Going electric, where to start

Well a little bit of work and I'm almost ready to brew. Need a few more fittings and what not, plus still need to etch volume marks and figure out how to use my omron capacitative fluid level detectors and electric ball valve to automate HLT filling and heating.
TD.

View attachment 1449943084999.jpg

Latest progress...

View attachment 1450473530593.jpg

Shortly after, I decided to set authentication and well.... I ended up needing to do a hard reset, which was a REAL PITA because the mounting bracket was covering the reset hole and there isn't much clearance inside. Plus it erased any process progamming that was on it.

Got the auto-fill line run over to the system, but my PTC fitting was leaking really badly. Ordered some new ones, and that should be here soon. Also got a couple of those float switches that #poptarts linked for me, so those will be here soon too I hope - though never know with eBay stuff. Will need to get another TC adapter though since I only have one and my HLT fittings are TC.

Got the pump power cords lengthened and have an idea of the whole brewing process and tubing switches, which I think will probably not be as terribly messy as I had feared. Going to run wort from top to bottom in the coils so shouldn't get dripping from the top connections when I change the hoses.

Kinda peeved that I lost all the processes that were programmed into the BCS because I'm not entirely sure how all the inputs and outputs were configured, not to mention the valve control output and the float switches.

Mounted the Omron sensors to the sightglass but they aren't connected to anything for now.


TD

First brew yesterday.

View attachment 1451933601851.jpg

Learned a lot.

This was the last five gallon batch I'll do. The hop spider I used won't work well with five gallon batches because of the liquid level being too low. Next batch will be ten gallons, and I will use the whirlpool port to see if I can finally obtain a functional whirlpool to drain hop-free wort.

I couldn't figure out how to calibrate my temp probes. They are off a bit. Probably not a big deal though since my thermapen readings for the mash did match the BCS. The HLT I think it is off by 1.something degrees. Boil kettle I don't think matters as much. Needed to fiddle with the duty cycle on the BCS processes. It had been preprogrammed with a value of 8 after the first hop addition and wasnt enough to keep boil rolling. I tried to figure out what all the duty cycle stuff meant, but never really found any useful or practical information on the wiki. So instead I cranked it up until the boil looked good. Running at full blast, this thing boiled off 1.5 gallons in 45 minutes. That was good because my precalculated dough in water wasn't enough due to the false bottom much higher than my Blichmann was. I added about double so I needed about a three gallon boil off to hit numbers. Still haven't measured OG but I have a sample in the fridge I'll check tonight.

I think etching is probably pointless. I need to devise a way to measure hot volume level and cold volume level probably using a PVC pipe marked with red and blue sharpie lines to indicate known volume of liquid based on me pouring it in then trying to mark the now wet PVC. Seems the easiest. Cannot see any etch marks on kettle from the steam in your face I would suspect.

Haven't done any fiddling with the PID or watching the mash curves. Need to remember to refill the HLT after dough in to make sure the HERMS coil is fully submerged.....

I'm sure there is a lot more to learn. I was impressed with the noise of the chugger pumps running inside, the quietness of the hood fan and the silent boil, the relative ease of cleanup, and the effectiveness of the recirculated cfc chilling method. I had very little loss in tubing because I used co2 to blow the lines clear (mostly).

Still need to get auto fill process automated, and have a couple plastic float switches on order that I hope will clear the TC adapters. Otherwise, I'll be using the omron ones with the window on the metal/plastic sight glass and an outboard project box. This doesn't sound like a fun project though.

Also have yet to determine the ideal recirculation rate during the mash. Hard to get an idea on my efficiency without a final gravity reading as well. I'm considering with a 20 gallon MLT, that I could effectively go to a no sparge and save time.

Bobby_M at Brewhardware.com has what you need for sight-gauges.

https://www.brewhardware.com/category_s/1820.htm

Bargainfittings also has one that i used if you want 1/2", although Bobby has one as well you'd just need to buy a 1/2" elbow.
http://www.bargainfittings.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=45&product_id=117

Also i think your ideal recirc rate will likely vary depending on grist. For some beers i can run it full out 100%, for others i need to throttle it back to 25% or so, or else i form a vacuum and get a stuck sparge.

Thanks. I think that in order to use a sightglass, I'd need to use a TC to NPT adapter and a Tee fitting on the temp probe port since the others get pumps connected for whirlpool.

I might just try the manual dipstick method.

#FuzzeWuzze, how high up does your false bottom sit? I think mine is up about 3 inches off the bottom.

I got some float switches that were able to fit into TC adapters for my High and Low HLT level. Once I get the Process from panel builder (since I can't tell which output no. on the BCS is connected to the valve control), this will permit remote HLT fill and from there remote HLT pre-heat, probably without recirculation however, but that should be fine.

TD

TrickyDick said:

Thanks. I think that in order to use a sightglass, I'd need to use a TC to NPT adapter and a Tee fitting on the temp probe port since the others get pumps connected for whirlpool.

I might just try the manual dipstick method.

#FuzzeWuzze, how high up does your false bottom sit? I think mine is up about 3 inches off the bottom.

I got some float switches that were able to fit into TC adapters for my High and Low HLT level. Once I get the Process from panel builder (since I can't tell which output no. on the BCS is connected to the valve control), this will permit remote HLT fill and from there remote HLT pre-heat, probably without recirculation however, but that should be fine.

TD

Click to expand...

Pretty high because i have the jaybird false bottom with the built in stand. If i remember correctly its about 2.25 gallons just to cover the thing. So i mash with 2.25 gallons more than BrewersFriend tells me since those lower 2.25 gallons arent really touching the mash, in order to get the right consistency above the FB.

FuzzeWuzze said:

Pretty high because i have the jaybird false bottom with the built in stand. If i remember correctly its about 2.25 gallons just to cover the thing. So i mash with 2.25 gallons more than BrewersFriend tells me since those lower 2.25 gallons arent really touching the mash, in order to get the right consistency above the FB.

Click to expand...

I do the same with beersmith because I have 3 gallons under my false bottom...

tricky, as far as the cycle time? do you mean the percentage in manual pwm mode or the actual cycle time ? if you are talking about the percentage number for the manual mode then its just controlling how long the element stays on for in each cycle (cycle adjustment is usually in seconds with say 2 being 2 seconds ... With the cycle time set to 2 for example 50% means the element will be on for 1 second and off for 1 second... if cycle time was set to 1 the element would be on for half a second then off..
You can also easily adjust the offset for each temp probe to read dead on..

augiedoggy said:

I do the same with beersmith because I have 3 gallons under my false bottom...

tricky, as far as the cycle time? do you mean the percentage in manual pwm mode or the actual cycle time ? if you are talking about the percentage number for the manual mode then its just controlling how long the element stays on for in each cycle (cycle adjustment is usually in seconds with say 2 being 2 seconds ... With the cycle time set to 2 for example 50% means the element will be on for 1 second and off for 1 second... if cycle time was set to 1 the element would be on for half a second then off..
You can also easily adjust the offset for each temp probe to read dead on..

Click to expand...

Thanks.

Looks like I need to calibrate my mash tun dead space. I measured 2600ml in the pump and HERMS coil (does that seem right?) when I was doing a prelim cleaning. Don't know how much beneath the screen, at least 3 gallons.

As far as the cycle time. I think I found a better description on the ECC site. There are a bunch of settings in the PID settings page that will affect the function of the duty cycle mode, and I never looked at those. I was in the edit process page. From what I understand, there is a period setting in the PID settings someplace. The screen I was on had a set point adjustment for the duty cycle. No units or anything, just setpoint. I think it is the percent of the time that the element is ON during it cycle period. It's rather confusing to me but I do see that you can adjust the time in each period that the element is on, and many other tweaks to fiddle with the amount of heat you are adding to the system to maintain optimal boil without adding too much heat to the system.

TrickyDick said:

Thanks.

Looks like I need to calibrate my mash tun dead space. I measured 2600ml in the pump and HERMS coil (does that seem right?) when I was doing a prelim cleaning. Don't know how much beneath the screen, at least 3 gallons.

As far as the cycle time. I think I found a better description on the ECC site. There are a bunch of settings in the PID settings page that will affect the function of the duty cycle mode, and I never looked at those. I was in the edit process page. From what I understand, there is a period setting in the PID settings someplace. The screen I was on had a set point adjustment for the duty cycle. No units or anything, just setpoint. I think it is the percent of the time that the element is ON during it cycle period. It's rather confusing to me but I do see that you can adjust the time in each period that the element is on, and many other tweaks to fiddle with the amount of heat you are adding to the system to maintain optimal boil without adding too much heat to the system.

Click to expand...

Yes thats how the cycle works... I usually use a setpoint of 75 or 80 with my 4500w element and boiling 12 gallons or wort.. this means that the element is on for 75 or 80 % of each cycle which is each second because I have my cycle time set to 1 second on my mypin pid... Basically its pulsing it like an led dimmer works to give it more or less power.

Ok thanks!

I will need to fiddle with it on my next batch.

Good news! I got the fill valve and the float switches working. This means, if I have the HLT setup with a minimum of the coil installed and the main valve and dip tube installed and closed, that I can remotely fill and commence heating and hold the temp until I am ready to brew. I can set the high level float to turn off the valve and then begin heating, or could alternately set the low level float to commence heating as soon as it is above the element.

I still need to ensure water tightness on the polypropylene float switches installed in the stainless TC adapters, AND would be nice to know the effective volume of water in the HLT when the top float switch turns off the fill valve. Also curious if I commence heating based on top fill, will I have enough room to account for expansion due to heating (probably so). I bought a postal scale to weigh the kettle and was thinking that would be an accurate way to measure volume either hot or cold. Wonder how the conversion would work when trying to measure wort which greater specific gravity....

Also I am wondering how to set a timer or preprogram the kettle to fill at a particular time and begin heating at a particular time, so I'm not wasting energy keeping it hot while I'm sleeping unnecessarily. I think you can have the BCS send emails to you as well, but only under certain conditions, not sue that those can be programmed.

Would be nice to find some three way TC valves that could be automated. Probably hella expensive. I wonder if you could get a motor powerful enough to turn the ball valve for a DIY electric controlled valve....

TD