I'm most likely going with float switches.


Haha! What is wrong with this picture?

Click to expand...

Uh, I haven't seen that finger before!

As for the volume sensors, yes, the small ss tubes are for the bubbler system. Not built yet, but looking around to what other bt users are doing it seems quite good. I will report my impressions when ready.

Good choice with BCS, let me know how your build is going as well!

Thanks for the link, I've been looking all over for reasonably priced automatic valves.

great build!

do you have a wiring diagram?

A4J said:

great build!

do you have a wiring diagram?

Click to expand...

I've found great sources especially in this two systems

Black Heart Brewery
Black Dog Brewery

And you can find useful also this

I'm going with LP gas burners, so I don't have to deal with the heater electric part.

cheers

gm

[off topic] Just seen your keezer: AWESOME!!!

Little step today, bought the enclosure for the bubbler volume sensors and aquarium pumps. Cheap, but everything seems to fit properly inside.



Now, for the bubbler system, I have just to wire the sensors to the bt board connectors and to cut the tube in the right lenght for reaching the kettles from the enclosure. This is to be done when the build is almost at the final steps.

Another day has almost gone with a further small step done.

Made the holes for the xlr panel mount connectors in the enclosure, in which the bt boards, sub-boards, power supply and airport express (giving wifi to bt). Tomorrow I'd like to place the switches as well.





Bought the hose couplings for the honeywell valves as well



These are the xlr cables waiting for the valves and the pumps



And this is what I've received today, since I'm planning to brew a wit beer as soon as I could. I've already have a lot of pilsner grain waiting to join my brewing day!

Nice system so far! I think the mash tun is my favorite part.

A suggestion for you though. Remove the ball valves you have on the input side of your pumps. They are designed to be restricted on the output. You can actually ruin them if you restrict on them input side.

Thanks Carter,

you are right, actually I have the ball valves on the input size of the pumps since I've not already bought F-F 1/2" couplings, using the valve instead. They're always 100% open!

Although I agree with your above statement about the valves on the input side (when using manual valves), there is a major advantage with automation. You can design the program to not turn the pump unless one of the input valves are open.

Keep up the great work, goingmad! I have my BT 3.3 on the way.

And also you are right Squeeky, but I'd feel more safe to have a manual valve backup for everything that could go wrong, while brewing, with the electric system. I'm going to have manual ball valves for every output from the kettles as well. For the same reason even if with electric honeywell gas valves, also there I'll have manual gas valve as a safety backup. Never managed a system like this, quite complex for my previous experience, so I feel better with some additional "emergency exits".

As for the bretroller, the recent updates, especially with the web gui, place it a way better than before. I really can't wait to brew with it!!! Good luck with your build too!

What is the material on top of your mill hopper? I'm looking for some edge banding to protect from sharp edges like that. Nice build too.

Bigscience, if you mean the black band on top of the barley crusher mill, it was coming already assembled with it from the manufacturer. If I were in you I'd search some black heavy paper, easy to curve and to glue there. Feel free to ask if you need more info or detailed photos of that part.

cheers

gm

Since these are the last miles to finish the build, I need to better point out what I really have to do in my spare time.

I'd like to test my system, if everything will be ok, on 5/20. So, this is my to do list from today to the brewing day. Let's see if I can accomplish my mission!



Pray for me!

Some further steps done.

Gas hoses almost done







I really hate to couple the hoses with their couplings. I've found a great help from this



Also the temperature probes seem to work properly now. The "one wire" system bt is using a bit tricky to make as a diy experience, but finally the three probes are working (temperature set in C degrees). This step has required at least 4-5h to be completed, cutting wires to shorter lenghts, welding and rewelding wrong ones, testing, checking all the weldings and so on...



Also one of the two pilot burners has been welded to one banjo burner. I hope this is a working position for it, soon the answer!





The pilsner I did a few weeks ago - my first AG - with the BIAB method is quite good, just a bit too bitter. Too much hops, but 100% drinkable. Tried with the keg force carbing method found in a sticky thread here by Bobby_M, it's worked great!

Cheers for now.

Nice

Busy saturday today with my build!

I had to wire all the relays with the different power lines, as follow:

12V: brewtroller and expansion boards, n. 10 motorized valves
24V: gas sparks and gas valves
220V: n. 2 march pumps, n. 1 apple airport express, n. 2 air pumps for the bubbler system

Probably in the evolution of the build I'll have to introduce some terminal blocks instead of having such a huge amount of spaghetti in my control panel!



Brewtroller and expansion boards (10 channel relay, 3 channel relay, network interface)



Everything seems to fit in the control panel enclosure



Top view



The 2 left switches are for the gas (HLT on top and Boil Kettle on bottom)
The 10 center switches are for valves 1-10
The 2 right switches are for pumps 1 and 2

Ports side view



Tomorrow some final adjustments and if everything will be ok, some tests and calibrations (temperature probes and volume measurement)

Sub'd..great build!

goingmad said:

Tomorrow some final adjustments and if everything will be ok, some tests and calibrations (temperature probes and volume measurement)

Click to expand...

Looking forward to it.

GoingMad,

I'm 2 days away from finishing up my Mashtun FB, which looks INCREDIBLY similar to yours except that I'm only using a single piece of perforated stainless -why did you use two overlapping pieces like that? (Is it just to increase the strength to support more weight without bending?

If you were to do it again would you do the double overlapping perforated FB like that again? Do grain husks get caught in between the two layers?


Adam

Hi Adam!

Glad we are on the same boat!

Some words about my fb. I've started taking a look at one of the - imho - best fb we can find around, the Blichmann one, and to its approach to wort filtration through the grain bed.







In that fb the grain bed doesn't lay flat, as you can see on the above pictures. So I've chosen to have a double layer, with holes placed as you've seen



I think the holes in my ss layer are also too big, probably too much dirty things could pass through. Then, consider my build is based on the HERMS recirculation system, with the wort filtration done through the grain bed.

My short experience with the only two batches made until now says this fb has worked great with a pilsner based beer and had great troubles with a wit-like beer, with an average amount of wheat flakes. Definitively I have to add rice hulls to my next wit batch! I didn't have at that time, now I should be ok!





Hope all of this could be of any help!

Goingmad, do you have any pictures or details on how you built the FB?

-I was planning on just setting the perforated round sheet on top of the stainless ring and tack welding it there, but recessing the FB into the ring just a little bit, as you did, makes it look perfectly round and actually much better. (Rob "The Malt Miller" in the U.K. was my inspiration for the FB design; you can view his tack-welded to the top of the ring solution here: http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=321
-Notice how much better yours looks just because the FB material is welded a bit below the top of the ring? It's odd how such a small modification makes such an aesthetic difference.


Adam

The fb in your link has smaller holes. My holes are 6mm in each ss layer, the resulting holes with the two layers one above the other are then ovals 4mm X 2mm. Different approach, in my fb the surface for the grain bed is not flat. Cannot say definitely "it's better!", in my idea it should work better. Not enough experience to say I'm right.

I went with 3/32 holes on 5/32 staggered spacing which gives me a 32.6% open area; the material is 1.5mm thick. I'm quite happy with the hole size and total open area. Your material definitely has some pretty large holes; I see the need for the double-layered approach now. I definitely like how much more attractive your design is by welding the perforated sheet in the center of the ring vs. directly to the top in the Malt Miller design. -I also like your use of the 2nd ring to help provide extra support but I think give that my MT is only 50 liters and the material is 1.5mm thick I can probably get away with a single ring. (I'll try it and if it starts to bend after a batch or two I'll come back and add extra support later.)

I'm not sure how thick to make the bottom ring. I've read that the less space under the FB the greater the efficiency (I don't think this applies in a recirculated mash system, though), and I've also heard that slightly more space will help decrease turbulence under the false bottom... I think I'm going with a simple 1" ring (I have to order the ring material today).

Adam

Any way you can post some pics of the volume sensors you mentioned? You've got a lot of the same elements in your rig as I'm working on. Measuring volume is my last weakness. Thanks