Single Tier Rebuild - Lots of fun stuff

Well when my brewing partner and I meet we quickly clicked and we started making killer beers. We both improved quickly and we decided to pull our resources together and build a nice 3 vessel single tier system. As the quality of our beers increased we decided it was time to rebuild and add some new toys.

We started the rebuild and here is what's planned:

• New burners and propane manifold system as well move to natural gas. We will be using BG-14 burners which are rated at 210,000 BTUs.
  
  
• Camlocks, we used plastic quick disconnects but time for more something easier that would not restrict the flow.
  
• Hard Plumbed with 1/2 copper and all valve controlled. No more jumper hoses!
  
• RIMs temp control, a 1500w 120v inline electric element will monitor and maintain the mash temp. Initially controlled by a pid but will be arduino controlled.
  
• custom hop back to pack in that aroma
  
• prechiller in a 5g igloo with 25ft of copper tube will help with our stubborn ground temp
  
• inline sight glass so we can monitor the wort color
  
• hot liquor tank sight glass to better calculate how much water we have and added.
  
• 2 inline pumps so there is never a problem with flow or priming.
  
• recirculation bypass so we never put excess pressure on the grain bed and maintain our desired flow
  
• Strangebrew Elsinore Brewery Controller on Raspberry PI
  
• Redesign of Brewpi and integration with URL="https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/new-strangebrew-elsinore-thread-475456/"]Strangebrew Elsinore [/URL]
  

Original Setup
Single tier, 2 pumps with plastic quick disconnects. It works but we want more!

Here we go
Let's get this part started!




Hacking up the old stand
Made from an old Ikea bunk bed, bed frames and any metal we can get out hands on. We are nerds not welders but its amazing what a grinding wheel and paint can hide.





Inverted Mash Tun base
We use an inverted mash tun and this is the base support for the tippy mechanism




Inverted Mash Tun
Well look at that.




BG-14
No more issues coming to temp on full batchs




Admiring our work
So far so good.




Action Shot
Welded 2 hinges to the back




Full dump ready for cleaning
Full extended, bottom drain will be removed and a spray ball inserted for clean out

Dimple Tool
We dont need no stinkin weldless fittings




Dimpled
This had an 1/2 nipple welded in but was rusted and not sanitary. We bit the bullet, grinded it off and dimpled.




Silver Solder Diptube
Just a test fit but pretty happy with it, is it brew day yet?




HLT
Not bad.




HLT - Tee
Surface soldered tee with a dimple inwards and boy is this strong, we took a hammer to the test didnt budge. Thermowell and sight glass.




Test fit
Can we brew yet?




The lineup
Just need to finish soldering up the BK and sparge port on the mash tun.





[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUiFmiF4A7Y[/ame]

Bootstrap - Desktop
First go at converting BrewPi to bootstrap, will have custom color scheme selector and user login for administration.




Bootstrap - Mobile
Brewpi on the phone, not perfect but its a start.

Drool.... Looks awesome. Nice work.

HausBrauerei_Harvey said:

Drool.... Looks awesome. Nice work.

Click to expand...

Thanks, it sucks having the system down but will be worth it. Cant wait to start on the plumbing and get it all wrapped up.

How is the keg attached to the tippy frame?

The keg is attached with a bracket with a bolt through the bottom of the keg, after I am done wrapping will take better shot of it.


Here is this weekends progress, Strange Brew is up and running along with modified brewpi system soon they will be integrated



Plumbing, Vessel output
Combined output on the way to be recycled





RIMS
a 1500 watt 110v element will be in here to help maintain temp




Test Fit
A big thank you to @benbradford for the tips on his setup





Gluing attempt 1
I didn't add enough glue and it came out in about 10 chunks.





Gluing attempt 2
Sanded some (left side) and added a ton of glue on the next try.





Top view
Not perfect but it works. Will be sealed with black silicone caulk.

Plumbing
Combined input into the RIMS, though a sight glass, pumps then off to either the mash tun or whirlpool. The bottom of the bottom of the 4 way recirculates the excesses from the mash tun to not collapse the grain bed.

You are welcome. Didn't read the whole thread, but you are being cautious with the burner not being too close to mash tun?

Good Luck!

benbradford said:

You are welcome. Didn't read the whole thread, but you are being cautious with the burner not being too close to mash tun?

Good Luck!

Click to expand...

I think it should be ok, there is a decent distance from the burner an the mash tun is not direct fire. If its an issue I can wrap the mash tun platform with sheet metal to shield it from the heat.

If you are still assembling, I have thought of wrapping keg in metallic insulation before wood to help keep temp.

Test Run
Time to test the system and see how well it works, after a couple of tweaks we will be ready for the final version.




Bypass in action
This is so awesome, we disabled the bypass (hose under the pumps) and starting pulling hard on the grain bed and you could see it instantly go cloudy. Opening the bypass the clarity returned after 10 seconds. We also discovered the bypass allowed us to kill the output to any vessel and recirculate with no change to the pumps. Awesome.




Tippy Tun
Simple & easy clean outs. I think the picture speaks for itself.




First Batch an IPL
A 5.5g hop monster and was a simple brew day.

Sorry if I missed this, but why do you have the pumps plumbed in series like that?

Carlscan26 said:

Sorry if I missed this, but why do you have the pumps plumbed in series like that?

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing, you only need one pump for this.

Nvm re read op

Carlscan26 said:

Sorry if I missed this, but why do you have the pumps plumbed in series like that?

Click to expand...

This seems to be the biggest question about the setup, the first brewing setup was a merge 2 homebrew systems so we had 2 pumps. We only ran the second for whirlpool but found that it helped breaking though any flow issues we had and speed things up. When we rebuilt the setup we continue with both but the system can operate perfectly on a single pump.

We ran a small test transferring 5 gallons from the HLT to the boil kettle and with 1 pump it took 2:00 both 1:20. So its not a 100% increase in output BUT still an improvement and no additional cost for us. Now if we didn't have the bypass I would not run 2 pumps inline for a re-circulation system but we have flexibility and if we need to disconnect the pump we can easily remote it with camlocks. I will have a video of the bypass in action and you can see the effect it has on wort clarity.


Here is a quick video of the whirlpool of our most recent beer (IPL with massive amounts of hops) though the system with both pumps going:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCYIYjBZa9g[/ame]


For reference here is a video of someone else experience with 2 pumps
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ndaTvJoVO0[/ame]

Very cool!

Thanks!

Its been a little since I have posted updates but we have been busy learning the setup and dialing it in. We have made some changes to the setup swapping out the mashtun, installing the RIMS, dialing in the recirculation and brewday process. We have just setup Elsinore Strangebrew so we will be data logging and focusing on repeatability.




Bypass in action, crystal clear wort in minutes.


Newmashtun

Cool, nice work. I'd be interested to see a flow diagram of your plumbing if you have one. Also, do you have a shopping link to that sight glass at the pumps?

Also, can you elaborate on the pump bypass concept? That's a new one on me.

thekraken said:

Cool, nice work. I'd be interested to see a flow diagram of your plumbing if you have one. Also, do you have a shopping link to that sight glass at the pumps?

Click to expand...

Sight glass was just compression fitting from home depot and some poly tube from bargin fittings

thekraken said:

Also, can you elaborate on the pump bypass concept? That's a new one on me.

Click to expand...

Here is a quick diagram showing how it work

So what's the advantage of the bypass plumbing over just having the standard pump output valve? Also, looking at the diagram are the 2 valves in the "middle row" of plumbing necessary?

thekraken said:

So what's the advantage of the bypass plumbing over just having the standard pump output valve? Also, looking at the diagram are the 2 valves in the "middle row" of plumbing necessary?

Click to expand...

The 2 big reasons for bypass plumbing:

1. You can control the rate of flow during recirculation and sparging from a dribble to a torrent without putting stress on your pumps shortening its life.
2. Depending on the grain bill/crush you can control the pressure on the grain bed preventing a stuck mash. Most large scale systems use a grant to accomplish the same thing but you have to worry about level sensors.

The 2 valves are not necessary BUT they do allow for flow segregation. I can boil 1 beer and be mashing another keeping controllable buffer and clean the lines out easier. Did a pilsner and negro modelo clone at the same time without crossing flavors.