Electric BIAB Build - with ArdBir

[bionut]

Hello,

After more than a year without brewing because of a newborn child and a job change i managed to build my electric all-in-one system from a 50 liter pot.
I used a bottom mounted 3 kw heating element i bought from AliExpress. Also the ball valve was mounted on the bottom of the kettle so that i won't need a dip tube (i don't like dip tubes because you need to keep a syphon going after the liquid level get's lower than the ball valve). With a bottom drain you can start draining even when you have as little as 1 qt of liquid in the lettle. I chose a round bottom element because i wanted to have as much volume as possible for the bag. Because i couldn't find one with very low watt density i made a false bottom to keep the bag for touching the element. Luckly i found a scrap piece of perforated stainless steel that had perforation only on half, so i made some slits on the other half with an angle grinder.
For the controlling part i used an Arduino Uno clone with the ArdBir code and i made an enclosure for it. The power line enters the controller box and splits in two: pump and heating element. For both the pump and heating element i used SSRs driven by the arduino.

This is the pot, very cheap ~40$ on a sale, it have a simple bottom, no aluminium insert or other thing the expensive pots have.


This is the heating element, next to a 2.5 kw one that i didn't use in this build.


The pot with the holes for the heating element.


And this is the highly anticipated hot water test!

 

[bionut]

The first brew was a 20 liter batch amber ale.


A little trub cone after the whirlpool.


This is the makeshift false bottom that works just as intended.


Here is the boil with ~24 liter of wort


and with ~45 liters of wort (third batch - Steam Beer - that ended in two fermenters with two different yeasts).


The second batch was a Berliner Beisse which is now sitting on some pureed quince. That is a test batch for a commercial beer i will do in march in a collab with a local craft brewery (they organised an idea contest and mine and four more homeberwers were picked to be made on a commercial scale - very excited about that)

 

[cyberbackpacker]

Well done!

 

[gophergoat]

Do you still actively use ardbir? My buddy wrote a basic code for an Arduino to go to one single temperature that I'd actively have to alter throughout the brewday on my laptop. Looking for some smoother software (not me altering the code 3 times per use) and hopefully it's own power (not run off my laptop) and an LCD.

 

[BrunDog]

What heating element is that?

 

[processhead]

Good looking system. My only concern is the heat tolerance of the material used for the J-box under the kettle. My first choice would be a metal J-box due to the heat in that area. Yes, in theory it should never exceed 212 degrees, but there could be localized heating that raises the temperature even higher.