hosehead electronic brewery controller

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I have a hosehead 2. Have had it for a week or so now, and haven't had time to hook it up... Will be keeping an eye on this thread.
 
Over two weeks since I ordered and I still don't even have a shipping notification. So far I'm still happy with my choice but I'm starting to get anxious to get it in my hands and start brewing.
 
Spoke too soon, I just found out that it arrived today. Now I can't wait to get off work and check it out.
 
Spoke too soon, I just found out that it arrived today. Now I can't wait to get off work and check it out.

I'll be brewing a Zombie Dust clone this weekend with mine. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I think you're gonna love it.
 
Let us know how it goes. I'm seriously considering purchasing one and got a guy in our club interested as well.

I think he has 6 day lead time so that could be the reason for the long ship times.
 
I have a 4 prong 220v outlet in my garage and a 30 amp gfci breaker. The main power input on the hosehead only takes 3 wires. Can I still use the 4 prong outlet or would I need to convert it to a 3 prong outlet.
 
I have a 4 prong 220v outlet in my garage and a 30 amp gfci breaker. The main power input on the hosehead only takes 3 wires. Can I still use the 4 prong outlet or would I need to convert it to a 3 prong outlet.

I have a 4 prong spa panel in my garage and it works fine. The controller does not come wired so you can wire it any way you want. There are ways to wire it directly although you will get differing opinions on if that is safe or not. You can also get an adapter to go from a 3 prong plug to a 4 prong plug.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003YDY7YK/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
 
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Just geeking out a little. Last night I was able to turn on SSH and load a VNC server on the Raspberry Pi. I also set them up to load when the Raspberry Pi boots up. So now I can run it without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse and just connect with my iPad. Additionally I purchased a Powerline kit, sends your internet through your home electrical system, so now I can get a much stronger network connection out in my garage. I'll be doing a water test tomorrow and if all goes well brewing a Pale Ale this weekend.
 
I've done two brew days with my hosehead and couldn't be happier. The only thing I've got to master is controlling my mash temperature. I've installed a herms coil in my HLT and placed the temperature probes in stainless tee's on the output of the mash tun and also on my HLT. It seems my temperature is about 4-5 degrees cooler coming out of my mash tun according to the probes.
I guess I need to go ahead and buy an accurate thermometer to get the offsets right on my probes. I'm just not comfortable that my temps are accurate yet.
On a side note, I programmed my STC-1000 for a 14 day fermentation cycle. It keeps it a 66 degrees for several days then raises it to 70 for awhile and then at the end, it automatically drops the temperature to 34 degrees for a cold crash. I just put the fermenter in my chamber and start the program. Then come back in 14 days to keg. Pretty neat.
 
Any suggestions on where I can find a thermowell that is small enough to fit in the the stainless tee and large enough to handle the provided temperature prob? The smallest length I have been able to find is 2"
 
Any suggestions on where I can find a thermowell that is small enough to fit in the the stainless tee and large enough to handle the provided temperature prob? The smallest length I have been able to find is 2"

I wasn't able to find one. I finally went with some compression fittings like this one: https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/pcomp1.htm

Just use two O-rings and trim back the heat shrink on your probes.
 
Water test went great! Family stuff came up this weekend so my brew day got pushed back to next weekend.
 
Played around with my Hosehead system today. I purchased a Blichmann G2 15 gallon mashtun to replace a 10 gallon cooler I had been using. Wanted to see how my herms would work with the new mashtun.
It's about two degrees difference between the HLT and the mashtun when pumping through the herms coil.
So now I'm dialed in and should be able to hold my mash temp to within one degree with no problems.
I love this setup. Gonna have to brew something next weekend.
Don't know why the picture of the computer screen posted upside down.

IMG_0903.jpg


IMG_0904.jpg
 
I brewed my first beer, a pale ale, with the Hosehead controller yesterday. Hands down the easiest mash and sparge ever. I do have one question for you RonR. What setting do you use to control your boil? Everything I did resulted in an extremely active boil and I ended up with an evaporation rate higher than I'm used to.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1431869329.628039.jpg
 
I brewed my first beer, a pale ale, with the Hosehead controller yesterday. Hands down the easiest mash and sparge ever. I do have one question for you RonR. What setting do you use to control your boil? Everything I did resulted in an extremely active boil and I ended up with an evaporation rate higher than I'm used to.

View attachment 278644


Once I achieve a boil using manual mode, I begin to drop the duty cycle down from 100% until I have a reasonable boil rate.
 
Just wanted to follow up with those of you using this in addition to RonR to see whether you're happy with the decision. Thinking of pulling the trigger but still a little hesitant. How difficult was it to wire the plugs? I have a prebuilt element from theelectricbrewery and I'm not looking forward to having to rewire it. Thanks for any info!
 
Just wanted to follow up with those of you using this in addition to RonR to see whether you're happy with the decision. Thinking of pulling the trigger but still a little hesitant. How difficult was it to wire the plugs? I have a prebuilt element from theelectricbrewery and I'm not looking forward to having to rewire it. Thanks for any info!


If your wire gauge is appropriate, then wiring the connectors included with the hosehead is a breeze. There's videos on YouTube posted by the maker of the hosehead on how to do it.
 
for a 14 gallons (pre-boil volume) I start at 100% (manual mode) till it starts to boil then back down to 85% to maintain. The last 15 minutes I run it through my counterflow and ramp it up to 92% to achieve the same rolling boil. It's been great so far with no issues
 
I brewed my first beer with the Hosehead this past weekend. The process was very easy and I was able to maintain an accurate mash temperature. During the boil I used the manual mode at 100% until I achieved a rolling boil. I then backed down to 72% to maintain the boil.
 
Just wanted to follow up with those of you using this in addition to RonR to see whether you're happy with the decision. Thinking of pulling the trigger but still a little hesitant. How difficult was it to wire the plugs? I have a prebuilt element from theelectricbrewery and I'm not looking forward to having to rewire it. Thanks for any info!


I have very little electrical experience and thought it was pretty easy to do. In the YouTube video he comments on the letters on the plug. They are kind of hard to read because the font is so small but once I figured that out it was a breeze.
 
If your wire gauge is appropriate, then wiring the connectors included with the hosehead is a breeze. There's videos on YouTube posted by the maker of the hosehead on how to do it.


I have very little electrical experience and thought it was pretty easy to do. In the YouTube video he comments on the letters on the plug. They are kind of hard to read because the font is so small but once I figured that out it was a breeze.
 
Sorry for posting this twice, the first one kept coming back with an error message.

thrillhouse: I have very little electrical experience and thought it was pretty easy to do. In the YouTube video he comments on the letters on the plug. They are kind of hard to read because the font is so small but once I figured that out it was a breeze.
 
I pulled the trigger on a Hosehead controller last week. I should receive the controller sometime next week.
I'll be using 4500 elements from brew hardware. My setup will be a three keggle herms system with two March pumps.
 
I pulled the trigger on a Hosehead controller last week. I should receive the controller sometime next week.
I'll be using 4500 elements from brew hardware. My setup will be a three keggle herms system with two March pumps.


Congrats. I've had mine for a couple of months and haven't regretted my purchase once.
 
Once I achieve a boil using manual mode, I begin to drop the duty cycle down from 100% until I have a reasonable boil rate.


Okay so I get the duty cycle % but what do you set the duty time to? Everything I've tried has it turning on and off constantly.
 
Okay so I get the duty cycle % but what do you set the duty time to? Everything I've tried has it turning on and off constantly.


I use 60 seconds. That's what I was told by the builder.
 
Hmmm... Even at 2% and 60 sec. I'm getting a big boil that cycles on and off. Guess it's time I send an email to the builder.

I have a 3750 watt Blichmann Boilcoil in my brew kettle. It's the largest that would fit through the opening in my keggle. I use 100% Duty Cycle and 60 seconds Duty time until I reach boil. I then drop the Duty Cycle until I just have a rolling boil. I don't think my coil cycles. It is on continually until I send a stop command.
 
I received the Hosehead however the package didn't contain any directions. Does he ship these without instructions on how to set up the system?
 
I received the Hosehead however the package didn't contain any directions. Does he ship these without instructions on how to set up the system?


Check YouTube. There are good videos on setup and operation. I'm available if I can help.
 
I'm getting close to pulling the trigger on one of these too.

One question I had was how you install the temperature probes. I want to install them with a tee fitting in the output valves of my kettles (as depicted on the brewtronix site), but I wasn't sure which parts I need to do this. Can someone point me in the right direction?
 
Ok, a little more research shows that this is probably the most common way to mount the probes into a tee fitting:
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/pcomp2.htm

New question - the part above looks like it will work, but I'll have to unscrew the fitting to remove the temp probe. Would I be able to use this part in a tee fitting, and then just drop the temp probe in unsecured?
 
Can you share those? I just placed my order, and want to order the other parts I need so they all arrive at the same time.

I'm leaning towards putting the probes in a thermowell in a tee fitting, unless someone tells me that's a stupid idea (or has another solution that makes them easily removable for clean-up / breakdown).
 
Can you share those? I just placed my order, and want to order the other parts I need so they all arrive at the same time.

I'm leaning towards putting the probes in a thermowell in a tee fitting, unless someone tells me that's a stupid idea (or has another solution that makes them easily removable for clean-up / breakdown).

I trimmed back the heat shrink on the probes a little. I use two rubber O-rings in the compression fitting. They seal well and do not leak.

I thought about thermowells, but went with compression fittings installed in tee-s. I've heard if you use thermowells, you may have to use thermal grease for good contact between the probe and the themowell.
 
Thanks, that's great feedback. That's what I was curious about, if there are any negative affects of putting the probe inside a thermowell instead of a compression fitting.

Do you remove the probe frequently? I think i'll be taking my kettle off of my brewstand for cleaning, so I'm looking for a way to quickly/frequently disconnect the probe from my kettle.
 

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