10G Elsinore controlled E-HERMS

[TechyDork]

So my brew buddy and I grew tired of brewing outside in the cold. We live in AK and sometimes the winters can be rough and dark. After a few months of convincing from me he is on board with going electric and moving the brew operations indoors.

Next question, where to do it? As luck would have it he owns a shop on the property next to his home, 40'x80' with an airplane hanger style door on one end and two two bedroom apartments he runs as seasonal rentals on the other. The shop side is heated with a waste oil heater that can get the shop nice and toasty on those cold winter days.

After a lot of reading on HBT and pricing out parts I decided to go with a Raspberry Pi running StrangeBrew Elsinore in place of the usual 3 PID setup you see on a lot of Kal clone systems. I am an IT system admin and the idea of using my iPad, phone or laptop to monitor temps over wifi just sounded cool. Plus it saved me a few $s as I already had the Pi laying around.

The panel is a 30A Kal clone. We ran 6 gauge wire from a 30amp breaker in the main panel to a spa panel with a 60amp GFCI breaker and then to the 30amp dryer outlet. This gives us the ability to step up to a 50A panel if we decide we want to do back to back or bigger batches. We sourced the parts, mostly from www.auberins.com and Amazon and ordered the wiring kit from www.theelectricbrewery.com. Currently the pump are controlled manually via the three way switches on the panel, but we have a relay that we may install to allow the pumps to be turned on and off via the web interface of SBE. I am not sure how often we would really use that so I have yet to install it.

We went with 82QT Bayou Classic SS kettles from Amazon, 2 chugger pumps, a 50, 1/2" SS HERMS coil from www.stainlessbrewing.com, all the other weldless fittings, camlocks, valves and element covers are from brewhardware.com.

So here she is as of last nights initial test of the pumps and elements. Also had time to tune the PID functionality of SBE. Other than a few minor leaks on a couple of valves she is ready for her first brew this weekend! A nice little pale ale with columbus and cascade hops.

Please don't knock the slightly untidy wiring of the panel, and the slightly too long hoses.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Is there a reason you added pump switches when its Elsinore that turns them on and off?

 

[TechyDork]

I do not currently have Elsinore turning them on and off. So I added a 3way switch for each pump.

So each pump is ON-OFF-AUTO


I wanted to be able to turn them on and off via the panel and and also have the option to allow Elsinore to run them.

I have a 4 Chanel sainsmart relay I was planning to add to allow Elsinore to control the pumps. I just have not done so yet.

 

[TechyDork]

Is there a reason you added pump switches when its Elsinore that turns them on and off?

Also I didn't like the idea of not having a switch for them right on the panel.

I was basically building a Kal system and using SBE in place of the Auber PIDs.

 

[ArmOnFire]

Nice job!

 

[Hello]

I like it. It does seem cool to control things from your iPad and such. Great work.

 

[TechyDork]

Nice job!

Thanks! It has been a few months in the works and I can't wait to brew on it later this weekend.

I like it. It does seem cool to control things from your iPad and such. Great work.

Thanks. During testing it was nice to have the iPad to control the elements and i really love the graphing to show you how the temps over the entire length of the process. We still get to move all the hoses around and open and close the valves so it isn't totally hands off, which i like.

 

[TechyDork]

Finally had a chance to put the new system through it's paces on Saturday night. It was a very long brew day, mostly due to user error and a need to fine tune the PID settings in the software, but in the end we had 11.5 g of Pale Whale Ale into the fermenters at a slightly higher than normal efficiency.

A shop vac is a very handy tool to have for cleaning this system. It was nice to be able to just vacuum out the last bit of grains from the MLT and the trub from the BK.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Im a bit confused why Jang and others are building in single gang boxes that take up a ton of space when you could buy a 120V input 12V 3A power supply for like $9 and just wire your RPI up to it directly and save a ton of space and realistically it costs the same amount after gang boxes, plugs, wall plates etc? Not to mention then you have an easy 12V for a fan if needed.

Also where did you get that False bottom i like the look!

And did you go for the 14" diameter Coil?

 

[TechyDork]

Im a bit confused why Jang and others are building in single gang boxes that take up a ton of space when you could buy a 120V input 12V 3A power supply for like $9 and just wire your RPI up to it directly and save a ton of space and realistically it costs the same amount after gang boxes, plugs, wall plates etc? Not to mention then you have an easy 12V for a fan if needed.

Also where did you get that False bottom i like the look!

And did you go for the 14" diameter Coil?

I may pull out my single gang box and outlet and go for a 120v input. As it sits now i do not have enough room to put in my SainSmart relay to have SBE switch the pumps. Do you have a link to a 120v input you would use?

Here is the false bottom that we use. I only paid half of that listing price when i bought it a few months ago.

We did go for the 14" diameter coil, it is 50' and 1/2". If i could do it over i would try to get a 16" diameter coil to keep the height down as much as possible. Currently i have to add a bit of water back in after we dough in to keep the entire coil submerged. Not a big deal, but it takes the HLT a few minutes to get back up to temp.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

I may pull out my single gang box and outlet and go for a 120v input. As it sits now i do not have enough room to put in my SainSmart relay to have SBE switch the pumps. Do you have a link to a 120v input you would use?

Here is the false bottom that we use. I only paid half of that listing price when i bought it a few months ago.

We did go for the 14" diameter coil, it is 50' and 1/2". If i could do it over i would try to get a 16" diameter coil to keep the height down as much as possible. Currently i have to add a bit of water back in after we dough in to keep the entire coil submerged. Not a big deal, but it takes the HLT a few minutes to get back up to temp.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N759QQE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

This is the power supply i bought, waiting for it to arrive. Wire in Hot and neutral, out comes 12Vdc @ 3A. The RPI only i think can use a maximum of 2A if you had tons of USB things and cameras plugged into it so thats the power supply they recommend if your buying a wall wart. 3A is really the smallest i could find in 120V AC -> 12V DC, they are used for LED Christmas light arrays i think. Its not small but at 4"x2"x1.2" it will be a bit smaller than a power gang box, plus you dont need to have the giant wall wart plug taking up space. Ill just cut the cable i have now and wire it directly to the power supply output.

I'd think 16" would be too wide after you factor in the bends to actually connect it to your pot?

 

[TechyDork]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N759QQE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

This is the power supply i bought, waiting for it to arrive. Wire in Hot and neutral, out comes 12Vdc @ 3A. The RPI only i think can use a maximum of 2A if you had tons of USB things and cameras plugged into it so thats the power supply they recommend if your buying a wall wart. 3A is really the smallest i could find in 120V AC -> 12V DC, they are used for LED Christmas light arrays i think. Its not small but at 4"x2"x1.2" it will be a bit smaller than a power gang box, plus you dont need to have the giant wall wart plug taking up space. Ill just cut the cable i have now and wire it directly to the power supply output.

I'd think 16" would be too wide after you factor in the bends to actually connect it to your pot?

That's an interesting power supply. I may have to give it a shot.

16" may be a tight fit with the bends. The 14" coil works great just wish it was bit shorter. Maybe the 25' would have been a better option.

Honestly I need more time to dial things in and tweak the setup.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

That's an interesting power supply. I may have to give it a shot.

16" may be a tight fit with the bends. The 14" coil works great just wish it was bit shorter. Maybe the 25' would have been a better option.

Honestly I need more time to dial things in and tweak the setup.

Not sure what I was thinking when I bought the supply, rpi needs 5v not 12v so I'm gonna return it. I think I was looking at the hose head which uses 12v for a few things and it was stuck in my head i needed that. This is what I'm going to really use.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LT2PGY/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_wAjGvb1T7KZ1X