240v eBrutus 20

[iijakii]

Overview of BK. Far left is the sightglass. I still need to calibrate and put the volume stickers on. Then there's the wort-return and the bottom valve is wort-out.

Whirlpool (wort-in) fitting and RTD probe.

Side pickup diptube in the BK. Need to shorten it a quarter-half inch or so.

RTD probe connected to sightglass T:

Distance between BK and MT is quite short, going to be pretty lol having camlocks that close. (still need a washer, so MT camlock isn't tightened)

Mash tun. False bottom and a loc-line sparge arm. Baller status.

 

[Budzu]

Your work is very nice! It's all looking handsome. Like your view too, are you going to surround your brewing area in an awesome blanket fort?

So you have your MT below the BK? So the pump will be pulling out of the mash. Any reason you wanted that over using gravity for the mash, and the pump for pushing back into the mash?

 

[iijakii]

I debated briefly on putting the MT up top. I've seen a few threads where people got stuck sparges they attributed to pumping from the mash, but most people don't have a problem. With the false bottom I'm not worried about it.

Main reason is that wort-return and sight-glass would have been pretty tricky with the BK in the hole.

And yeah I think I need to buy some less ridiculous curtains lol, those were the perfect price... free.

 

[Budzu]

I debated briefly on putting the MT up top. I've seen a few threads where people got stuck sparges they attributed to pumping from the mash, but most people don't have a problem. With the false bottom I'm not worried about it.

Main reason is that wort-return and sight-glass would have been pretty tricky with the BK in the hole.

And yeah I think I need to buy some less ridiculous curtains lol, those were the perfect price... free.

That makes sense. B. Kabouter's simple brewery runs like this, so I'm sure it will work fine for you. You can stick a mash easily even without a pump if you run it for long fast.

 

[iijakii]

Spent about two hours tonight playing with mounting the pump hidden on the bottom, and then having two camlocks on the face. Couldn't do it right without some custom pipe or a lot of experimenting with nipple lengths. Would have been costly.

So, mounted on the shelf.

 

[iijakii]

Using the holesaw on 2-gang outlet box is damn near impossible without a drill press it seems. Going to go to my Dad's tomorrow since I don't really have any clamps here. Hopefully that will do the trick. Also, I have decided shrink-wrap and expandable sleeving are my arch nemesis. My temp probes aren't too great.

 

[iijakii]

Heating water with electrons! Happiest day of my life!

 

[iijakii]

Letting it run on auto tune. When I first plugged it in the RTD was switching between 70, 71, 72 continuously changing about 3 times per 5 seconds. Hopefully this tunes it.

 

[iijakii]

Don't have my other thermometer handy, but the PID/RTD have to be off by a solid 50F. Raised the FilT parameter and that took care of the continuous swing. Guess I'll try a second auto tune.

 

[iijakii]

Ok I kicked it over to manual mode and it's at 198 according to the PID and not boiling yet, looks about right bubble wise. I'm not sure if it's just the element or because this is my first boil indoors. I could have sworn when the PID said 150 that it was about to boil. Maybe I've just never noticed the steam rising when I was outdoors on propane. Plus the bubbles coming off the element almost look like a very soft boil.

Stream of conscious right now but maybe it will help someone else like me :shrug:


Edit: 205 F right now and it's definitely boiling around the element but not the rest of the pot. PID might be quite accurate.

Edit2: Moderate boil at 208, 209 is showing a pretty good boil. 210F is a solid boil.

Guess I need to replace my battery on my $40 thermowerks (not a thermapen) and see what mash temps are like.

 

[iijakii]

Yeah, boil never got above 210. Probably just need to set the Pb value to +2. Will need to get another thermometer to check though.

 

[iijakii]

Well, got the pump and everything up and running. I seem to be experiencing some pretty big stratification. The bottom where the temp probe is (sightglass T) seems to read about 10+ lower than the top of the pot. When I have the pump running full bore it seems to fix it. BUT, during mash I won't be able to run it full-speed I don't think.

Trying to learn the system before I brew. Don't really know what to do though, heh. I have it recirculating right now and trying to figure out if I can get to a reasonable mash volume constant while maintaining temperatures. Right now it seems that my mash tun is about 4F lower than my BK while heating water. But I know that will change with the grain's mass. Also that's with the lid off. Trying it with the lid on now.

 

[kal]

Debating on if I want to put tags on it or not. I'm leaning towards no, but I'm not sure. I don't think I'll ever forget that the left button is the element and the right is the pump, but I guess it's possible. I think it'll make it look cluttered. Also debating on if I'd want to put a Power On-Off tag if I decide to go the tag route. The key is pretty self explanatory.

I think tags on the larger (Kal) panels are awesome, but leaning towards a no on mine.

I would use labels. You might remember what the buttons do but it certainly isn't obvious to anyone else.

When I look at this:

The 3 bottom butons and the toggle switch at top right are complete mysteries.

Total cost to add labels will be about $10. Maybe $15. I'm scratching my head why anyone would not want to use labels on a panel like this. Especially with those 3 bottom buttons. There's absolutely nothing obvious about what they're for. The colours tell you nothing.

You remember today since you're building it, but think ahead ... 2-3 years down the road, possibly after taking a few months off brewing you'd be looking at that having no idea what they do. That's never a good idea.

Unlabelled buttons/switches on any panel is a bad idea. It has nothing to do with panel size.

Kal

 

[iijakii]

Yeah I get your point. I think I'll label the bottom three.

 

[iijakii]

Ok, well I think my problem might have been just from checking temps while it was heating. Because it appears to me that when the element is pulsing on just for a bit, stratification doesn't occur, but when it's on constantly for a big temperature raise, then I get it.

That sounds logically sound and makes sense to me. So what I'll probably have to do is just set mash temp and recirculate while it equalizes for a good five-ten minutes or something. For mashout I'm sure I can easily figure out something for a variable offset when the time comes.

 

[gromitdj]

Yeah, boil never got above 210. Probably just need to set the Pb value to +2. Will need to get another thermometer to check though.

I Noticed that you are in Texas. At what elevation? Don't forget that water will boil at a lower temperature at higher elevations. According to these tables at 1000 ft above sea level, water will boil @ approx. 210f.

 

[iijakii]

Hmm, that's a good point. According to Wikipedia about 650 ft. So 211 or so.

 

[iijakii]

Running test two right now. Heating up water to 130 in the BK. When the RTD is reading 130 it seems to be about 133 really, because of the temp differences above and below the element.

Once it hits 130 I am going to start the pump and recirculate through the MT and back into BK while raising to 160. The flow should get the temperatures stable. Then see if I can recirculate quickly enough to maintain temps while maintaining a good mash volume.

Got the sightglass calibrated today, by the way. Element is covered at about three gallons. Not bad! Should be able to do a 5.50 gallon batch while recirculating the entire mash and able to keep the element covered.

 

[iijakii]

Ok. With the PID set at 160, my MT was 4 degrees lower. Dropping the PID to 157 and gonna let it run for 10 or something, see if my MT drops to 153. Hopefully it's as simple as that.

Cons to not using a cooler or HERMS, I guess.


Edit: Also, with 6.25 gallons in the MT and about 4 in the BK, I'm having no stratification in the BK. Only in large, unmoving volumes I guess.

 

[iijakii]

PID held the BK at 154 solid, MT stayed at 152.6. I'm expecting with the grain's thermal mass I'll be maintaining 153 no problem. So just set the PID 1F higher than my intended mash.

Trick is to recirculate for 10 minutes or something to let the two kettles achieve equilibrium.

One thing I'm curious about is if I'll really need to set a higher strike temp. I'm assuming the recirculation will bring temps back up very quickly. Seems like if I do a higher strike temp it'd be easy to overshoot. Maybe I'll just do a strike temp and then set the PID to intended mash a minute or so before dough in. Guess I'll learn this Sunday hopefully.

 

[iijakii]

Here's the brew I'm planning on breaking her in with. A Pecan Porter. I'm wanting it chewy, but not sweet so that's why I am using the malto and will probably mash at 150 or 151. I've also never used chocolate wheat before, but I'm a big fan of adding a pound of wheat malt to my stouts for body, so I figure I might as well go chocolate for this. I'm unsure if that much chocolate malt is needed. I've never used more than 6% or so. I know on one RIS I made though I did a version with 3% and the next time I doubled it and liked the change. Was originally just gonna go Fuggles but I decided a little pine with the pecans will be kickass.

Amt Name Type # %/IBU
11 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 75.2 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2 10.3 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.8 %
2.1 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 5 0.9 %
1 lbs Chocolate Wheat Malt (400.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.8 %
8.00 oz Malto-Dextrine (Boil 5.0 mins) Other 8 -
1.00 lb Pecans (Mash 60.0 mins) Flavor 6 -

1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 34.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 9 0.0 IBUs

1.0 pkg Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 10 -



Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.27 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.065 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Estimated Color: 53.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 34.7 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

 

[iijakii]

Wish I hadn't slacked on getting my water report sent in (and buying a pH meter). This one won't have any water adjustments. Good thing is I haven't had a problem with my darker brews, although I'm sure my pH is a little off due to all the roasted grains.

 

[iijakii]

8.8 gallons of water
71F at 12:46
97F at 12:53
111F at 12:55
120F at 12:58


Heating up pretty freakin' fast. My apartment smells AWESOME because of the 1lb of Pecans roasted @325F for 15 minutes. Can't wait to mash.

 

[iijakii]

Still having to learn the temperature variance a bit but so far this is BADASS.

When I was running just water the MT seemed to be about 3 degrees lower than the BK, depending on recirc. flow speed. But when mashing it seems to be spot on so far. Had to quickly turn the PID down and stir out a few degrees, lol.

 

[iijakii]

Just had a very interesting problem. Flow slowed down to a trickle. Thought I had the grainbed compact and a stuck mash... but it was because my pump wasn't flat/even. I had a hard time mounting it so it was a little loose. Well, that led to airpockets. Put a weight down on one corner and back in bidness.

 

[iijakii]

 

[l3asturd]

8.8 gallons of water
71F at 12:46
97F at 12:53
111F at 12:55
120F at 12:58


Heating up pretty freakin' fast. My apartment smells AWESOME because of the 1lb of Pecans roasted @325F for 15 minutes. Can't wait to mash.

What was your original water temp out of curiosity?

 

[iijakii]

71F was the starting point.

 

[iijakii]

Strong boil on 8 gallons at 9%.

Edit: definitely had to double it to almost twenty. It slowly started sputtering back to a soft boil.

 

[iijakii]

Ok, everything is all done.

1. I got bad efficiency. About 62%. I was aiming for 5.5gal into the fermenter at 1.065 and got a tad over 5.0 gallons at 1.060. A lot of that was because I probably left a good half gallon in the boil kettle. I need to adjust my diptube. I tried tipping but meh. I should have just dumped everything in. I also need to plan out my hose and pump/chiller system a bit better cause I lost a lot in the lines. Didn't disconnect in the right order to let stuff flow back.

2. I might do a gallon cold-water sparge next time to rinse the grains a bit.

3. I'm hoping the pecan flavor mellows quite a bit once it's fermented... otherwise this brew might blow. Lol. That'd be a bummer.

Overall I am very happy with the system. It was great and I'm sure once I dial everything in a bit it'll go a lot better.