Electric brew system build - control box, brew cabinet/stand, and TC fitting silver soldering

I just completed this build. Sourced majority of components through Auber Instruments and BrewHardware.com. Extremely happy with both suppliers.
Control panel build went smoothly, found lots of helpful schematics online for reference.
I silver soldered a total of 5 1.5" TC fittings for both HLT and Boil Kettle. It was not difficult, just use a lot of flux. Not the prettiest solder joints but they are functional.
The 5500 W elements with the integrated 1.5" TC fittings were real slick. Used the 1.5" TC fittings for the temperature probes and whirlpool port. The HLT and Boil Kettle were the units I had from my previous propane setup.
Except for the purchase of one piece of 4x8 plywood, all of the components/wood for the brewery stand was stuff I had laying around. The support for the writing table has the primary purpose to stabilize the stand when all of the slides are pulled out. It is great being able to store the majority of my brewing equipment on this stand. I can easily roll the stand in the corner of my woodshop when not in use.
First brew session went great. What a pleasure using automated temperature control. The EZBoil controller was great, especially with the rotary knob. Instead of trying to modulate the flame to prevent an overboil, turning the power output knob down immediately controlled an overboil.

 

Nice set up.

 

Wow, that looks like a nice rig. It looks like you planned and executed very well.

 

Very nice, I bought everything to do some silver soldering of fittings myself but havent attempted it yet. Yours came out good.

I'm wondering why you chose to go with all green wiring on the door?
On my first panel build ( in avatar pic) I was on a very small budget and used whatever wire of the correct size I had laying around regardless of color and or course it works fine but it made it harder to keep straight when building. Also it became a real pain down the road when I wanted to make changes to the panel like swap out one of my pids for an ezboil.. I'm not mentioning this to be critical of my or your work but more of a heads up to others that come here looking at these build threads for inspiration and ideas.. I just completed my 4 panel and its the first one I'm kind of proud of as far as organization and layout so your already way ahead of where I was when I started my first electric build.

 

I went with the green wire because I had a entire spool laying around. I didn't have any issue when I was building it because I completed it section by section, but I certainly agree that it will be a pain to trace those wires if I ever make any changes in the future.
The silver solder did not flow like I am used to when putting together copper plumbing fittings. I think part of the issue is the difference in mass between the TC fitting and rather thin kettle wall. Like I mentioned the flux is your friend. I found that I needed to apply more flux half-way through my soldering process.

Here's the next phase of the project. The Penguin glycol chiller was just delivered today. I have two Spike CF5 conicals. I am debating on purchasing the Spike insulated conical jacket and conical heater but I am going to do a little research before I pull the trigger on those parts. Has anyone applied any other type of heating pad/strip to these or similar conicals and if so how do they perform?

 

You did a very nice job! You should be proud of your rig that you created!

John

 

I use some reptile heat tape on my conicals. They work great and were only about $20 each.. however if I had spike conical I would absolutely buy their jacket and heater I wish someone made a neoprene jacket for my brewhemoths.. here is a picture of what the heat strips looks like.. they make many sizes and you can cut to length.. I believe I ordered them from reptilebasics.com pre cut to the length I needed with the plugs already installed..

 

John,
Thanks for the kind words. I just read your Brew Rig Build Thread and really appreciated all of the great information and wonderful collaboration from the members on this forum. What a fantastic looking set-up!
Brian.

 

Your welcome, and thank-you!

John