hosehead electronic brewery controller

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crane said:
Don't forget you need breakers/fuses to drop from 6 gauge wire to 10/14 for the elements and pumps. Which raises the question are there currently any breakers/fuses to limit the pump outputs to 15amps?
Click to expand...

Why would that matter? The pump is never going to source that much unless its shorted or something in which case the mechanical relay(looks like a standard Sainsmart 2 channel relay board) he appears to be using is going to pop. Their so cheap you can use that as a fuse of sorts ;)
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
Why would that matter? The pump is never going to source that much unless its shorted or something in which case the mechanical relay(looks like a standard Sainsmart 2 channel relay board) he appears to be using is going to pop. Their so cheap you can use that as a fuse of sorts ;)
Click to expand...

Obviously fuses and breakers are only necessary to prevent bad things from happening when a short or partial short occurs. Using a relay as a fuse falls under the category of horrible design practices.

What you do with your own personal panel is one thing, but when you are selling a "professional" product you should design to a higher level of standards. Crap like that would never fly at any of the companies I've worked for.
 
crane said:
Don't forget you need breakers/fuses to drop from 6 gauge wire to 10/14 for the elements and pumps. Which raises the question are there currently any breakers/fuses to limit the pump outputs to 15amps?
Click to expand...

It has a separate 120V input which appears to feed the RPi and the 120V pump outputs. It looks like the 220V lines are separated from the 120V input since the latter are switched on by a keyswitch on the back panel. So, it seems this isn't an issue since the 220V is not shared with the pump outputs. I'm not sure if there is an internal fuse for the 120V side, but this really isn't a huge issue.
 
I've been following this thread with some real interest in switching from natural gas to electric. This product seems to simplify the process instead of me making my own unit. I also saw on their website that they have the NEW Hosehead 3BC. Does anyone know what is different about it from the 2?
 
Hello Everyone,
So earlier this year I bought a hosehead and this weekend used it for the first time. The beer is fermenting away. I ran into a few issues that I though I'd post and see if anyone has any experience with. I attempted to use a mash profile but couldn't get the thing to start for some reason in the Terminal I see (Warning: Failed to find URI: /toggletrigger"
I also can't delete any of the steps, I can move them around and but no matter what I do the won't delete.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Chris
 
crane said:
Obviously fuses and breakers are only necessary to prevent bad things from happening when a short or partial short occurs. Using a relay as a fuse falls under the category of horrible design practices.

What you do with your own personal panel is one thing, but when you are selling a "professional" product you should design to a higher level of standards. Crap like that would never fly at any of the companies I've worked for.
Click to expand...

Isnt your "commercially sold" pump fused already? why not? It would fall under the "crap" standards by your reasoning already right? IMHO, for the pricetag the hosehead is actually a good product... Will it make everyone happy, no but NOTHING WILL! some think its too pricey already and some want it to be more pricey.

It seems some wont be happy until its turned into a something to be sold for double the price with twice as much over engineered unnecessary redundant bells and whistles.... this way its totally foolproof for any well "fool" to use without needing common sense.

Honestly one can easily make and inline fused extension for their pump if they are that paranoid... If it was really that important the pumps would already have them since they are designed to plug into an outlet with a 15 amp breaker (or fuse in some homes)

I got a lot of flack for pointing out how poorly and cheaply the High gravity panels were designed and thrown together... They have improved a lot now according to the maker but they are still $100- 150 worth of off the shelf hardware sold for $8-900.... With much less safety and work put into them than these... They took shortcuts like using speaker wire for power cable in the unit for ac power... I find it funny that I was alone in that argument but so many are quick to judge this much more affordable option?
 
Finally a voice of reason.

augiedoggy said:
Isnt your "commercially sold" pump fused already? why not? It would fall under the "crap" standards by your reasoning already right? IMHO, for the pricetag the hosehead is actually a good product... Will it make everyone happy, no but NOTHING WILL! some think its too pricey already and some want it to be more pricey.

It seems some wont be happy until its turned into a something to be sold for double the price with twice as much over engineered unnecessary redundant bells and whistles.... this way its totally foolproof for any well "fool" to use without needing common sense.

Honestly one can easily make and inline fused extension for their pump if they are that paranoid... If it was really that important the pumps would already have them since they are designed to plug into an outlet with a 15 amp breaker (or fuse in some homes)

I got a lot of flack for pointing out how poorly and cheaply the High gravity panels were designed and thrown together... They have improved a lot now according to the maker but they are still $100- 150 worth of off the shelf hardware sold for $8-900.... With much less safety and work put into them than these... They took shortcuts like using speaker wire for power cable in the unit for ac power... I find it funny that I was alone in that argument but so many are quick to judge this much more affordable option?
Click to expand...
 
akthor said:
Finally a voice of reason.
Click to expand...

I've been following this thread as a non-member. Signed up today, I have to agree :mug:

Getting ready to pull the trigger on the 3BC. Just waiting for the "Troll Team" to cut it up and point out anything I missed. I love when guys cut things up outside its intended use. Lets me see who reads and who just speaks also who does it -all- for our own good. Some of the arguments here have been tools in designing my gear that WILL use this controller. Only reason I didn't pull the trigger on a brew boss when I had done very little research was I kept hearing him scream " PEG GET ME A BEER" Truly, that is the only reason ....

SO! 3BC cut it up, break it down and allow me to giggle how inexpensive this is to building my own 50A box and the 2K to upgrade to the house service.

OP- thanks for starting this back when! :rockin:
 
Bankrupter said:
I've been following this thread as a non-member. Signed up today, I have to agree :mug:

Getting ready to pull the trigger on the 3BC. Just waiting for the "Troll Team" to cut it up and point out anything I missed. I love when guys cut things up outside its intended use. Lets me see who reads and who just speaks also who does it -all- for our own good. Some of the arguments here have been tools in designing my gear that WILL use this controller. Only reason I didn't pull the trigger on a brew boss when I had done very little research was I kept hearing him scream " PEG GET ME A BEER" Truly, that is the only reason ....

SO! 3BC cut it up, break it down and allow me to giggle how inexpensive this is to building my own 50A box and the 2K to upgrade to the house service.

OP- thanks for starting this back when! :rockin:
Click to expand...

There's a difference between a lot of whats being said though in this thread and trolling or nitpicking. The original version had problems which we discussed here, and he modified to make a better(and safer). However this thing is *NOT* designed to Handle 50A loads only using a 10/3 input cord. I would hope the creator is no longer telling people that this device supports 50A even if he himself does it. When your pulling a max of around 45A with 2 5500W elements going it would have to be a minimum of 8 gauge wire, 6 gauge if you were going more than 5-10 feet on the cord. That said replacing that cord with your own 6 gauge cable is a possibility depending on what the innards look like now if 50A is your thing.

For what it is, it is by far the best option for a 30A Electric panel that you can buy off the shelf.
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
There's a difference between a lot of whats being said though in this thread and trolling or nitpicking. The original version had problems which we discussed here, and he modified to make a better(and safer). However this thing is *NOT* designed to Handle 50A loads only using a 10/3 input cord. I would hope the creator is no longer telling people that this device supports 50A even if he himself does it. When your pulling a max of around 45A with 2 5500W elements going it would have to be a minimum of 8 gauge wire, 6 gauge if you were going more than 5-10 feet on the cord. That said replacing that cord with your own 6 gauge cable is a possibility depending on what the innards look like now if 50A is your thing.

For what it is, it is by far the best option for a 30A Electric panel that you can buy off the shelf.
Click to expand...

At first I was oddly amused at your comments. Looked interested but, not truly.. Then you became an asset to us all as far as its limitations and safety. I appreciate every post you made on this topic. So from me to you sir, Thanks ... Had you not put in the time, I could have been mislead myself. I do know ohms law but, rarely apply it to anything bought off the shelf and assume they are safely built. I have no doubt your thoughts and complaints aided in improving this product for us all. I will only be using this single element at a time on my 30A service. I put a good deal of thought into adding a 50A panel but when I was done building the rest of this system, I ate the funds needed to pay the guy that would sign off for the homeowners ins.. Maybe down the road but, today I truly don't need the capability (want is a whole different topic) . I like any man that will call BS when its needed! :mug: here's to you sir.. Thanks again, FuzzeWuzze
 
Those of you that have the Hosehead, can I get a rundown of your setups and perhaps a walk through of your typical brew day with the Hosehead?
 
rayf said:
Those of you that have the Hosehead, can I get a rundown of your setups and perhaps a walk through of your typical brew day with the Hosehead?
Click to expand...

I dont have a hosehead, but i do have a Strangebrew Elsinore panel which is the same brain the hosehead uses for temperature control. I follow a procedure similar to what Kal does for his electric brewery that you can read all about on his site.

  • Fill HLT night before and add required minerals to get the water profile i want. I opt to treat the whole 19 gallons of HLT water, even if im only using 10ish gallons for a 5 gallon batch. Minerals are cheap.
  • Make sure all probes, elements, and pumps are plugged in.
  • Turn on HLT recirc pump via SBE and open relevant valves.
  • In SBE set my HLT to Auto at Mash temp + 1.5f(what i know my temp loss will be on my mash), wait about 45 minutes for it to come to temp.
  • Disconnect HLT input from pump and move to Mash tun, transfer required mash water(using sight glasses on both). Return hose to HLT recirc and turn pump back on.
  • Hook up hoses to recirc my Mash tun through pump, up into HERMS coil, and back into mash tun. Turn on pump.
  • Wait 5-10 minutes for the mash water thats now going through the HERMS coil to come up to temp and match that of whats in the HLT.
  • Turn off Mash Recirc pump, throw in grains and give a good stir, let it settle for a minute then turn on Mash recirc pump with the pump output throttled down to like 10%. Slowly open up the pump to about 50% once im sure the grain is set and not going to get a stuck sparge.
  • Wait 60 minutes
  • Ramp temperature of HLT up to 169.5 to bring my mash up to 168 to mash out.
  • TURN OFF HLT(Dont dry fire!)
  • Hook up hoses for fly sparging. MLT->Pump->BK and HLT->Pump->HERMS Coil->Top of MLT. Get water into the MLT rate to be about the same rate as Mash coming out into the BK using the sight glass. Sparge until at preboil volume(7.5 gallons or so for me), usually about 20 minutes.
  • Turn on BK to 100% on manual mode, once boiling turn it down to about 70% @ 3s duty cycle for my system to maintain a nice rolling boil.
  • From there its just hop additions and cleaning.
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
I dont have a hosehead, but i do have a Strangebrew Elsinore panel which is the same brain the hosehead uses for temperature control. I follow a procedure similar to what Kal does for his electric brewery that you can read all about on his site.

  • Fill HLT night before and add required minerals to get the water profile i want. I opt to treat the whole 19 gallons of HLT water, even if im only using 10ish gallons for a 5 gallon batch. Minerals are cheap.
  • Make sure all probes, elements, and pumps are plugged in.
  • Turn on HLT recirc pump via SBE and open relevant valves.

  • In SBE set my HLT to Auto at Mash temp + 1.5f(what i know my temp loss will be on my mash), wait about 45 minutes for it to come to temp.
  • Disconnect HLT input from pump and move to Mash tun, transfer required mash water(using sight glasses on both). Return hose to HLT recirc and turn pump back on.
  • Hook up hoses to recirc my Mash tun through pump, up into HERMS coil, and back into mash tun. Turn on pump.
  • Wait 5-10 minutes for the mash water thats now going through the HERMS coil to come up to temp and match that of whats in the HLT.
  • Turn off Mash Recirc pump, throw in grains and give a good stir, let it settle for a minute then turn on Mash recirc pump with the pump output throttled down to like 10%. Slowly open up the pump to about 50% once im sure the grain is set and not going to get a stuck sparge.
  • Wait 60 minutes
  • Ramp temperature of HLT up to 169.5 to bring my mash up to 168 to mash out.
  • TURN OFF HLT(Dont dry fire!)
  • Hook up hoses for fly sparging. MLT->Pump->BK and HLT->Pump->HERMS Coil->Top of MLT. Get water into the MLT rate to be about the same rate as Mash coming out into the BK using the sight glass. Sparge until at preboil volume(7.5 gallons or so for me), usually about 20 minutes.
  • Turn on BK to 100% on manual mode, once boiling turn it down to about 70% @ 3s duty cycle for my system to maintain a nice rolling boil.
  • From there its just hop additions and cleaning.
Click to expand...


Thank you! That is exactly what I was looking for. I appreciate your time and answer.
 
What size herms coil are you all using? I have 15 gallon Tall Boys. Do I want a 50' coil or a 25' coil? What diameter of coil should I use? I'll be brewing both 5 and 10 gallon batches.

I know I can find this stuff elsewhere, I would just like to see what all of you are using with this system.
 
I have a 50' stainless brewing coil inside a keggle that I use with my system. Maintains temps perfectly. Diameter of it I would say whatever fits, keeping in mind that smaller diameter will be taller and you will need to keep more water in the hlt.
 
I've got a picture of my setup below.
  • Router flashed with DD-WRT mounted underneath the brewcart tabletop. The hosehead connects to this, and the router is wirelessly bridged to my home network, so the hosehead is accessible from any of my devices.
  • Blichmann 20G kettle with a 5500W Kal-style element, and a whirpool inlet.
  • Chugger pump underneath the kettle.
  • Champman 20G Thermobarrel mash tun.
  • Jaded Counterflow chiller on left side of cart
  • Old macbook pro sitting on the cart as my primary method of interacting with the hosehead.

A typical brew day looks like this:
  • Push the cart out, plug the power strip and high voltage plug into the wall, load up the hosehead interface on the laptop. (Takes less than 10 minutes - much better than my previous brew day set up routine).
  • Connect a drinking safe hose to my outdoor spigot and fill the boil kettle with my strike water. Setup my pump to recirculate and target 175F.
  • Pump that over to the Chapmun mash tun. Usually I'm down to ~165F after this.
  • Add in my grains, and stir until I'm at my target mash temp. Seal and let sit for an hour.
  • With about 30 mins left in the mash, I'll fill the BK again with my infusion amount and my sparge water. (I use this calculator here.) I heat that to 190F.
  • After a 60 minute mash, I pump my infusion amount over to my mash tun. Vorlauf, and then catch my first runnings in a brew bucket. Throw a lid on it to keep some of the heat in.
  • Pump the rest of my water over to the mash tun, and let that sit for about 10 minutes. Pour the bucket of first runnings into the BK once the water has been emptied to my MT.
  • Vorlauf, and now I can pump the second runnings directly over to the BK.
  • Start circulating the wort through the pump and set the element to 100% to get up to a boil. Once I'm at a boil, I'll boil at ~60%-70% power for an hour.
  • With 5-10 minutes left in the boil, I connect the CF Chiller to the pump and the kettle and cycle boiling wort through it to sanitize.
  • At flameout, I turn the cold water on in the CFC. Usually I let the wort circulate back into the BK for the first 5-8 minutes. That gets the wort coming out of the CFC down to about 70F. Then I stop recirculating and start pumping wort into my carboy. (LOVE the Jaded CFC - highly recommend).
  • CLEAN. Usually I'll clean the MT during the boil, so all I've got left to do is clean the BK and the CFC. I've got a hot water spigot outside (best decision EVER to install that), so I spray the BK down with hot water, then fill it up with hot water and Oxyclean (non-scented) and circulate oxyclean through all of my hoses/pump/CFC. Dump that and then run some cold water through all of that equipment again to rinse everything out.

Next on my list is a BIAB-style bag, to put in my mash tun. I think that will make cleanup much easier, if I'm able to leave the MT on the table and just pull a bag out that I can dump and then rinse/shakeout.

At some point I'll probably go to a dedicated HLT. I've had a few issues recently where I undershot my strike temperature and then had to get a second batch of water up to 190F so I could dump a gallon or two in the MT and raise the whole vessel several degrees. I'd rather have a HLT to help me stabilize the temp.

IMG_4038.jpg
 
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When Trying to arrange the PIDs and the other temp displays it kept deleting instead of rearranging. Pretty minor but annoying. There may already be a fix for this but I haven't updated because I do not know how yet! :) I'm only messing around with it without using Internet at the moment though so maybe these issues are not there when using it through a network.
 
What browser are you using to connect? It matters.... so far I love the 3BC. Only downfall I have found is, Elsinore
 
It's faster and a tad smoother with that browser closed and controlled from the network on another device. I have a hdmi monitor above my system but I don't even use it after its running makes a noticeable difference on my 3bc
 
I was hoping to get out of running an Ethernet cable to my Brewing area. I guess it won't be too much trouble to get it done
 
Last edited by a moderator:
So I brewed last night and had a miserable boil... Elsinore crashed mid boil just after I upped the manual control on my coil to 85% /5 seconds. (About to trigger pump to sanitize the plate chiller - also a big nope after crash) The crash locked in the setting creating a boil over... No control to stop it, I went for the key on the back of my 3BC should have been fine and stopped in time - NOPE - effing key fell out because its just a poor choice for the key switch. Attempting to get the key back in and off would have resulted in a HUGE mess so I ran for the breaker.. still a mess!

My feelings after this..
1. Love the 3BC -less-, that key - I'll change it out after talking to Corey about it.
2. Elsinore sucks! The downfall of this affordable kick ass box by Corey falls short on its dependence of Dougs program/server.

I wish I had a grand to build a panel that has ZERO bugs id order the parts today. I am saving to build one in time after that.

End Rant..

81% measured. All in all, in the end, still happy with this price point!
 
Oh no! I haven't even finished building my system! This makes me worry I made a bad decision! Have you tried the beta version?
 
Thats weird, i cant comment on the Hosehead and its stability, did you by chance monitor the RPI System temp while this was happening? I wonder if the Hosehead is just overheating the RPI although i'd find that hard to believe with those two giant fans on it.

Ive used my Strangebrew box i built(not Hosehead) about 5 times now with no issues(or issues like you had with it locking up)

This does show some of the downsides of a hosehead type box though, having no manual Off switch to control the element itself can screw you in these edge cases like you had.
 
Brewed a Chocolate Stout today on my Hosehead system. The brew day went off great. Was able to hit and hold 152 degrees in my mash tun using my herms and did a mash out for the first time. Took about 25 minutes to get the mash tun to 168 degrees. Did have a brain fart. Went to shut down my HLT boilcoil and turn on my Boil Kettle boilcoil and forgot to 'Send Command". I actually ran both coils for a while before I realized it. The boil coil in my HLT had only one ring submerged in water and the rest of it was glowing red hot. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be harmed. Got it wort cooled down and in the fermentation chamber and the STC 1000 running my ale profile. In about a week, I'll add about 6 ounces of cocoa nibs. I love being able to brew in doors. Still loving my Hosehead controller too.
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
Thats weird, i cant comment on the Hosehead and its stability, did you by chance monitor the RPI System temp while this was happening? I wonder if the Hosehead is just overheating the RPI although i'd find that hard to believe with those two giant fans on it.

Ive used my Strangebrew box i built(not Hosehead) about 5 times now with no issues(or issues like you had with it locking up)

This does show some of the downsides of a hosehead type box though, having no manual Off switch to control the element itself can screw you in these edge cases like you had.
Click to expand...
Was the server not the box. Since the post, I've been thinking about just making a kill switch on the side of my stand, problem solved.. even if not near the kettles my touch screen let me know the server was gone before the boil over started. If I was not looking at it X.x

As far as Temps it was running around 120 when it happened. I saw 133 at one point mashing and I had everything running full bore.
 
rayf said:
Oh no! I haven't even finished building my system! This makes me worry I made a bad decision! Have you tried the beta version?
Click to expand...

I have looked at it, not brewed with it. Thought this was the project he abandon so not looked much into setting it up.
 
I have some issues with the software also. A lot of times I can't add timers, etc. Tried chrome, ie and Firefox. When I get it all set up it sometimes loses my settings when I exit. Unless there's a 'big' update, I won't be doing any now that everything seems to work for my setup.
 
RonR said:
I have some issues with the software also. A lot of times I can't add timers, etc. Tried chrome, ie and Firefox. When I get it all set up it sometimes loses my settings when I exit. Unless there's a 'big' update, I won't be doing any now that everything seems to work for my setup.
Click to expand...

I've also had timer issues. Corey told me just to bring it back to factory set up if the software would not let me delete them ETC. I have just left them stuck there. Not bothering me much.
 
Bankrupter said:
My feelings after this..
1. Love the 3BC -less-, that key - I'll change it out after talking to Corey about it.
2. Elsinore sucks! The downfall of this affordable kick ass box by Corey falls short on its dependence of Dougs program/server.

I wish I had a grand to build a panel that has ZERO bugs id order the parts today. I am saving to build one in time after that.

End Rant..

81% measured. All in all, in the end, still happy with this price point!
Click to expand...

The thing is that Corey doesn't support the development of Elsinore, very few people do (any the money that does come in is used to expand Elsinores functionality).

Unless people report bugs, or fix them themselves, there's no way for me to identify bugs that people experience.

One thing that has always been in the documentation for elsinore is to have a Kill switch.

Elsinore isn't "Dougs", it's open source, anyone can write code for it, fix things, provide feedback.

I've never said it's something you should rely on 100% to do everything, hence why I despise when people ask how to set Elsinore up to run before they wake up and have the water at Mash Temp when they wake up.

If you are unhappy with the software that runs on Hosehead, that is up for you to discuss with Corey.
 
RonR said:
I have some issues with the software also. A lot of times I can't add timers, etc. Tried chrome, ie and Firefox. When I get it all set up it sometimes loses my settings when I exit. Unless there's a 'big' update, I won't be doing any now that everything seems to work for my setup.
Click to expand...

I would classify the update as pretty major, it loads way faster and is more responsive in general.
 
1 How do I know when updates are made to Elsinore?
2 Which version of Elsinore should I be using?
3 how can I help or report bugs?
4 I received my Hosehead about 3 weeks ago, would any of you know if the version of Elsinore that I have is up to date?
5 it specifically says on the Brewtronix site not to bother Doug about Hosehead issues, if I do have issues where can I address the problems?

I would like to thank Doug and Corey both for the work and knowledge they have put into these two projects that work together for the Home Brewing Community! Good work fellas! I understand that these projects are works in progress and in some cases there is no money being made. I wouldn't mind donating to the Elsinore project for the benefit of some great beer.
 

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