My Electric Brewery

I've been wanting to put up a little bit about my Electric setup for a while. I just sold it actually, but I thought this would be a good place to put up some info about it and how to use it.

This brewery is inspired by Kal's design at http://www.theelectricbrewery.com, with with a few differences. It is capable of brewing 5 or 10 gallon batches on the large system (or Main), or it can also brew two 3 gallon brew in a bag (BIAB) batches at once. The Main system is a converted sanke keg system, all three vessels have bottom drains for easy cleaning. Here's some features of the system:

In the Main system, the Hot liquor tank and Brew kettle both have 5500W ultra low watt density heating elements installed. It is a simple infusion mash system with a Jaybird false bottom. A RIMS tube could be added easily to the system. The BIAB system is two Bayou classic 6 gallon stainless pots, each with a steaming basket and a 2500W ultra low watt element installed (which works a lot better than the 3500W element I tried initially). Because the steaming basket holds the mash above the heating elements, the BIAB system can be used as a RIMS to hold the mash at the target temperature. The pumps are Chugger with stainless heads. The plate chiller is a Duda Diesel 30 plate (B3-23A). Both the pumps have temperature probes on the inputs, so they can be used to precisely set the temperature of your strike water, or to control the temperature of your recirculating wort in the BIAB system. The chiller also has a temperature probe inline, so you have a digital readout of the temperature as you are chilling.

 

More pics

 

Even more pics

 

looks awesome. great job

 

A word about recirculating in a BIAB system: That word is "why?" Most BIAB systems are meant to be very simple, no recirculating, mash in, mash out - as it were. Recirculaing in a larger system has the added benefit of clarifying the wort. In a BIAB system once you lift the bag out, you pretty much throw that idea out the window. I have mashed on this system without recirculating and it works fine (indeed, it only loses one or two degrees over 60 minutes), but I've found that the mash is much more even when recirculating. I also like being able to set the temperature and not have to sit there with a thermometer and a pitcher of cold water to adjust (and usually over adjust) the temperature of the mash. While it's not quite "set and forget" it does come close.

To begin, I like to heat up all the water I'll need for the entire brew day in my large HLT for a couple reasons. Because the kettles have a 6 gallon capacity, there isn't enough room to hold all the water and grain to simply pull the bag out and boil. This means that I do a little big of sparging, which in my case is just lifting the grain out of the kettles and pouring hot (around 168 degrees) water over the basket. Because of this I like to have water preheated to almost sparge temp ahead of time. The system can only use one large heating element (5500W) or two small elements (2500W) at once, so at the end of the mash I pause the recirculation to heat the remaining water in the HLT up to sparge temp. The mash has no problem holding temperature within a degree or two for the last 20 minutes or so. The extra water is also useful for flushing the system and cleaning later on.

 

To begin I fill HLT, set the system control to the MAIN system, and set PID to about 10 degrees below the strike temp. I do this so that when I switch the system over to BIAB the PIDs will have a chance to reset their logic to presicely control the temp. In this case I want strike temps of 160 and 163, so I'll set the PID to 150.

While the water is heating I assemble the steamer basket and attach the recirculating hose.

Next I add the strike water to the smaller kettles (about 3.5 gal). I drain the hose that was filling the kettles so that I can disconnect the left pump, and connect the outlet from the left kettle to the left pump to create a recirculating loop.I do the same for the right kettle and right pump. I turn the system off momentarily so the PIDs can reset their "memory" and start learning the curve of the smaller BIAB elements. Then I turn the system back on and set the strike temperature on both PIDs. I open the outlets from both kettles, then set the outlets from the pumps to about half and start the pumps recirculating. Then I turn on the power to the PIDs and let them take over the temperature control. I've learned that it's important to let the strike temp settle in the kettles for a few minutes before mashing in - otherwise the PIDs can overcompensate. I've also learned to go a bit low on the strike temp - it's easier for the elements to heat the mash back up than it is for it to cool down (without adding cold water).

While the pumps are still recirculating I mash in to both kettles and give each a good stir. After a few minutes the temperature settles out right where it wants to be. It has occured to me that it might be better to pause the recirc, mash in, stir the mash well, the cycle the power to the PIDs to once again before restarting the recirc. It might be a better approach because the grain is actually changing the variables of the system slightly. Then again, the PIDs might be smart enough to account for this.

 

With about 20 minutes left in the mash I stop recirculating to begin reheating sparge water on the large system. Heatproof gloves are very helpful for the next few steps (if not a necessity). I close the outlets on both kettles, then drain the hoses into a dump container. It's very important in this step to make sure that the recirculating hose is above the mash for this step, otherwise it will start siphoning the mash liquid as well...ask me how I know! Once the hoses are drained I detach the recirculating hoses and replace the lids on the kettles. Before I start heating the sparge water in the large kettle I make sure to flush the hoses with the existing warm water in the HLT to rinse out any grain particulate. Then I cycle the power to the PIDs, select the MAIN system, set the temp to 169, attach the hoses to recirculate in the HLT, and start the pump and the heating element. It takes 10-15 minutes to get the temperature back up to the high 160's.

Next comes "sparging". Once the mash is complete I tie the top of the bags with butchers twine to keep them shut. Then I suspend the steaming basket and bag so that it can drain. Next I run hot liquid (I fill a pitcher, but the pump would work as well) over top of the grains to sparge. I do this until the volume reaches about 4.5 gallons. Usually that amount will get me to about 3.5 gallons in the fermenter. I remove the grains and stir the wort so I can take an accurate pre-boil gravity sample. Then I add a "hop spider" to the kettles. Next I switch the PIDs to manual mode and turn them up to 100%. It takes about 15 minutes to get both kettles to a boil. In the meantime I usually clean the grain bags and steamer baskets. Once I reach a boil I turn the PIDs down to about 55% which is enought to maintain a nice rolling boil.

During the boil I make sure that any hoses that were used during the mash are flushed with hot water. I also attach hoses to the wort chiller for eventual cooling. Because there is just one chiller, cooling the batches must be offset by 20-30 minutes so that I can cool one batch, flush the chiller, sanitize it, then cool the second batch. In this instance I'm doing a 20 minute hop stand in my SMASH beer before after the boil, so it will work out nicely. Otherwise I would either stagger the boils, or do one for 90 minutes and the other for 60.

 

With 5 minutes left in the boil I recirculate to sanitze the chiller. Beforehand I'll turn the PID back up to 100% - otherwise the boil will stop dead. Once the boil is complete I plug in the cooler temperature probe into PID 1 so that I can moniter the cooling, and then I open the cold water ball valve to start chilling (still recirculating). At this point I'll suspend the "hop spider" so it can drain. Once I'm at the right temperature on the PID I stop the pump and move the hose to the fermenter to fill it. My waste water goes directly into my clothes washer. Depending on the temperature of the ground water I usually can chill both batches with just enough water to do one load of laundry.

Once the first batch is finished I drain all the hoses into the dump bucket. I use some hot water from the HLT to flush the hoses and the chiller. Once flushed I empty the hoses once more, disconnect all the hoses from the chiller and empty it as well. Usually this is about the right time to start recirculating in the second batch to resanizize it, so I hook all the hoses back up and start the sanitzing and chilling process for the second batch.

Once the second batch is chilled I'll add oxygen and pitch the yeast for both batches.

Cleaning:
I have a spray nozzle that I hook up to the cold water to give the kettles an initial rinse to get most of the gunk out. I use a cleaning sponge to scrape off any solids, then I add some hot water from the HLT and use it to do a quick hot water rinse. I try to get the kettles pretty much clean by this point, but for good measure I add some PBW to one of the kettles and use it to clean the kettle. Then I pump that PBW through the chiller and into the second kettle. Once the PBW solution is in the second kettle I'll recirculate the solution from the chiller into the kettle and back. If the solution gets too cool I turn the element back on to heat it up. I let it recirc for a few minutes in one direction, then switch the hoses on the chiller to do a few minutes of backflush recirc. During this time I usually rinse the first kettle of the PBW and dry it out. After a few minutes of recirc I drain the PBW solution into a bucket. I rinse out the kettle with my spray nozzle and dump it directly into a bucket. Then I add about a gallon or so of clean water back into the kettle and pump it into the chiller (which is still in it's backflush configuration), and out into a drain bucket. When about half the water is left I stop the hoses and switch them back to their normal configuration, then pump the remaining water through the system. Every few batches I like to remove the temperature probe and plastic quick disconnect from the chiller and then bake it in the oven for about an hour at 400 degrees.