Like many people, after seeing theelectricbrewery.com, I wanted to start the journey of collecting all the parts to build this beast. I ordered many parts but stopped. I still wanted go electric because brewing in the winter sucks and propane costs me a lot more. So I built a simple toolbox control panel.
A little background on my setup: I do 10 gal batches. I have a 15gal Blichmann kettle that I will heat up the strike water with. While I'm mashing I will heat up the sparge water in the Blichmann. I will drain my first runnings into another smaller kettle I have from when I first started brewing. I batch sparge splitting my sparge water in two. I will then do my first sparge draining it into the same smaller kettle. I then sparge the second half. My smaller kettle that has my first runnings and first sparge will then go into my Blichmann. The second sparge then gets runoff into my Blichmann and I boil as usual.
Needless to say, I need a bigger kettle that I will use as a boil kettle and use the 15 gal Blichmann as my HLT. That's what I asked for, for xmas so maybe Santa will bring me it!
Anyway, my new toolbox has a single PID which I'm thinking I will just use in manual mode heating the strike/sparge water because I don't want to drill another hole in Blichmann for the RTD to use in automatic mode. I have 3 sets of switches/lights. Top is main power/led, middle is element/led, bottom is pump/led. My main breaker is 40amps which feeds my range. I use a spa panel inline for GFCI.
I pretty much just applied what I learned off the electricbrewery site and made it work with what I had for parts. Thanks to Kal for such an informative site and PJ for answering my questions I PM'd. Here's some pics.
Closeup of the spa panel
Whole spa panel assembly
Rangle outlet mounted in spa panel to plug tool box into (yeah the hole is off center, it still works!)
Initial measurements and layout
Switch/light holes cut PID measured out
Receptacles mounted
Everything mounted inside, aluminum back plate from Home Depot, started wiring a little
Wiring...... check!
Testing, realized I had to set the right temperature input sensor on the PID. And I accidently wired the same 120v phase to both sides of the heating element LED. So the LED light turned on when the SSR & PID lights were off and the LED light turned off when the others were on. Minor fix, moved the other 120v line to the other phase(I think thats what you call it).
So thats it for now. Some other cool stuff, my new 40 plate chiller arrived Fri from Keg Cowboy. I can't wait to try that as my last chiller was no where near what I needed to cool an 11 gal batch (50ft 3/8 immersion chiller).
And i just picked up a new 7.0 cubic ft GE chest freezer from Home Depot for $160. They were on sale and I used the 10% off coupon. I pretty stoked right now and can't wait to brew my next beer!
A little background on my setup: I do 10 gal batches. I have a 15gal Blichmann kettle that I will heat up the strike water with. While I'm mashing I will heat up the sparge water in the Blichmann. I will drain my first runnings into another smaller kettle I have from when I first started brewing. I batch sparge splitting my sparge water in two. I will then do my first sparge draining it into the same smaller kettle. I then sparge the second half. My smaller kettle that has my first runnings and first sparge will then go into my Blichmann. The second sparge then gets runoff into my Blichmann and I boil as usual.
Needless to say, I need a bigger kettle that I will use as a boil kettle and use the 15 gal Blichmann as my HLT. That's what I asked for, for xmas so maybe Santa will bring me it!
Anyway, my new toolbox has a single PID which I'm thinking I will just use in manual mode heating the strike/sparge water because I don't want to drill another hole in Blichmann for the RTD to use in automatic mode. I have 3 sets of switches/lights. Top is main power/led, middle is element/led, bottom is pump/led. My main breaker is 40amps which feeds my range. I use a spa panel inline for GFCI.
I pretty much just applied what I learned off the electricbrewery site and made it work with what I had for parts. Thanks to Kal for such an informative site and PJ for answering my questions I PM'd. Here's some pics.
Closeup of the spa panel
Whole spa panel assembly
Rangle outlet mounted in spa panel to plug tool box into (yeah the hole is off center, it still works!)
Initial measurements and layout
Switch/light holes cut PID measured out
Receptacles mounted
Everything mounted inside, aluminum back plate from Home Depot, started wiring a little
Wiring...... check!
Testing, realized I had to set the right temperature input sensor on the PID. And I accidently wired the same 120v phase to both sides of the heating element LED. So the LED light turned on when the SSR & PID lights were off and the LED light turned off when the others were on. Minor fix, moved the other 120v line to the other phase(I think thats what you call it).
So thats it for now. Some other cool stuff, my new 40 plate chiller arrived Fri from Keg Cowboy. I can't wait to try that as my last chiller was no where near what I needed to cool an 11 gal batch (50ft 3/8 immersion chiller).
And i just picked up a new 7.0 cubic ft GE chest freezer from Home Depot for $160. They were on sale and I used the 10% off coupon. I pretty stoked right now and can't wait to brew my next beer!
