Getting lots of ideas while looking at you guys' wood.
Latest Update prior to painting MLT and stand. 240V eHERMS system... Single pump for now. Gas BK.
Love that setup, looks very similar to what I am going for. How is it working out for you? Any more info about it? Thanks!
Nice rig chisena, I usually brew in color but I might have to try black and white sometime.
Latest Update prior to painting MLT and stand. 240V eHERMS system... Single pump for now. Gas BK.
Chisena
Beautiful !!!
I am building a system almost exactly like yours !!
Can you share a pic of the inside of your HLT?
I'd love to see how you fit the Boil Coil with a HERMS coil
And where does that 3 way valve on your MT lead too ?
AND - how do you like your High Gravity Brewing control panel ?
I am looking to get one as well.
Steve
Nothing fancy here. View attachment 232480
Hey Steve. Below is a photo of the inside of my hot liquor tank. It is definitely a tight fit. The hardware displaces about half a gallon of water. It's not a big deal to me but something to consider when designing an HLT. The 10G Bayou classic kettle that I started with had these wonderful volume markers on the inside which are now obsolete. I now use a piece of pipe with marks on it. The HERMS coil is from StainlessBrewing.com. It is 25 foot 1/2" OD coiled to a 10 inch diameter. I was really hoping it would fit inside of the BoilCoil however that did not work out. As you can see it is installed just above the coil which although not ideal, seems to be working okay even when not totally submerged. It does cause the water to get hotter than it otherwise would if the entire coil was submerged.
Regarding the 240V 10 gallon BoilCoil, it is awesome. It brings 5G of cold tapwater to 165° in about 20 minutes. Installation was a breeze and the high gravity controller works like a charm with the coil. I have only used of the controller once and am very happy with it. I ordered it with an extra pump control switch that I'm not currently using. I really wanted to order it with a second PID for future electric boiling, but just couldn't part with the money.
I use the three-way ball valve on the MLT to direct wort to the pump during recirculation or to the kettle during lauter. It's not really a necessary component but reduces the times I have to disconnect hoses.
View attachment 232853
You're humble...I see a fancy stir motor, a fancy mash paddle, a pump, kettle thermo....
The fact that it is portable just makes it a little less photogenic, but it is all there and nice!
FWIW, you likely don't need the lid under your HLT, even if the drain valve is slightly below your kettle rim, it will syphon over it.
Where is the stir motor?
Yay! another chance to show off my rig! Here is mine, I call it the "Crooked Woody". With the kettle on the burner it is really a two-tier, one pump setup. Burner tier is covered in cement board. 2x4's for the base but the rest of the structure is 2x3's and it's solid. Bottom shelf for storage, and the extra wide right platform for setting down things like my notebook, hydrometer, beer etc. The pump is mounted to its own little box, which can be removed if needed.
Crooked Woody... Classic. Very nice work! Congrats! You could tile over that cement board.
Thanks for looking
NoahBeach, very nice setup! I'm curious how you can do a single tier with only one pump. Do you batch sparge instead of fly sparge? I see the connection on the MLT lid, so it looks like you may fly sparge, but I just don't know how you can do that on a single tier with only 1 pump.
I also really like your digital thermometer setup. Can you provide more details on how you have them setup and wired and a closeup picture of all those little white boxes?
Thanks in advance!
Sorry for the delay, had to take pics of the boxes!
I do batch sparge, though I use the camlock on the lid (which is connected to a "wort aerator" inside to disperse the flow) to recirculate (vorlauf) wort out and back in the MLT each time before I run off, gives my crystal clear wort in the BK as well as the ability to fly sparge if I ever buy a second pump.
As for the probes, I use the waterproof DS18B20 probes connected to a Raspberry Pi which is mounted to the brew stand. I use two different "models" of DS18B20's, both are waterproof, one is just "high temp" (the white cabled probes) where the cable jacket is PTFE (vs PVC) and rated up to ~250F.
The DS18B20's are 1-wire probes, and therefore work best when connected in a bus configuration. My first attempt using these probes with the RP was in a "star" configuration, and it was extremely unstable (probes drop, temps unreadable, etc), since I switched to a bus, no issues at all. I'm in IT and have tons of it so I chose to use standard Cat-5 cable/keystone jacks to run my bus. Rather than trying to splice and connect lots of tiny wires together, I decided to just try and use Cat-5 keystone jacks and punch down both wires (the probe and the Cat-5 cable) into the jack. This "spliced" both wires together, and gave me a jack to plug another Cat-5 cable into to extend the bus. The "white boxes" are simply surface mount keystone boxes ($1.50 at Home Depot), with one of the keystone ports blanked.
As always, pictures tell it all:
HLT "box"/probe going into HLT thermowell
Run between two boxes
Both cables, punched down into same keystone
Eventually runs back to this box, where the RP lives, yes wires are a bit of a mess there, tacking those down is on the "to-do" list
For the connections where I'm reading inline temps (BK out, CFC Wort out, CFC H2O in) I use these probe compression fittings from Brewhardware.com
For the HLT/MLT, I use these thermowell's from Brewhardware.com
For the actual interface, it is just a combination of Python scripts (which actually talk to the probes/store temps in database) and PHP/Javascript (using this library for the actual gauges) that I hacked together and access via a webserver running on the RP. The temps on the web interface are automatically refreshed about every second for each probe (depending on probe delay). It is still a work in progress, but usable.
Awesome... Thank you so much for all the images and info! I think you have just completely changed the design of my upcoming brewstand... I batch sparge now and love it but have been toying with the idea of fly sparging now that I have a 2nd burner. I too only have 1 pump and someday (when the rugrats are older and I have more time to brew) will likely get another pump, so single tier is preferred for future expansion.
I have the same water filter as you, and have been planning on plumbing some PVC to fill my HLT as well.
I love the setup with all the thermocouples and the RPi as well. Definitely will be on my To Do list.
I've been looking all over for short runs of the yellow gas tubing, but can't find it anywhere? Where'd you get yours?
Thanks again for all the ideas!
jmbingham3:
I like the truck bed toolbox idea!
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