Electric brewery build

[nostalgia]

Finally found a 50A appliance cord at my local Home Depot. I was going to use the Romex-style stuff for initial testing but it's so damn stiff. The appliance cord was a lot easier and neater to wire, too, which makes me happy.

Broke out the continuity tester for some final double-checking. Good thing I did - I had the PIDs wired to the wrong SSRs. Then it was time to plug it in. The butterflies start...

Flip the big switch on the control panel and...hmmmmmmmmmm the cooling fan is running! And moving a *ton* of air.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Interestingly, the RTDs are 4 degrees off from one another. I'll have to figure out how to fix that. I should have switched them to see if it's the RTD or the wiring inside.

I checked all of the switches and all 4 of the 120v outlets. Everything is wired correctly and works as intended.

So yeah. Exciting! Celebratory Scotch time! Laphroaig, here I come.

-Joe

 

[Layne]

Woooo hoooo. lookin goooood

 

[klyph]

Love your control panel. Kicks the **** out of my ammo can.

 

[ClaudiusB]

I checked all of the switches and all 4 of the 120v outlets. Everything is wired correctly and works as intended.

So yeah. Exciting! Celebratory Scotch time! Laphroaig, here I come.

-Joe

Congratulation, well done

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[Tiber_Brew]

Congrats, Joe, that looks awesome. That's a big step!

What's next?

TibergottalovethesinglemaltBrew

 

[nostalgia]

Next we wire up the heatstick and hlt and do some boiling tests so I can get used to the PIDs. Then I'll work on getting the RTDs calibrated properly.

-Joe

 

[ThickHead]

Great stuff Joe! Fantastic work!

 

[caskconditioned]

Very well done! And great pick on the celebratory Scotch.

I may have missed it in a previous post but do you have an open air port to help with the exit air from the fan?

 

[nostalgia]

Thanks all! I didn't take a picture of it, but I drilled a bunch of holes in the back panel to allow exit air.

-Joe

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

The offset is easy to set on those PIDS. Just take a look in the manual for the temperature reading offset. Just adjust it so the reading is correct and you are good to go. Mine was off by something like 11ºF.

 

[nostalgia]

Yep fixed it up in a jiffy! Now I just need to wire up some elements!

-Joe

 

[Tiber_Brew]

How are you securing your elements to your kettles?

I'm just about done with my wiring; just two more wires to go (the grounded shielding on the RTD wires inside the enclosure) then I'm starting on my kettles as well.

TB

 

[Ohio-Ed]

Finally found a 50A appliance cord at my local Home Depot. I was going to use the Romex-style stuff for initial testing but it's so damn stiff. The appliance cord was a lot easier and neater to wire, too, which makes me happy.

Broke out the continuity tester for some final double-checking. Good thing I did - I had the PIDs wired to the wrong SSRs. Then it was time to plug it in. The butterflies start...

Flip the big switch on the control panel and...hmmmmmmmmmm the cooling fan is running! And moving a *ton* of air.


Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Interestingly, the RTDs are 4 degrees off from one another. I'll have to figure out how to fix that. I should have switched them to see if it's the RTD or the wiring inside.

I checked all of the switches and all 4 of the 120v outlets. Everything is wired correctly and works as intended.

So yeah. Exciting! Celebratory Scotch time! Laphroaig, here I come.

-Joe

Congrats!!!

Good lookin build you got going.

 

[nostalgia]

Good news - it works! And I learned something about the PID. Pictures first. You may remember my Heatstick of Doom construction thread. I finished that up tonight.

Attached an outdoor junction box to the top and wired it up.

Then I wired in the element.

And the completed heatstick.

Here's a closeup of the top of it hanging out of the kettle. That copper framework there both supports the box and provides a grounding lug so the whole thing has a safety ground back to the main.

Now what did I learn? Well, the PID has a setting for cycle time, t. From the factory, t = 2. This means a 2-second cycle time, such that if you set the manual mode to 20%, the element will be on for 0.2 seconds and off for 1.8.

Now the manual says for PID use, go with t = 2. Other folks on this forum have said to go with t = 0 to get a 0.5 second cycle time. So I tried it.

With t = 0, if I set the PID in manual mode to anything less than 50%, it was just off constantly. If I set it to 50% or more, it was on constantly. Once I set t = 2, the element cycled appropriately.

Then I was playing with setting t = 1 and back to 2 when my GFCI breaker tripped. I hope it was just an artifact of me messing with the settings while the element was running and not a leak in my heatstick :/ I'll know tomorrow.

Moral of the story: listen to the manual

Video is processing now.

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

Here ya go (available in HD if you click thru):



-Joe

 

[Bobby_M]

I see the logic in putting the probe in the recirc plumbing but do you think it would be useful to monitor heating progress on the PID display also? If so, I guess it's only 100% accurate if you recirculate during heating. Do you feel its indirect location is close enough for that purpose?

OT: It would be really nice if a system like this could tell you that the probe has been reading 212 for the last 14 minutes or whatever in case you got distracted and want to know where you stand in your planned timeline.

 

[nostalgia]

It's close enough that I can use the readout to know when I'm close to boiling. I was going to put it in the side of the kettle, but I figured I'd start this way as I can always drill holes later.

I had also considered adding a piezo buzzer, as the PIDs allow you to set an alarm value. So I could set it at say, 190 and go do other setup/cleaning and wait for the buzzer to go off. Or it could let me know when my HLT is up to temp.

I want to insulate the tuns first. Although 40 minutes is pretty good. According to my calculations, 100% efficiency would be around 30 minutes.

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

Bad news/good news. Bad news: the heatstick was full of water. Good news: the GFCI works

I had previously leak-tested the heatstick, and it was fine. Not sure how it happened, but it looks like the gasket oozed out of place at some point. Guess I'll have to look for something a little stiffer.

-Joe

 

[Ohio-Ed]

...

OT: It would be really nice if a system like this could tell you that the probe has been reading 212 for the last 14 minutes or whatever in case you got distracted and want to know where you stand in your planned timeline.

Part of the reason I ended up going with a BCS... data logging.
It collects the data and you can see a graph anytime:

[/QUOTE]

 

[klyph]

How will you know when to stop cooling if the probe is on the output of the chiller?

 

[nostalgia]

It's not, it's on the input of the whirlpool port. So the wort will be recirculating right past it.

-Joe

 

[klyph]

I see, so you will be adding some kind of tangential port?

 

[nostalgia]

Yes, there will be a 90 degree elbow and a hose barb on the inside to shoot the wort around the side of the pot.

-Joe

 

[klyph]

I think we're still talking about that same port. If the wort is flowing from your chiller into that port with the probe on it, you're measuring the output of the chiller, not the temp of the wort in the kettle. You need a probe either in the vessel, or on the output port of the kettle to the chiller, to know when to stop chilling. Is that port with the probe the output to the chiller or the kettle input for whirlpooling after the the chiller? Because you keep calling it a whirlpool port. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been completely confused and not been able to see what’s going on. Help me understand this

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

Hmmm.... I was mistaken. I would recommend measuring temps wherever the liquid is leaving the vessel, not where it is returning to the vessel. I had a momentary brain fade.

It may work where you have it, but it seems less accurate than possible.

 

[klyph]

Man nevermind, you said back on post 71 that you were using an immersion chiller. We already talked about this...

Carry on, nothing to see here.

 

[nostalgia]

It may work where you have it, but it seems less accurate than possible.

I'll have to try it out and see. For this application I don't care if it's off 2-3 degrees. As long as it's near where I want to pitch, I'm happy.

Now in the HLT, the RTD is directly in the side of the vessel and there will be a stirrer motor for more accurate measurements.

-Joe

 

[Bigscience]

Bad news/good news. Bad news: the heatstick was full of water. Good news: the GFCI works

I had previously leak-tested the heatstick, and it was fine. Not sure how it happened, but it looks like the gasket oozed out of place at some point. Guess I'll have to look for something a little stiffer.

-Joe

Silicone O-ring $0.65 + $5 shipping.

http://www.bargainfittings.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=106

 

[nostalgia]

Rather than mail order, went to my local big box and found a harder rubber replacement gasket. It's sitting in the water testing now. If it's dry after an overnight test, I'll do another hot test.

In the meantime, finished up the HLT. First, here's the dimple tool for a 1/4" NPT coupler. It's a 1/2" brass long nipple ground to a taper on my belt grinder. The same 5/8" bolt fits through it perfectly.

I use a pair of calipers and check frequently so I know when to stop pulling it through. When it's close but not quite there, I switch to this setup to pull the actual coupler through.

5/16" bolt goes through the coupler, which is threaded into a random 1/4" nipple I had lying around. That keeps it centered. I use a 1" deep socket on the outside, since it's almost a perfect fit around the dimple.

Once it's pulled through, we end up with this.

Apply solder as before and...

Last thing to do is wire up the element. I used a 3/4" outdoor box with the bottom cut out. I used clear adhesive silicone to stick it in place. Seems very solid, but I'm going to keep an eye on it to see if I need to do something more drastic.

And the final product, complete with a sightglass kit from Bobby_M.

-Joe

 

[klyph]

I envision that siliconed box separating after a few heat cycles/banging it around. Be careful not to tug on the cord at all. I had to redo my cords from silicone to JB weld. Silicone makes a good seal, but it's not a very good mechanical fastener.

I really like what kal did:

http://theelectricbrewery.com/heating-elements