Single Tier eHERMS TriClamp (mostly) build

As with most brewery builds on here it seems this one has also been progressing slowly. We now have a lot of the materials and am hoping to progress quickly in the coming weeks. This is a joint venture between myself and another friend, effectively doubling the budget (haha). The brewery will be located at his place as he has more room, and as such I don't have too many pictures currently (I keep forgetting to take some).

Currently going to use 50L keggles for the vessles (not ideal, but its what we had easy access to) It will be fed with 240V 50A, and controlled via BrewTroller. Originally we were planning to fully automate with 1/2" motorized ball valves, however as time went on we got concerned about never getting this finished. We ended up deciding to forgo the motorized ball valves, although since we had already budgeted for them we ended up deciding to use that money for TC valves/fittings instead... We also had some concern as we wanted to hard plumb the setup the amount of cleaning/dis-assembly that might be required with 10-12 threaded motorized ball valves.

We will be silver soldering all the components, and we have had pretty good success with this so far. We have a 25ft 1/2" .035 SS coil for the HEX, and all hard plumbing will also be 1/2" .035 SS. CFC is 25' 1/2" .035" Copper tubing in 3/4" ID heater hose.

Next thing is to place another order from brewershardware for the TC valves, as you can see the handles interfere, so we'll either end up bending them or having new ones manufacteured. Otherwise we will have to add extensions to give the valves more space. I am waiting until I have the valves in hand to decide on this.

Attached is the solidworks model I have been using to plan it out. I have access to solidworks through work but only rarely have reason to use it, so this was a good excuse to get some more practice with it. Keep in mind the tubing routes/bends arn't likely ideal, we'll decide on this when it actually comes time to bend, right now its mostly for estimating required length. Also an earlier picture of the stand before the trays were done and welded on.

Any comments/feedback would be appreciated on the layout/valve layout. I have to do up a proper plumbing schematic also, I wanted to go ahead and get this post started as I have been putting it off for some time. I realize that this will not be a sanitary setup, sudden changes in pipe size, etc. A true sanitary setup was not the goal here.

I have some concerns if the TC sightglasses are worth doing, considering the loss of measurement range with the elbows and all.

Saved for future use.

Well there doesn't appear to be much (re: any) in interest in this, but I thought I would post a few pics of the control panel build so far. anyway

Progress on the brewery is still slow, although we have received most of our TriClamp gear, and almost have all of the fittings soldered on the keggles.

Here's the panel so far, as mentioned its 50A 4 element (2x5500W 2x4500W), with selectors to power both the HLT & BK or power both elements in either at one time. I'll post the model of the front when I get a chance.

Hey keep posting. I am currently using propane for my heat source. But at -40 it is becoming a PIA. I downloaded Kals pdf. I currently have a HERMS set up. But have been looking at a RIMS set up also.
Brewers Hardware has nice TC items. Take a look at Stout Tanks. His looks pretty nice also.\
Keep us the progress though.
Don

Looks good so far. Are you using a wiring diagram?

@Hogcrewer: Thanks, almost all our TC stuff came from Brewers Hardware. They're a bit slow to respond at times which can be annoying, but theyve been very good to deal with otherwise. The odd other item came from Glacier Tanks, which also seemed good but I havnt had to deal with them for much.

@Maltose:
I did originally, although I haven't kept it current. Once I update it I will post it.

I also did a 3d model of the control panel interior to make sure I had room for everything. I'll echo what everyone else says here and buy bigger then you think you'll ever use!

Why did you decide to hard plumb it?

Looking forward to seeing it finished, I'm a sucker for tri-clamps.

That solidworks model looks awesome. If you decided to go with the TC sight glass, what's your plan for that? Are you using the ones from glacier tanks, or whipping something up yourself?

Yeah that's one sexy model! Looking forward to progress!

dude, that control panel... lookin clean for as much stuff you had in there

orangehero said:

Why did you decide to hard plumb it?

Looking forward to seeing it finished, I'm a sucker for tri-clamps.

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Theres no major reason, as you can probably tell this is a pretty big example of a project that has run away. The thought was:
1. Looks cool.
2. Were soldering fittings so the hard plumbing actually makes it cheaper fitting wise (only need to drill triclamp blanks). We have also access to tubing benders and such.
3. Price, while it is more work I can get 1/2" .035" SS tubing for ~$2.30/ft locally when i factored in shipping to the silicon it was actually more.

tophmck said:

That solidworks model looks awesome. If you decided to go with the TC sight glass, what's your plan for that? Are you using the ones from glacier tanks, or whipping something up yourself?

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We were going to make them ourselves. Solder in some 1" Ferrules, drill some 1.5" TC blanks and solder in a 90 deg compression fitting. As I said, with the 50L kegs, I'm not sure the limited measuring range of them makes them worth doing. Still undecided, for now were not going to bother soldering the ferrules in for them.

Rivenin said:

dude, that control panel... lookin clean for as much stuff you had in there

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Thanks, in general the build has been slow progressing so I've had lots of time to plan that out. That said my biggest mistake was putting the main power on the right, and the breakers on the left (hence all of the 6AWG wire jammed at the top), I really should have bought the bus bars you can get for those breakers (and probably just stuck with 2 elements like a sane person).

Thought I'd post two of the smaller items I recently completed.

22mm RGB Pilot Lights:
As I am using the BrewTroller, there is an addon board (RGBIO8) that supports wiring of auto/manual switches and will drive RGB (multicolor) LED's so that 1 LED can display any number of colors to indicate staus (ie. Red=off, green = manual on, blue = auto on, yellow = auto off, or whatever you choose). As you don't seem to be able to buy 22mm RGB pilot lights I decided to make some.

Picked up some standard 22mm White Pilot Lights off ebay and ripped out the guts. Sanded the end with some emery cloth to better diffuse the light (works pretty well). I then soldered them to some pin headers to provide a connector, glued the pin header and LED into the gutted pilot light. It was pretty tedious but they turned out pretty well.

DIY DS18B20 Temp Probes:

Picked up some 1/4" .020" SS tubing to use to make some temp probes and tubing for the volume sensors. Cut them and had the ends TIG welded shut. I bored out some TC end caps and silver soldered the tubing into it. The brewtroller guys recommend (along with the OEM) that for longer runs/noisy environments you add a RC filter at the probe. I then soldered a resistor and surface mount capacitor at the end of the probe (most painful part by far, not the best soldering in the pic but by this time I had lost most of my patience). I then soldered the probe to some 3 conductor wire added some heat-sink compound in the probe end and inserted the assembly. I crimped the tubing down on the cable, and used some adhesive heat shrink to seal it all up. Pretty happy with how they turned out as well.

You made your own temp probes?.......Hhhhmmmmm now that has me thinking....did you flare the end before you welded/soldered it to the TC end cap?
I know your going the Adrno route.....Will these also work with PID's?

Going to be dropping you a PM.

Hogcrewer said:

You made your own temp probes?.......Hhhhmmmmm now that has me thinking....did you flare the end before you welded/soldered it to the TC end cap?
I know your going the Adrno route.....Will these also work with PID's?

Going to be dropping you a PM.

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No, I didn't flare it. I had a 1/4" hole drilled out in the center of the end cap, also had a small fillet put on the wet side of the end cap (to make soldering a bit easier), and soldered on this side. It appears to be plenty secure, I haven't used them to brew yet but I have leak tested them by connecting to a garden hose (which should be more pressure then they will ever see)

These particular sensors wouldn't work as I'm using the DS18B20 sensor chip, you could do the same thing and insert a PT100 RTD element though which you could then use with a PID. RTD sensors are much more available though, so you may be better off buying vs making.

IE: http://www.ebay.com/itm/RTD-PT100-T...35090?pt=Mess_Prüftechnik&hash=item3a79cc4bf2

I still have some more cleaning/polishing to do in the attached pic, but you get the idea.

Here's a pic of my control panel model so far (still a work in progress).

What r all the lights for under the hlt and kettle btpd's?

psbuckland said:

What r all the lights for under the hlt and kettle btpd's?

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The white lights are RGB LED's that will be tied to the 3pos switches below them (red= off, green of on, blue = auto on, etc). The two switches on the bottom far sides are likely going to be control for the exhaust fan and the one on the left may be a water supply motorized ball valve (for auto-filling) still undecided on that one tho

The yellow led's are 240V fed directly off the output to the elements, as a final indication as to what elements are being fired.

A few more pics of a little bit of progress. Also in process of getting the control panel water jet cut, got everything else for it so I should have that finished soon.

Is that a trub filter on the bottom of the keggle? I wonder if it will clog like that.

DrPhilGood said:

Is that a trub filter on the bottom of the keggle? I wonder if it will clog like that.

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Yes, it's the Brewers hardware one.

Perhaps, results seem mixed. Also considering adding a false bottom to BK to provide some extra filtration, time will tell though. When you say "clog like that" where were you thinking it would be placed?

Love the Tri-clamps and those hinges are a great idea...I could use something like that for my MT

AllanMar said:

Yes, it's the Brewers hardware one.

Perhaps, results seem mixed. Also considering adding a false bottom to BK to provide some extra filtration, time will tell though. When you say "clog like that" where were you thinking it would be placed?

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I have the filter and run it inline from the pump. It clogs a lot of the time and impedes flow rate. Even before the pump it still clogs up. I now just whirl pool without it.

I like the way you have it set up, looks nice should be ok with a false bottom.

WAORGANY said:

Love the Tri-clamps and those hinges are a great idea...I could use something like that for my MT

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Thanks, I'm a little nervous of the idea of tipping them full. Although with the triclamps it also works well as it gives you a way to move the kegs around to attach/detach things.

Will have to wait and see how useful the hinges end up being.

DrPhilGood said:

I have the filter and run it inline from the pump. It clogs a lot of the time and impedes flow rate. Even before the pump it still clogs up. I now just whirl pool without it.

I like the way you have it set up, looks nice should be ok with a false bottom.

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Thanks for the info. I've heard similar things like this. It was abit of an impulse buy, due to the cost of shipping to Canada, I lumped it in with my valve order. I have a center drain so I didnt see any great way to whirlpool, also heard it didnt work so well with the electric heating elements. I may consider trying to add an off centre drain if it doesnt work out as planned, we shall see.

Finally got all my element enclosures finished.

I used a 2", 1/2"L TC ferrule TIG'd to a piece of 1/4" plate which is screwed to a single gang outdoor electrical box. I decided to go with the switchcraft connector for easy disconnection/removal.

The panel mount connectors used the .187" faston tabs, so I ended up soldering the wires to them, ring terminals were connected to the other end for connection to the element.

Couple more pics, got the pump mounts tacked in place and everything test fit. Had some small standoffs welded to some TC clamps to provide extra support for the valves (its heavy!). Ended up soldering 4" spacers to allow clearance for the handles (modifying the handles seemed like too much work).

Have to tighten everything down, make sure its all aligned and then secure the TC clamps to the flat bar.

Also shown is my mock up control panel (very paranoid about getting the real one cut), had this cut from a scrap piece of aluminum (the other side is a mess). Have a few changes to make and then I'm getting the real one cut.

It looks like you have 4 SSR and 4 Contactors and 3 PID's with 4 elements.
But you can only run 2 elements at one time?

I am assuming the extra PID is just for temp?
How many temp probes are there per kettle? Are the PID's sharing temp probes also?

homebrewdude76 said:

It looks like you have 4 SSR and 4 Contactors and 3 PID's with 4 elements.
But you can only run 2 elements at one time?

I am assuming the extra PID is just for temp?
How many temp probes are there per kettle? Are the PID's sharing temp probes also?

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Yes, 4 elements, 4 contactors and 4 SSR's. It's 50A service though so I only have enough power to run any 2 at a time (I can select which 2).

Those aren't typical PID's, I'm using BrewTroller so there is only 1 controller for everything. Those are just displays on the front panel to display temps and/or volume.

There is a HLT probe, a BK probe, a probe on the inlet to the MT and a probe on the outlet of the CFC. I may add another probe which I can stick in the grain bed to monitor that temp, but I'm undecided.
The HLT and BK are the only ones with temp control, but the MT inlet temp probe can be used to control the HLT temp.

4 Elements. So you could say run both HLT elements to ramp up strike water times, then when boiling turn both BK elements on to bring to a boil. Turn off one element on the BK to maintain rolling boil, then put one element on HLT to start strike water for a second batch. Is that correct? If so this is awesome and I am jealous.

P.s. I would suggest possibly doing a test run with the filter set up before you do a full brew. Maybe boil 10 gals of water and 5-6 oz of hops. drain and see if you get any problems. It will save you a huge headache your first brew day when the filter housing keeps clogging and you need to stop draining, rinse it off and replace ever 10 mins. I really like this build so keep us posted.

DrPhilGood said:

4 Elements. So you could say run both HLT elements to ramp up strike water times, then when boiling turn both BK elements on to bring to a boil. Turn off one element on the BK to maintain rolling boil, then put one element on HLT to start strike water for a second batch. Is that correct? If so this is awesome and I am jealous.

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Yep, BK & HLT have 1x5500W and 1x4500W each, so 10kW to ramp up and when i get to a boil i'll run the 4500W at partial power. I envision moving to 20gal stout tanks at later date and I also got carried away with this.... haha

Yea, I'm paranoid about the filter. I now plan to make up a TC extension of the same length so if I get fed up with it I can swap it out for a pipe mid-brew. Appreciate the advice.

AllanMar said:

Here's a pic of my control panel model so far (still a work in progress).

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Excellent build...i'm embarking on a very similar setup (should have the last of the neccesary parts tomorrow)

I'm also considering a dual element hlt/bk. How are you setting up "Auto" on the element select with the BT?

Going to have to be custom coded. I have 3 relays that interlock the elements (so it is impossible to engage more then 2 elements), these relays will be fed from the BT (i'm probably going to hardwire them to the element off switch so that i have that hardware disconnect). For now "AUTO" will probably just be HLT AND BK.

Due to this setup all of this will have to be custom coded, I've got a decent idea how i'm going to tackle most of it (for now I just want element control BK/DUAL/HLT though). Once i get my control panel cut and wiring i'm going to look at modifying the code to make it work. I'll let you know once I get there.

AllanMar said:

Going to have to be custom coded. I have 3 relays that interlock the elements (so it is impossible to engage more then 2 elements), these relays will be fed from the BT (i'm probably going to hardwire them to the element off switch so that i have that hardware disconnect). For now "AUTO" will probably just be HLT AND BK.

Due to this setup all of this will have to be custom coded, I've got a decent idea how i'm going to tackle most of it (for now I just want element control BK/DUAL/HLT though). Once i get my control panel cut and wiring i'm going to look at modifying the code to make it work. I'll let you know once I get there.

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I was guessing as much. Although now that I stop to think about it with relays to do the switching...I wonder if you could just set up the relay on one of the valve outputs, and then set it up under valve profiles...
I'll have to think on that.

You could and I thought about this. Problem is my switches are tied to a RGBIO8 and acting as a "soft-switch", and the BT doesn't support controlling 3 outputs based off the position of the one switch. So I would of had to use switches to control each relay if i wanted to be able to manually control it.

Also the valve profiles don't really line up ideally for this (although BT V3.0 sounds like it will improve upon this).

If you don't already have, put a ball valve in between the kettle and filter so if it clogs you could just close it and take it apart. I can't see if you have a valve already so sorry if its obvious advice lol

DrPhilGood said:

If you don't already have, put a ball valve in between the kettle and filter so if it clogs you could just close it and take it apart. I can't see if you have a valve already so sorry if its obvious advice lol

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haha, no worries. All advice is still appreciated.

Yea, all keggles have TC butterfly valves on the bottom drain, much nicer then the TC ball valves IMHO if I did it all over I'd probably spring for more butterfly valves.

Not too much progress to post. Working on getting my control panel labeling done then I'll be able to finish the wiring/testing.

Odds and ends with the brewery (finishing welds, removing rust, priming, etc). Thought I'd post this pic of our other over elaborate project. It's going to be a 3 chamber glycol chiller fermentation/conditioning chamber. Below is a pick of the frankenchiller DIY glycol chiller. Coil will be submersed in container of glycol and then pumped through transmission coolers in each chambers.

I'll likely start a separate thread on it once I have more to post.

Finally got my control panel cover labeled/assembled. Now on to the wiring....

The labeling was engraved, its just like the little tags everyone uses, but instead its one control panel sized piece. Had I known I was going to go this way I would have changed the design a bit. Light shines through the engraved (white) parts really well, would be perfect to have back lighting. I probably would have ditched the indicator LED's and instead backlit the text according to the state of the switches.

Very nice! Can you tell us more about the engraved CP overlay you have? Where did you have it done and about how much it cost? I like the look and would like to do something similar. Great job.

MrSaLTy said:

Very nice! Can you tell us more about the engraved CP overlay you have? Where did you have it done and about how much it cost? I like the look and would like to do something similar. Great job.

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I had it done locally by someone I know, I only had to pay for the material which wasn't crazy as I recall ($20-30 mayb?). I just gave him the design in CAD. Almost all sign/engraving places have one of these machines, assuming your panel isn't huge it shouldn't be hard to find someone to do it.

It's 1/16" thick black/white stock material, I secured it to the panel with double sided tape (the buttons/switches hold most of it down).

Updated pic with most of the wiring done, bit more to do. Went a bit crazy with the wiring, but with this many wires I felt I had to keep it tidy.
Messing with the Brewtroller code now to get the element select switch to work as I want.