My KAL clone project begins

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ddknight

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After reading countless posts and build threads here and reading too many electrical articles I decided to finally go forward with an electric build of my own. After everything I read and making a list of what it was that I wanted in a brewery I found that the complete build by Kal was probably best going to fit my needs.

Luckily, I had built a Brutus clone three years ago and already have the Blichman kettles, wort chiller, and pumps so that part was very easy. I have now undertaken the control panel and am now finished with that. I've posted some pictures at this point and will take a a few more soon to post. Sorry for some of the blurry pics. Guess the phone camera's just not good with some shaky hands!

My wiring inside is not near as nice or neat as Kal or NattyBrew's but it's all connected correctly and I'm sure the beer will taste just the same:)

Thanks to everyone on here who have posted threads and tips on electric brewing which helps those of us who haven't had experience with this in the past complete a project of this magnitude!

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Doug,

Looks frickin awesome man! And eerily familiar to boot! Quick question though on your receptacles, did you use a different male 240V receptacle or did you just mount it with the lip on the inside of the box instead of the outside?

Speaking of little variations, I actually like the way you pushed the layout on the far left with the power key and LED light down a row its just a little difference that makes the box your own! Solid work so far man, I look forward to seeing the whole thing put together and wired up!

Sorry to bombard you with questions, but I know you mentioned you were having an electrician come out to wire up your brewery outlet...did you get that done yet? And how much did it cost? Happy building.

-=Matt=-
 
Hey nattybrew,

No problem with the questions. I've attached a closer picture of the 240v male receptacle. It looks different than Kals and yours b/c the cover is black. I found this one off of Ebay and like the black color so got it instead of the white one. Still mounted on the outside with the receptacle sunk in and going to the inside.

The power on key is the only thing I really changed design wise on the control panel and it simply was done so I could avoid putting in a new ground post and offset the light a little bit to make it different. Here's a picture of my tags put on as well and I did a few of those a little different too just to throw in some color.

On a side note with the tags, George, from the place Kal ordered his tags is absolutely awesome to work with! He did everything in a day and I had them 7 days later from Canada. I noticed I messed up one tag and emailed him back and he fixed it at no cost and sent it right back to me. Should have it next week. I'd refer his services to anyone!

Wiring is all done and the panel is now complete. Next is to install my HERMS coil in the kettle. I'm going to use copper instead of SS because I have the coil from an older kettle. More pics to follow.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

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Nattybrew, forgot about the electrician - he is scheduled to come here on Monday. The price he gave me for an estimate was about $150-200 to run the line from my breaker box about 60-70 feet to my brew area. That is for a standard breaker and not a GFCI since I'm using the 30a GFCI cord that Kal used.

If you're interested let me know. This guy is a friend of one of my old college friends. He has been very nice so we'll see how Monday goes.
 
So I made some progress today and had a couple set backs. The electrician made it today and hooked up all the 240 wire and so I now have power to the control panel.

Bad news is for whatever reason the AMP and VOLT meters didn't come on with the power. Now I have to figure that little snag out. Also need to do some reading on the PID controllers and how to get them all squared away. They seemed to flash on the same thing today when I hooked things up so not exactly sure how to set it up but everything at least came on fine. Pumps work and later this week we'll fire up the burners for a formal test.

Also got my pumps set up and mounted and the CFC all set to go. Kettles are done and only waiting on one more 1/2" SS nipple to connect to the last kettle ball valve.

Some additional pics from today:

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How big is the HERMS coil? I have a SS coil sitting at home that needs coiled to a smaller diameter. I am not looking forward to that project. I guess that is the advantage of copper.
 
I used 25' of copper for my HERMS. It was very easy to manipulate and I soldered on the elbows to fit perfectly into the compression fittings. No leaks on testing and was a ton easier to use than I thought the SS would be.
 
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