Home Super Brewery Build: Hybrid Electric/Gas 3BBL Build

[Big_Cat]

Got it, I'm an ale guy so the only time (I know-famous last words) the fermenters will be in there is for crashing and carbonation. That process will actually create a vacuum and require me to pump in additional co2 to the tank so I'm not too worried about it.

As a fellow brewer i would like to suggest that you add a co2 detector inside your cold room about 16 inches from the ground since co2 is heavier than air..as for your statement about the only time they (beer) will be in there is at crash or carbonation i have a quick question ...at what temperatures are you fermentating outside the chiller or are you running a fermenter with a glycol sleeve?

 

[marcb]

As a fellow brewer i would like to suggest that you add a co2 detector inside your cold room about 16 inches from the ground since co2 is heavier than air..as for your statement about the only time they (beer) will be in there is at crash or carbonation i have a quick question ...at what temperatures are you fermentating outside the chiller or are you running a fermenter with a glycol sleeve?

Good tip on the Co2 detecter, will do. Most of my fermentation is held tight at 68 for IPA's and pale ales. My Belgians ferment starting at 65 and ramp slowly up to ~72. I want to do a Saison like Chamuco brews that ferments at 90! No glycol on the unitanks, I plan on keeping the extremely well insulated room outside the cold room (garage) at about 65. I also have built with Fastev heated/cooled Peltier based fermenters on a smaller scale but may take that approach on these as well.... Still quite a few details to work out.

 

[Dukeman9988]

Hi Jay!

Thank You! As beer is a powerful motivator I've had lots of help with this project.... Keeping my wife from killing me, now that is a different story entirely ; )

The fermenters are from Glaciertanks in Portland. They are Chinese but unlike others, the welds are quality and the fact that they hold pressure make them ideal unitanks for both ferms and brites at around $1500 per tank (for the 200l size)

Since they are only 200L and your brew system is 3BBL do you plan on splitting batches into 2 fermenters or only brewing enough for 200L?

 

[marcb]

Since they are only 200L and your brew system is 3BBL do you plan on splitting batches into 2 fermenters or only brewing enough for 200L?

Not exactly, check out early in the thread. This is really a twin 1.5BBL system. I wanted to be able to brew two different beers at the same time so I designed a 4 vessel system and all the vessels are 200l.

 

[Big_Cat]

Not exactly, check out early in the thread. This is really a twin 1.5BBL system. I wanted to be able to brew two different beers at the same time so I designed a 4 vessel system and all the vessels are 200l.

Question ..so your 4 kettles are 2 kettles and 2 mash tun with a water heater providing the hot water instead of a HLT..am i right?

 

[marcb]

Question ..so your 4 kettles are 2 kettles and 2 mash tun with a water heater providing the hot water instead of a HLT..am i right?

correct!

 

[Big_Cat]

correct!

Nice...I like the idea of being able to make two different brews at once..

 

[tre9er]

Needz moar updatez

 

[marcb]

Ready for floor work!

 

[Nashbrewer]

Very roughly because I can't find the "exact" info I know is on the internet somewhere approximaetly every gram of sugar releases 0.25 litrs of CO2, so for 3 bbl (350 litres) of 12° you would have roughly 120g of sugar per litre or 42 kg of sugar = 10500 litres of CO2 = dangerous if contained in a small space which is not ventilated properly.

I was curious and found the ratio online. Quote from Yahoo answer page "So 1 mole of sugar yields 2 moles of ethanol and 2 moles of CO2. The MW of sugar is 180 (6 x 12 + 12 x 1 + 6 x 16) and the MW of CO2 is 44 (1 x 12 + 2 x 16). Therefore, 180 grams of sugar yields 2 x 44 or 88 gms of CO2. This means that 1 gram of sugar produces 0.244 grams of CO2." From checking Sucrose and Maltose have the same number of atoms and should render CO2 at the same rate.

At 42kg of sugar that produces 1024.8 grams of CO2, or ~522.03 liters of CO2 at STP. Or 1.151lbs of CO2 for every 3bbls. Neat!

 

[marcb]

I was curious and found the ratio online. Quote from Yahoo answer page "So 1 mole of sugar yields 2 moles of ethanol and 2 moles of CO2. The MW of sugar is 180 (6 x 12 + 12 x 1 + 6 x 16) and the MW of CO2 is 44 (1 x 12 + 2 x 16). Therefore, 180 grams of sugar yields 2 x 44 or 88 gms of CO2. This means that 1 gram of sugar produces 0.244 grams of CO2." From checking Sucrose and Maltose have the same number of atoms and should render CO2 at the same rate.

At 42kg of sugar that produces 1024.8 grams of CO2, or ~522.03 liters of CO2 at STP. Or 1.151lbs of CO2 for every 3bbls. Neat!

Ok, now we need to figure out the rate of CO2 emission during fermentation and how best to monitor it! I imagine it peaks early on and tapers down for the remainder of primary fermentation. I need a CO2 meter

 

[Big_Cat]

Ok, now we need to figure out the rate of CO2 emission during fermentation and how best to monitor it! I imagine it peaks early on and tapers down for the remainder of primary fermentation. I need a CO2 meter

Marc is pretty simple ...add a co2 meter at 12-16 inches from the floor and have an exhaust fan ready ..if the alarm goes off turn on the exhaust fan...remember that co2 is heavy so your fan must be low

 

[marcb]

Marc is pretty simple ...add a co2 meter at 12-16 inches from the floor and have an exhaust fan ready ..if the alarm goes off turn on the exhaust fan...remember that co2 is heavy so your fan must be low

I was thinking of graphing it on my BCS as an input per fermenter. That would alert me when fermentation is complete and I can cap the fermenter to naturally carbonate....

 

[Carlscan26]

Marc is pretty simple ...add a co2 meter at 12-16 inches from the floor and have an exhaust fan ready ..if the alarm goes off turn on the exhaust fan...remember that co2 is heavy so your fan must be low

Or just open the roll up door for a moment.

 

[marcb]

Marc is pretty simple ...add a co2 meter at 12-16 inches from the floor and have an exhaust fan ready ..if the alarm goes off turn on the exhaust fan...remember that co2 is heavy so your fan must be low

And for the record, Marc IS pretty simple ; )

 

[marcb]

Floor is ground down, patched, first coat of primer applied.

 

[fastev]

Here's the boil kettles. 200 liter, dished bottom. Tri Clover sanitary ferrules welded from the inside for outlet, thermowell, two elements, and a tangential inlet for whirl pooling. Lids have an additional ferrule for a yet-to-be-designed/built auto sparge assembly and a spray ball for cleaning.
Marc, the last pic is the "mountain of stainless" as you called it I have to move so Christy can park in the garage again. I HAVE to get Humberto over to build my storage area...

 

[mattd2]

Holy crap, that's some fancy math! Sounds like I should be making beer just to produce CO2.... Forget about all this brewery nonsense, I'm running a CO2 factory!

Well this is certainly food for thought, I'll have to think about this one a bit if it becomes an issue. I will have an 8" vent in the main room for the condensate hood, I could ferment directly under that as everything in the brewery is on wheels and movable.

Saying that I think that the major breweries do capture and reuse the CO2 created during fermentation... I think

I was curious and found the ratio online. Quote from Yahoo answer page "So 1 mole of sugar yields 2 moles of ethanol and 2 moles of CO2. The MW of sugar is 180 (6 x 12 + 12 x 1 + 6 x 16) and the MW of CO2 is 44 (1 x 12 + 2 x 16). Therefore, 180 grams of sugar yields 2 x 44 or 88 gms of CO2. This means that 1 gram of sugar produces 0.244 grams of CO2." From checking Sucrose and Maltose have the same number of atoms and should render CO2 at the same rate.

At 42kg of sugar that produces 1024.8 grams of CO2, or ~522.03 liters of CO2 at STP. Or 1.151lbs of CO2 for every 3bbls. Neat!

Now this is the actual fancy maths
But I did notice some things:

180 grams of sugar yields 2 x 44 or 88 gms of CO2. This means that 1 gram of sugar produces 0.244 grams of CO2.

Should that not be 88/180 = 4.89 grams of CO2?

At 42kg of sugar that produces 1024.8 grams of CO2

Using your number that should have been 10248 grams of CO2 (or 20496 grams using 0.489)
and therefore using the same conversion to volume at STP (522.03 litres / 1024.8 grams) it gives ~10500 litres

Good to see that worked out

Sorry for the

 

[hio3791]

Nerd Trap!

 

[Big_Cat]

Nerd Trap!

Lol

 

[marcb]

Here's the boil kettles. 200 liter, dished bottom. Tri Clover sanitary ferrules welded from the inside for outlet, thermowell, two elements, and a tangential inlet for whirl pooling. Lids have an additional ferrule for a yet-to-be-designed/built auto sparge assembly and a spray ball for cleaning.
Marc, the last pic is the "mountain of stainless" as you called it I have to move so Christy can park in the garage again. I HAVE to get Humberto over to build my storage area...

Evan,

Thanks for posting the pics and putting the watchdog on guarding the kettles!

 

[WPStrassburg]

What was the basis for the position of your whirlpool port? I was looking for recommendations on placement and didn't find anything too specific. I was thinking about a quarter of the way up the tank and an inch in from the edge.

Here's the boil kettles. 200 liter, dished bottom. Tri Clover sanitary ferrules welded from the inside for outlet, thermowell, two elements, and a tangential inlet for whirl pooling. Lids have an additional ferrule for a yet-to-be-designed/built auto sparge assembly and a spray ball for cleaning.
Marc, the last pic is the "mountain of stainless" as you called it I have to move so Christy can park in the garage again. I HAVE to get Humberto over to build my storage area...

 

[marcb]

What was the basis for the position of your whirlpool port? I was looking for recommendations on placement and didn't find anything too specific. I was thinking about a quarter of the way up the tank and an inch in from the edge.

We spent a bit of time searching around but ended up going with similar setup as Stout. I have brewed on their systems and know others that have them with no issues with their whirlpool capabilities.

 

[Nashbrewer]

Should that not be 88/180 = 4.89 grams of CO2?

Using your number that should have been 10248 grams of CO2 (or 20496 grams using 0.489)
and therefore using the same conversion to volume at STP (522.03 litres / 1024.8 grams) it gives ~10500 litres
:

Ah that website's math was incorrect. They did 44/180 instead of 88/180 which is correct, but doesn't come up with 4.89 grams, but .489 grams. Since you can't have more grams of CO2 than the sugar you started with. I get 2053.8 Grams of CO2 with the .489 grams from 4200G of sugar. (4200*.489=2053.8 CO2) and from that I get 1047.85 Liters. (2053.8/1.96Grams per liter~(obtain by (44.0g/mole) x (1 atm) x (1 L) / [(0.0821 Latm/moleK) x (273 K)]) ) which is 4.5lbs of CO2, much better than the other amount.

 

[marcb]

Color coat went on today, clear coat tomorrow. Be back to working on the actual brewery before you know it!

 

[marcb]

Clear coat on, get through Mother's Day and we'll be ready to rock and roll on Monday! Hopefully the custom hood will be ready next week so we can get that in and ducted.

 

[marcb]

Clear coat on, get through Mother's Day and we'll be ready to rock and roll on Monday! Hopefully the custom hood will be ready next week so we can get that in and ducted.

Forgot the pic

 

[Big_Cat]

Forgot the pic

Very nice..did you also paint 3-4 inches up the wall from the floor up? Here in South Florida we.are forced to silicone the edges from the floor to walls and when painting we have to paint up the wall 4 inches...this avoids any spills from getting under the walls or on the walls

 

[marcb]

Very nice..did you also paint 3-4 inches up the wall from the floor up? Here in South Florida we.are forced to silicone the edges from the floor to walls and when painting we have to paint up the wall 4 inches...this avoids any spills from getting under the walls or on the walls

Yep, we went all the way up the 8" concrete. Also have FRP on the walls behind the kettles and anywhere that can get wet and that is sealed to the epoxy.

 

[Big_Cat]

Yep, we went all the way up the 8" concrete. Also have FRP on the walls behind the kettles and anywhere that can get wet and that is sealed to the epoxy.

How many 5 Gallon buckets did you use?