Phase 2 brewery build progress shots

While the water heater burner systems are attractive, the BTU output is usually around 30K BTU's maximum Vs 100K+ for most of the high pressure burners. The largest obstacle to heating a keggle type kettle is the skirt traps the hot gasses and prevents the flow across the surface for heat transfer. The vented skirt design on the new system keeps the combustion products moving and the vent pipe takes the combustion products out through the roof so you do not have to have a large vent hood and fan, just a small unit to catch water vapor.

Finally have had some time to resume testing after modifying the boiler water circuit to include a low flow rate meter. After running some tests at 1 GPM recirculation rate I pushed the boiler steam production up to the point it reached 60 degrees temperature rise through the mixer tee with a 3.5 GPH water flow input. Now that the boiler control is working like it should, I should be able to finish tuning and start the mash step heating testing and tuning, and then go for an auto sequence run this trip. Rewrite of the application in C# is under way and should be ready for testing in a couple months, the goal is to shrink the application down to a point it will run on an ARM powered touch screen platform.

Wow, just WoWWWWW!

Tested the .Net re-write and brought the hardware communication up this weekend, a couple tweaks and it is working now with the 5 Opto 22 PLC interface boards. A little bit more to do on a couple pop up dialog helpers and the conversion will be complete, then some house keeping and background image work and it will be finished. The touch screen PC has limited memory and a slow clock speed so I am not sure if a web interface would be wise on that platform.
Next up is the purchase of an ARM 9 platform with 5"X7" touch screen display to play with, and a couple I2C analog, digital, and PWM boards to see what can be done on a smaller scale system. I have time to burn nights and weekends so this will keep me occupied for a bit seeing what I can make it do, and then work with a friend to test this on an electric brew system.

Welcome to Oregon, it's a lush green state should you spend enough time to enjoy it. It hit 81*F today less than a 1/4 mile off the island.

ok i have been trying to understand your software here. i understand how to write jave applications, C applications, and am pretty handy at SLC 500 plcs. But I am getting lost on where you are going from an embedded application to the opto 22 plcs.

maybe i scanned over the post that explained it but all. However I was able to catch you mention "opto 22 interface boards" and am curious about these.

I just coughed up a lot of cash for a rslogix license and although I can make my touch panel work with the plc and the plc operate devices easily; i can much easier write the logic, gui, and complex parts in java. I am wondering if i could be going the wrong direction with AB and rslogix.

I have just about tweaked the programming to death, here is a link to the final version of the renamed brewing system graphics https://picasaweb.google.com/kevin.ladue/OneTouchProgramGraphics#. This is the C# version now, many hours of writing and testing to get here for a system a bit more complicated than other amateur home brewing systems.

Your system operating screen is fantastic, hats off to you.