Boil Control - Electric Brewing BIAB Kit

[quaboagbrewing]

Finally pulled the trigger and ordered the 30a BIAB kit from Electric brewing Supply. I didn't get the enclosure as I had already purchased a BIAB enclosure separately from Auberins. My question is for anyone with a PID based controller for eBIAB. How are you controlling the intensity of the boil? I know that some controllers like the one from High Gravity have a dial control to adjust the power but not sure if that's something I can easily incorporate into my system so looking for suggestions. Can you simply lower the temperature for the pid controller by a couple degrees to achieve same result? Also if anyone else has purchased this same 30a BIAB kit and has any advice on the build would be greatly appreciated. I think my plan right now is to start assembling everything in November and hopefully be ready to start some test runs when I'm off work over Thanksgiving weekend. Thanks.

 

[dilligafbrewing]

Unless your element wattage is sized perfectly for your kettle you will have to modulate the power somehow to control your boil. There are piles of threads on pwm control, and it's fairly simple to construct a pwm controller. I opted for the ezboil controller that lets me dial down power.

Wort only boils at one temperature, lowering the set point will just stop the boil.

 

[quaboagbrewing]

I had been looking at 2 potential options from auberins. The first would be to replace the Love PID controller that shipped with the kit for the EZboil controller from auber. I am assuming the wiring for the EZBoil would be similar to the PID. I know there is a bit of a trade-off on temperature precision with the EZBoil. The other option I was looking at would be to add the Digital SSR Power Regulator from auberins to my console. I have an extra slot in my enclosure as I am not planning on using a timer so could easily slot in the Digital SSR Power Regulator. Just not sure how that works with regards to the wiring. Would that need a separate SSR or could the PID and Power Regulator use the same 40a SSR. I like this later option best because I can keep the precision of the PID for the mash and then just switch to the power regulator for the boil.

 

[nobadays]

I think a lot of eBIAB folks use the same PID for mash temp control as well as boil control. I built my panel using the Auberins Model: SYL-2352 PID. (my thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=582004)

What is often done is to use the PID in manual mode when it is time to boil. I set mine to manual @100% power then when it hits a boil I reduce the percentage of power to 60-65%. My understanding is this is actually the percentage of the time the element is on not necessarily reducing the "voltage/heat" output of the element. The element when on will always be 100%. So the boil will be quite heavy rolling when the element is on then settle down for a few seconds then back to a rolling boil again. It actually works quite well. Here is a 5 minute video of my system in action:

There are many ways to go electric but hands down I think eBIAB is far superior to my old gas fired system... and PID controlled recirculating mash is sweet!

Happy Brewing!
Don
Primary #1: nothing (there will be by Wednesday!)
Primary #2: nothing
Kegged: Joe IPA Clone, Falconer's Flight APA
Bottled: Rye IPA, APA, Oatmeal Stout, Black Butte Porter Clone

 

[quaboagbrewing]

What is often done is to use the PID in manual mode when it is time to boil.

Forgot that you could simply set the PID to manual control and adjust the percentage. I'll probably go with that option as doesn't require any changes to my current panel build out and see how that goes.

 

[joebob296]

I had been looking at 2 potential options from auberins. The first would be to replace the Love PID controller that shipped with the kit for the EZboil controller from auber. I am assuming the wiring for the EZBoil would be similar to the PID. I know there is a bit of a trade-off on temperature precision with the EZBoil. The other option I was looking at would be to add the Digital SSR Power Regulator from auberins to my console. I have an extra slot in my enclosure as I am not planning on using a timer so could easily slot in the Digital SSR Power Regulator. Just not sure how that works with regards to the wiring. Would that need a separate SSR or could the PID and Power Regulator use the same 40a SSR. I like this later option best because I can keep the precision of the PID for the mash and then just switch to the power regulator for the boil.

I ordered the 30 amp ebiab complete panel from ebrewsupply. However, I ordered it without the love pid. He gave me a discount and I ordered the dspr 300 and wired it in myself. Best panel I've ever used. No temperature issues with my dspr.

 

[augiedoggy]

Unless your element wattage is sized perfectly for your kettle you will have to modulate the power somehow to control your boil. There are piles of threads on pwm control, and it's fairly simple to construct a pwm controller. I opted for the ezboil controller that lets me dial down power.

Wort only boils at one temperature, lowering the set point will just stop the boil.

this is only true if the pid doesnt have manual pwm control which almost all of the auber units have and the mypin TD4 has as well as one of the inkbird models... The extra knob is only there to save a person the hassle of having to learn how to use the pid menus more effectively and it saves like 5-10 seconds off having to switch to manual mode and setting the pwm rate. the new EZBOIL unit from auber is the best of both worlds knob and all! I replaced one of my pids with this myself recently since it has a built in timer and alarm indicator plus the ability to control external things like another secondary time and alarm... I have mine set to automatically start the hop additions timer once the boil is reached.