Hot Water Tank burner assembly w/pilot & Temp Control.

I did a search for "Hot water tank burner" and found nothing specific, so I am curious if anyone out there has attempted to use the following:

Old burner assembly from a gas water heater (or even a new bayou or banjo burner for that matter). A gas valve and pilot burner assembly to shut off gas supply if the pilot flame goes out. Change out the oriface from NG to Propane. Add a 24 volt temperature controller set to maintain the desired HLT setting and you have a nice little setup.

Granted, the cost of a gas valve can be high unless you have a friend getting rid of a hot water tank or old furnace, but the whole thing should work quite nicely. I suppose this may be what many are using with automated (PLC) type systems, but I am fairly new to homebrewing and just starting to see the possibilities for making everything as automated as possible.

Anyway just curious.

Salute!

I would like to work something like this out. I was just talking to the women in my LHBS and she was telling me she might give me her hot water heater burner when she replaces hers.

I use a Y8610U6006 Honeywell Gas Valve Kit 100 Percent Pilot Gas Shutoff if Needed and a PartsGuy.com -- Q345A1313 with a little help from Kladue.

See my thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/gas-temperature-control-dummies-116632/

Yeah...... I like the control listed above. Have been familiar with controls such as these for many years as I have done HVAC since 1983. Actually I have an extensive Direct Digital Control (DDC) and PLC background and teach both at the Local Union Hall here in Pittsburgh.

I have just about everything I need to automate a brewing system, except for the time! Slowly, though, I will get to this slowly. My first step will be to set up an HLT with the set-up similar to what I describe above. I need to some research on flow meters for low volume capability in order to set up the control loops for a MLT with automatic sparge and valve control.

Salute!

bmckee56 said:

Yeah...... I like the control listed above. Have been familiar with controls such as these for many years as I have done HVAC since 1983. Actually I have an extensive Direct Digital Control (DDC) and PLC background and teach both at the Local Union Hall here in Pittsburgh.

I have just about everything I need to automate a brewing system, except for the time! Slowly, though, I will get to this slowly. My first step will be to set up an HLT with the set-up similar to what I describe above. I need to some research on flow meters for low volume capability in order to set up the control loops for a MLT with automatic sparge and valve control.

Salute!

Click to expand...

You have to check this out. FlowLine EchoPod DS14

Not sure how much tweaking you could do to the water heater gas valves to get them to control at mash and sparge temperatures. You would probably get better results going the solenoid or combination valve route with electric ignition.
It would be interesting to see your approach to system automation and the hardware you plan to use. Which craft do you work at, electrical or piping?.

I know that my water heater controller will go up to 145F without any mods and I wonder if there's just a mechanical stop on the knob or what...

I provide service and support of HVAC systems controlled by DDC or PLC applications. Over the years, I have wprkwed with Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Andover, Automated Logic, Siemens and a host of other systems.

The types of devices I am most familiar are 4-20ma, 2-10vdc type controllers. Also the same for input monitoring. Essentially the start/stop and control of Air Handling, Chiller/Chilled Water systems, Boilers and Heating Systems.

The control on a hot water tank (gas valve) would probably not be ideal for Mash temp control, but using a heating system gas valve can provide the output needed to heat strike water as well as maintain temperatures within a degree or two for mash/lauter systems. Essentially a gas valve is a solenoid, so using a solenoid after a regulator would provide the same type control capability. The advantage to using the gas valve is that you can employ a pilot burner assembly either standing pilot or electronic ignition. Using a temperature controller with differential setting capability would allow you to maintain the range needed.

There are modulating gas valves available, but their cost may prohibit the use in Home Brewing. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have much of the electronic equipment as well as the software to implement the type of control I would need, it is just a matter of getting all of the equipment set up and then tweaking the software to get it to the automated state. Oh, yeah...... I need time to do it too.

Salute!