My new electric build....in progress

rsklhm10 said:

Build looks really good, but I have a quick question. I noticed you ran a ground wire from your element box to the keg skirt. Maybe I missed something, but what was the specific reason for this? I don't recall seeing this before, specifically in Kal's build.

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I just wanted to ensure that the kettle was grounded. The metal box only makes contact to the element base, not the kettle directly. While it's true that the element base is in direct contact with the kettle, it is fastened to the box using JB Stick. I didn't know how conductive the JB is, so I wanted to make sure there was a ground in direct contact with the kettle. May not have been necessary, but better safe than sorry.

Completely understandable and really good thinking. I might actually steal that idea from you.

Seems that the transition to Google+ caused the URLs for the images in the thread to change. Doesn't look like I can go back and edit the original posts to fix the broken images. Anyone know if it's possible?

Why not just a link to your album, it might not be as good as a play by play but better than nothing.

First of all, big thanks to Yooper. She took the time to go back and update all of my previous posts with the updated image URLs. Thanks Yooper!

Second, I'd like to let everyone know that after about 6 or 7 batches the JB Stik connecting the element to the electrical box ended up failing. I ended up noticing it while getting ready for a brew session. I always give everything a once-over and noticed that the electrical box was a little loose. Upon closer inspection, the JB Stik had separated from the box. This is why I purposely ended up using silicone caulking to seal off the connections. To fix it, I ended up removing all of the old JB Stik (just had to chip it away) and the silicone caulk around the base. I then sanded down the back of the box some more and used original JB Weld to bond the base of the element to the box. Once cured, I then went over top of that with the silicone caulk to ensure a watertight seal. It seems quite a bit more solid, and hopefully it'll hold up this time. Sorry, I didn't snap any pics of this.

Finally, I have some pictures of some recent additions/modifications that I've made over the past few days.

I finally ended up picking up a March Pump so that I can recirculate during the mash and chilling stages of the brew day. Even with the reflectix insulation, I was experiencing some temp drop off during my mash. When the element would kick on, it would generally then heat up a bit too much and overshoot my mash temp unless I was stirring as it was heating. Since I have a side pickup tube, I'm also hoping that doing a whirlpool while chilling will help me eliminate some of the break/hop particulate from entering the fermenter (and also decrease chilling time).

Since I plan on placing my pump directly below my kettle, I ended up going with a simple $6.99 toolbox enclosure.






I ended up buying the whirlpool fitting from bargainfittings.com and installing it. A while back I ended up buying this el cheapo low RPM, high torque drill from Harbor Freight. I drilled out the hole with a step bit and I cannot believe how easy it was. Previously I used a cheap single-speed Black and Decker drill (so I didn't burn up my nice Makita cordless) and it was a miserable experience drilling out the holes. What a huge difference! A little bit of cutting oil and it sliced through that keg like butter.

Since I normally only do 5 gallon boils, I ended up mounting the whirlpool/recirculation fitting down low, at the same level as my pickup. I know this should work fine for the whirlpool, and I'm really hoping it will work ok during the mash as well.



Finally, here's a look at the whole setup. Since I plan on recirculating during the mash, I ditched the refletix for now. It made things a little more difficult to clean, so if it doesn't provide me any benefit I'd just assume leave it off.

are you resting the bag directly on the element during heating? I've got a similar BK and have been holding off of BIAB due to concerns of the bag resting on the element.

mavrick1903 said:

are you resting the bag directly on the element during heating? I've got a similar BK and have been holding off of BIAB due to concerns of the bag resting on the element.

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I too had the same concerns. After a bit of research, including this thread, it seems the consensus is that the melting point of the nylon bags is much higher than what a ULWD element gets during the boil. I can only speak from my own experience, but I have done all of my BIAB brews with the bag resting directly on the element without any issues at all. In fact on my last brew, I was using a hop sack and it got wedged in between the element and my immersion chiller. That too came out unscathed.

HossTheGreat said:

In fact on my last brew, I was using a hop sack and it got wedged in between the element and my immersion chiller. That too came out unscathed.

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This was my only concern. Thank you.

BTW, very nice rig! Excellent work.

Ok Hoss,

Give me your thoughts on circulating low opposed to from high and through the mash. Oh and by the way, looking at your rig makes me happy

mk1271 said:

Ok Hoss,

Give me your thoughts on circulating low opposed to from high and through the mash. Oh and by the way, looking at your rig makes me happy

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Thanks! Glad you like it.

Unfortunately, I've had a busy schedule as of late and haven't been able to do a batch with the new recirc setup yet. I did take it for a little test spin last weekend, just to test out the pump and make sure everything was working as intended....it worked just fine. Hopefully I'll be able to get a batch in soon. I'll take pictures and report back when I do.

Working on a basic eBrew setup as well. Looks great and will probably influence some of my build.

Regarding boiling temps as one of your first concerns though, wouldn't this be expected as wort would boil at a different temp than water?

I gave up on trying to slip my IC around the the heating element and went to a plate chiller haha! Glad it works for you though. Super clean and simple setup! Love it

Looks great! Do you continue to have any issues with rusting inside the keg? If not, what did you do to remedy?

JonesCreek said:

Working on a basic eBrew setup as well. Looks great and will probably influence some of my build.

Regarding boiling temps as one of your first concerns though, wouldn't this be expected as wort would boil at a different temp than water?

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Not really sure. I ended up just calibrating the auber PID to the same as my thermapen. Haven't worried about it since.

wedge421 said:

I gave up on trying to slip my IC around the the heating element and went to a plate chiller haha! Glad it works for you though. Super clean and simple setup! Love it

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Thanks! Yeah, knock on wood I've never really had any issues with it. I considered one of the cheap Keg Cowboy plate chillers but since this works ok I think I'm gonna stick with it for now.

TheFlyingBeer said:

Looks great! Do you continue to have any issues with rusting inside the keg? If not, what did you do to remedy?

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What I do now is I make sure to not leave water in the kettle for any extended period of time. Also, when I get through cleaning it I make sure to thorougly dry everything. Haven't really had an issue since.

This is great and pretty much what I have been thinking about doing myself, looks very simple and realistic for a guy like myself with no skills to be able to do.

Thanks for the detailed write up and pics.

smpow said:

This is great and pretty much what I have been thinking about doing myself, looks very simple and realistic for a guy like myself with no skills to be able to do.

Thanks for the detailed write up and pics.

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Cheers to that. I love HBT but finding a specific thread when I dont know the lingo is quite a challenge. This is exactly what I am trying to do! Save me some space in your inbox so I can pummel you with questions. Haha

Thanks for the well documented thread and especially the idea of using an old computer case!

NewBrewB said:

Cheers to that. I love HBT but finding a specific thread when I dont know the lingo is quite a challenge. This is exactly what I am trying to do! Save me some space in your inbox so I can pummel you with questions. Haha

Thanks for the well documented thread and especially the idea of using an old computer case!

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Glad that you and others are finding this build helpful. I'm more than happy to help with any questions that you might have.

Well, I thought I'd report on a bit of an issue I experienced while brewing today. I've been trying to troubleshoot a grainy taste in my light beers as of late. Though I use RO water, add 1g of CaCl per gallon, and 2% acidulated malt to the grist, I believe that it's not enough to put the mash into the proper pH range since I'm doing full volume mashes. Before breaking down and spending 100 bucks on a pH meter, I wanted to try and do a mash using approx. 1.7q/lb and then just top off with the remainder of water.

I decided to do a Blonde and added 5 gallons of water for my mash. I double bag my mash. First I line the kettle with a fine voile bag, then inside of that is a pretty coarse mesh bag. After douging in, my mash temp dropped below what I set my PID to, so the element kicked on. Immediately I smelled something burning. I lifted the bag and immediately saw grain in my kettle. Uh oh! Well, after pulling the bags out and inspecting, here's what I found:

This was the outer voile bag:



And here's the inner mesh bag:



I've never had any issues doing full volume mashes with the bags directly resting against the kettle. I've also never had issues with hops sacks getting wedged in between the element and my immersion chiller during the last 15 minutes of the boil. Guess without as much water circulating around the element, it got much hotter than usual.

Well, now back to the drawing board I suppose.

Most likely an air pocket formed. I use a broccoli strainer to keep the elements away from the grain bags that I use.

For mash ph I recommend using mash 5.2 stabilizer. 1tsp and you will hit your ph each time, very foolproof.

HarkinBanks said:

Most likely an air pocket formed. I use a broccoli strainer to keep the elements away from the grain bags that I use.

For mash ph I recommend using mash 5.2 stabilizer. 1tsp and you will hit your ph each time, very foolproof.

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Could be. Or possibly because the mash was so thick, there wasn't enough water too carry heat away from the element? Not sure. I guess next time I do a "normal" mash, I'll just have to kill the element during the mash instead of letting it run and recirculating.

As for 5.2, I used to use it but was advised against it from people in the brewing science forum. They say that it tends to not work very well and also loads the beer with sodium (IIRC). Instead, I follow the primer in that forum about adding CaCl to the water and using 2% acidulated malt in the mash.

An update to the melted bag issue. I went ahead and got a new bag and have done 3 more batches without any issues. I went back to full volume mashes, and on the last batch even recirculated during the mash, no problems at all.

I think when I had the problem with the bag melting, it was due to the thinner mash and recirculating. I'm betting that the pump pulled away water too fast, creating an air pocket around the element. This is what caused it to get so hot and scorch the bag. Luckily, it didn't burn the element up (although I had to scrub it pretty good to remove the burnt nastiness on it).

Here's a pic of my latest tweak to the setup. I got tired of using the colander for letting the bag drain after the mash. I'd always make a mess and it was a pain trying to lift the bag (which when full of wet grain, was wider than the opening of the kettle) with one hand while trying to position the colander with the other hand. To solve this, I went with this super simple pulley system. It makes things so much easier.

Also, because the mash recirculation wasn't really working as I had hoped, I ditched that idea and went back to just heating my strike water, mashing in, and letting it sit untouched. Therefore, I went ahead and added the reflectix insulation back to the kettle. With this new setup, if I drop more than a few degrees during the mash, I can just hoist the bag up, raise the temp and then drop the bag back in.

All in all it's working much better this way. I'm really at a point where everything is dialed in nicely and I'm turning out some pretty consistent beers.

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but is there a reason that both of your recirculation ports are at the bottom? I always thought the return port should be near the top. Just curious if you had a reason for this.

Also SUB'D!