Show us your sculpture or brew rig

Looks like his brewday software to moniotr water/mash temps and stuff like that. Notice his kegs, they're Electric and most likely cycled from his software. Automation, a dream I hope to incorporate into my rig some day when my money trees bloom again.

Yes, thats my brewery controller. It does basically all the brewing, I just add water and grain..oh and turn a ball valve or 2 (but that should be changed soon!)

The Pol said:

Dunno if I have my v2.0 in this thread yet... if not.

This is how CCB mashes.


This is how CCB sparges.

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I'm curious as to the inner workings of this setup. I have essentially the same setup, well to the extent of the two coolers, but am intrigued as to what you have under the hood as I am liking the automatic aspect of yours and how you are controlling the temps.

rabeb25 said:

Yes, thats my brewery controller. It does basically all the brewing, I just add water and grain..oh and turn a ball valve or 2 (but that should be changed soon!)

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Do you have a DIY thread on all this? If not, you need to put one together! Nerds like me love stuff like that. Is it custom written s/w?

The Pol has all that info available in his threads about electric herms and bling-bling.

We really do need to nag him into getting some silicon tubing, though. That vinyl makes me afraid!

Lil' Sparky said:

Do you have a DIY thread on all this? If not, you need to put one together! Nerds like me love stuff like that. Is it custom written s/w?

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seconded. I'm not as good at computerizing in this regard as others here, but if someone like you can "dumb it down"...

rabeb25 said:

Yes, thats my brewery controller. It does basically all the brewing, I just add water and grain..oh and turn a ball valve or 2 (but that should be changed soon!)

Click to expand...

Kinda takes all the fun out of it, no?

No, that's not jealousy talking.........

Bernie Brewer said:

No, that's not jealousy talking.........

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Isn't that usually the alibi people give when they're jealous...

I know I'm a little jealous anyway.

Lil' Sparky said:

Isn't that usually the alibi people give when they're jealous...

I know I'm a little jealous anyway.

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Honest, I'm not! I'm happier than a pig in a poke with my rig. The one I modeled after your old brew tree....

not jealousy, but envy. greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen

rabebs setup is the bcs-460 from ecc. Check some of his threads, or check out his posts on the ecc forum.

Yup, this is true!

Here's my ongoing brew setup. I am slowly building it up. I am building a HERMS right now. That large tank has a 40 gallon capacity. I got the stainless tank and frame free from work. My goal is to to 15 gallon batches.

cyberbackpacker said:

rabebs setup is the bcs-460 from ecc. Check some of his threads, or check out his posts on the ecc forum.

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What's the ECC forum? I see one for Ecclesiastic Commonwealth Community...

Got any links?

Bernie Brewer said:

Honest, I'm not! I'm happier than a pig in a poke with my rig. The one I modeled after your old brew tree....

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Ohhhhh. Well in that case, I know you're being honest.

nathan said:

The Pol has all that info available in his threads about electric herms and bling-bling.

We really do need to nag him into getting some silicon tubing, though. That vinyl makes me afraid!

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What Nathan said... I have several threads that are very long with copious ammounts of inormation in them. I have parts lists, costs, instructions etc. Several have already built this same system from the information currently available here.

Lil' Sparky said:

What's the ECC forum? I see one for Ecclesiastic Commonwealth Community...

Got any links?

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Embedded Control Concepts: BCS-460 Temperature Controller

cyberbackpacker said:

Embedded Control Concepts: BCS-460 Temperature Controller

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That's a cool piece of equipment. Ought to be for $187!

I love the networked/web interface. Really nice!! Looks like it would be easy to set up and use, too.

EDIT: after looking through some of the state transition diagrams you set up, maybe EASY doesn't best describe things, but I can see how it can help you fully automate everything you need to do.

The machine states are actualyl quite easy once you actually get over the way the information is presented. I have one and have turned it on about two or three times (in the process of equipment gathering) and was able to predesign my mash/HLT programs.

This thread is an inspiration to us noobs.From the economical to the extreme my head is spinning from where to start planning my future rig.

Mine is still a work in process. I am about three weeks into it. It's based on the Brutus 10, but will feature an adjustable sparge arm and whirlpool chilling. I am also using the ECC 460 for system control. That's why there is no mounting arm for a control panel. I built a small table out of the same 2"x2" tubing to hold my laptop.

Here's a pic of the current state of the project:




And there's a build log here: BrewDevil Build

Michael

datamike said:

Mine is still a work in process. I am about three weeks into it. It's based on the Brutus 10, but will feature an adjustable sparge arm and whirlpool chilling. I am also using the ECC 460 for system control. That's why there is no mounting arm for a control panel. I built a small table out of the same 2"x2" tubing to hold my laptop.

Here's a pic of the current state of the project:

And there's a build log here: BrewDevil Build

Michael

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That looks great !

Here's what I've come up with:

As with most of us, still a work in progress. Built the table my self so that its the perfect height to feed my keg, and hold all my brew stuff.

This is my first post on this forum and would like to thank all who post here and share their time and knowledge. This post is awesome! I dont think you can find a bigger compilation of rig pics in one place. I've been working on this for some time now. Its finnaly come to its 2.0 version and has an integrated Arduino Microcontroller recording 11 temps into an access database. Arduinos are fun!





I have more Pics if anyone wants to see them.

Sonny, that is sick, i like the gui, how did you build it? I am attempting something similar (running my brew rig on a windows based control system). could you please elaborate a bit on the software side of your rig please?

Well from what I see on his laptop, its running access. The underlying question I can't answer is how he gets data from his controller TO access. There may be some functionality in the hardware to send data straight into an access db, or he has some intermediate program that reads data from the brew hardware/software and inserts the data into his db. Either way, the access db is representing data from a database and/or some links to the brew hardware/software. I'd like to know more too, how does it interface w/ access <=> brew hardware/software?

Nothing fancy, no GUI's, nothing automated or electric. Just a repurposing of what I have on hand already.



I've found that half the fun of homebrewing for me is making stuff up as I go. McGyver myself some fun toys or tools and go with it.

pompeiisneaks said:

Well from what I see on his laptop, its running access. The underlying question I can't answer is how he gets data from his controller TO access. There may be some functionality in the hardware to send data straight into an access db, or he has some intermediate program that reads data from the brew hardware/software and inserts the data into his db. Either way, the access db is representing data from a database and/or some links to the brew hardware/software. I'd like to know more too, how does it interface w/ access <=> brew hardware/software?

Click to expand...

Gents,
In summary. I created a .jpg in photoshop of the brewery diagram and inserted it into an access form. Created the dynamic labels(in access) to read from the serial port. The arduino has three lines with multiple temp sensors with code that loops the lines looking for the DS18B20 temp sensors. Once a temp sensor is found the aruino serial prints to the usb port and in ms access there is a control called mscomm1 that grabs the data and prints it to the labels that are positioned on the form over the diagram. I am not a programmer by trade but my brother is a guru(thanks for all the help Bro!!). Took us about 11 hrs one weekend to program the arduino and ms access to be so cool. The arduino is mounted with the pump and stir controlls in the grey utility box you see the wires running out. The temp sensors are cycled through and display new temps every 12 seconds. Once the data is inside access there is a simple SQL created to stuff the data into a linked access table that relates to the certain beer record in the database described below(dont want to inflate the working database with a ton of data. I brewed the other day for the first time with this software and it was amazing. I can now log and graph all the data from the brew session. I can see the HeatX and the 4 different temps on a graph if i wanted to. The temp sensors and data are logged as follows, ambient temp, date time, Mash, HLT, Boil, CFCWastewaterCold, CFCWastewaterHot, CFCWortCold, CFCWorthot, (hot water heater)HWHCold, HWHHot, HWH(Water). The small blue pot in the second pic is a hot water heater(brew water through a copper pipe in a pot of boiling water) with some nifty tri-clamp fittings i can use it to heat brew water or wort as in a RIMS style brewery. Its always nice to have hot water at a moments notice for cleaning and such, it also takes much less time to hit strike and sparge temps. The other pic of the screen is another form in the access database that i created to log and create recipies and help me through the brew session. It calculates everything form mash volumes to estimated gravity and much more. Im at the office and dont have any more pics. Ill send more when i get to the house. Hope this clears up some questions. Let me know if you want to know more.

Regards,
Sonny

All electric HERMS. I just finished the kettle yesterday, so I haven't had a chance to brew with it yet.


More pics

Just finished, planning to brew this week
full story here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-first-3-tier-gravity-brew-stand-104666/

This is me.

You asked for it!


Next additions:


And the cleanup crew:


Vern:rockin:

COLObrewer said:

And the cleanup crew:

Vern:rockin:

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I have heard of Chicken and beer but I think you are starting the marinading a little early... I mean they still have feathers

Feathers filter out the grease.

I was just wondering, for those in this thread who use a computer controlled system, what card/box are using to make the link between the brewing system and the computer?

And what soft are you using?

Elut said:

I was just wondering, for those in this thread who use a computer controlled system, what card/box are using to make the link between the brewing system and the computer?

And what soft are you using?

Click to expand...

I am using the ECC 460 PLC: Embedded Control Concepts: BCS-460 Temperature Controller

You can connect to it via an ethernet cable. Or flash a wifi router with firmware to turn it into a wireless bridge and connect wirelessly.

The interface is simply a browser. I use and recommend Firefox.

Michael

Just finished mine up last night
Here is the build thread

Elut said:

I was just wondering, for those in this thread who use a computer controlled system, what card/box are using to make the link between the brewing system and the computer?

And what soft are you using?

Click to expand...

I use the Arduino. You'll have to program the software yourself.

datamike said:

I am using the ECC 460 PLC: Embedded Control Concepts: BCS-460 Temperature Controller

You can connect to it via an ethernet cable. Or flash a wifi router with firmware to turn it into a wireless bridge and connect wirelessly.

The interface is simply a browser. I use and recommend Firefox.

Michael

Click to expand...

I am interested is this as I am automating my rig and would love to control it off a laptop. Do you have a pic of it in your control panel? Are you running gas or electric on your rig?