Its done, testing to commence tomorrow

Everything is together and I am ready for the test run for tomorrow. Testing will consist of:

1) Water in the MLT, recirculated through the HEX coil, test for leakage and flow rate, testing of control box

2) Water into the HLT to test heating element temp control and control box as well as effeciency on the HEX coil back to the MLT

Once done, brewing is set for next weekend.

Nice rig. Any shots of the inside of the control panel?

Also, I've always wondered, why use the female QDs on the equipment and not the hoses? I do it the opposite, males on the kegs, females on the hoses.

Bigscience said:

Also, I've always wondered, why use the female QDs on the equipment and not the hoses? I do it the opposite, males on the kegs, females on the hoses.

Click to expand...

If those are like mine, they seal up when disconnected. You can unhook without shutting ball valves off.

wildwest450 said:

If those are like mine, they seal up when disconnected. You can unhook without shutting ball valves off.

Click to expand...

I purposely went with the non shutoff kind due to flow rate and potential clogging issues. Point taken though. Can't you get one's that shutoff on both sides though?

I have those kind of QD's on my equipment. I too chose to do males on my equipment and females on the hoses. I didn't want to do auto-shutoffs for the same reason, and I am glad I did. The fittings themselves have a "cross" on the inside of them with a little nipple in the center of that. I assume this is for use, in conjunction with the ones that auto-close, to tell the opposite connector to close when the nipple doesn't push open its nemesis on the opposite connector. I was thinking about drilling out the crosses in the fittings because they do catch grain pieces and stuff, and because I won't ever need the shut-off utility they provide. I have noticed they get harder and harder to use as the years go on. The rubber o-rings are the culprit IMHO. I'm even thinking of going with SS camlocks in the future, but they have served me well up to now. Nice build, I will keep checking your advances.

WortMonger said:

I have those kind of QD's on my equipment. I too chose to do males on my equipment and females on the hoses. I didn't want to do auto-shutoffs for the same reason, and I am glad I did. The fittings themselves have a "cross" on the inside of them with a little nipple in the center of that. I assume this is for use, in conjunction with the ones that auto-close, to tell the opposite connector to close when the nipple doesn't push open its nemesis on the opposite connector. I was thinking about drilling out the crosses in the fittings because they do catch grain pieces and stuff, and because I won't ever need the shut-off utility they provide. I have noticed they get harder and harder to use as the years go on. The rubber o-rings are the culprit IMHO. I'm even thinking of going with SS camlocks in the future, but they have served me well up to now. Nice build, I will keep checking your advances.

Click to expand...

I keep thinking about drilling mine out too but I'm not exactly sure how to do it. I was thinking about coming in from the back side on a drill press. I'm worried it won't turn out that well though.

As for the ease of use, I stocked up on some o-rings but found that really cleaning them to get rid of anything sticky on the inside and then using a little bit of keg lube really helped out. I thought about the SS QDs but my only concern was how hot they'd get and if you could bare hand them. As for the cam-locks, you may be in the 2 hands required zone.

Testing went well; some lessons learned and a couple of design changes need to be made.

Lesson Learned 1: Insure the temp probe is seated in the thermowell. This also nessesitated a design change.

Design Change: Heat shield needed; the wood heat shield that (now that sounds funny) I have in place is not going to withstand the heat coming off the burner even though there appears to be enough space. A 16x16 piece of sheet metal will work.

Lesson Learned #2: Flip the lock switch in the Ranco, dummy.

Design Change: Either I need to remove or heat shield the wort chill plate.

Lesson Learned #3: Insure that the HLT temp hangs in at about 159 degrees



The last hour of testing was re-taping the fittings as some were leaking. The HEX rigging was pretty sound except for the wort-in fittings. I removed, retaped, retightened. Should be good.

Heat element did the job on maintaining temperature; getting the HLT up to strike temp with gas is the way for me to go. Heating both the MLT water with the HLT at the same time is also the way to go.

Looks like ready to brew next weekend...