Hunter's Basement E-Brewery Build

[Trippel-A]

Subscribing!

 

[hunter306]

Spent some time re-engineering the schematics this afternoon because I wasn't happy with the method by which the Emergency Stop was drawn into the existing diagram. The diagram had the 120v leg running entirely through a 3amp switch on the door, which would be overloaded with both pumps running simultaneously under load, so I put the E-stop inline with the Keyed On-Off switch to allow me to leverage the 63amp main contactor.

Once I pulled this together, I began to re-run the wiring at the main input as need for a power shunt for the E-Stop LED, and the Contactors 120v switched line both needed to come off the main input leg. The main cabinet is coming together slowly, but looks like a mess in these pictures because I haven't tightened down the wire ties yet (still quite a few lines to run).

On to just a couple of pictures from today. Revised power and E-Stop Circuit:

The main cabinet with 120v (A), 120v (B) and 120v (C). To isolate the high current (heating elements on the 25amp breaker) I split the buses. The 120v (A) bus will be for the PIDS, PUMPS, LEDS, And Buzzer. The 120v (B,C) will be combined for the elements.

 

[Huaco]

This build has inspired me to go electric... Eventually.

Great thread. Keep it up!

you wont be sorry...

A some successful batches have gone through my E-Brewery...

 

[Codfish]

Living vicariously through you, sir. Nice build!

 

[hunter306]

Well, we went out of town for the weekend, but I was back at it with my remaining few days of vacation. Not happy with the previous effort at wiring the inputs from the 63a contactor, I reworked pretty much everything again this morning before I got started. I'm much more pleased with the arrangement now.

Also, to save anyone else the hassle, I had tinned the ends of my wires before putting them in the screw terminals. As I was reading more on the accepted method of inserting stranded wire into these screw terminals, I found that tinning wires is not acceptable due to the Solder Creep that can occur. This results in the wires slowly loosening due to the tendency for the tin in soldered connections to deform more easily than the copper alone. With that being said, I went back and redid everything while I was cleaning up the breaker wiring.

Redone breaker wiring:

Installed and wired the SSR's with thermal paste:

Contactor wiring for the elements:

Started installing the heating element twist-locks:

After wiring up the V/A meter, I wanted to ensure that things were coming along correctly. I checked my connections to make certain everything was properly terminated (Although, not all hooked up!) and plugged her in. I tested the ground and the chassis with my Fluke before I grabbed ahold of the power-key for the first time

Powered up, Reading the 2-pole voltage:

Emergency stop switch tested:

More wiring slowly being completed, including the 2 pumps:

Door switch wiring so far:

Overall progress from this afternoon:

More to come tomorrow, when I get started on wiring up the XLR connectors and PIDS.

 

[kona_dude]

Great looking build so far. I may have missed it but is this from an eBrewSupply kit?

 

[hunter306]

Yes, many of the parts are from eBrewSupply.com, I bought the 30a PID kit on their Cyber Monday sale with the upgraded heatsink (medium) and din-mounted contactors upgrade.

I bought the 16x16x8 NEMA enclosure from them as well.

This evening, I was busy working on the labels for the panel while I watched some hockey. I ended up using my Brother P-Touch Electronic label maker and some clear tape with white print, available from Amazon for about 12 dollars (Amazon link!) Here is the result!

 

[Setesh]

Very nice work! Subscribed.

 

[RocketBrewer]

Very Cool!

 

[hunter306]

Getting really close to finishing the control panel after this afternoon's work. Got the XLR connectors in this morning and then spent the rest of the afternoon wrapping up the door electronics.

XLR Connectors for the thermal probes:

Thermal probe connections run to the PIDS:

SSR Signal lines connected to the PIDS:

Wiring the 120v Connections to the PIDS. To save home-runs to the terminal block, I shared the 120v hot side from the pump switch.

Pulling the door wires into the looms that run into the main chassis:

Overall progress from today:

I have a few things left to finish up on the Panel, including the signal runs for the Element Contactors, the Labels for the Probe XLR connectors, and the grounds for all of the 120v indicators lights that show element selection and pump activity.

THEN, it's on to the next step, the Kettles! Stay tuned.

 

[1fast636]

Love how clean your panel is really making me think this will be some thing I can do in the future, keep it up man love the progress

 

[Ttownbrewer]

Looks awesome Hunter! I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together!

 

[Docbruw]

Great build! I'm still in the planning/funding stage of a 50amp panel. How much clearance do you have between the HLT PID and the breakers?

 

[hunter306]

@Docbruw, it's about an 1.5" between the back of the pids and the top of the din mounted contactors and breakers.

 

[hunter306]

Quick afternoon update, since I reached a major milestone. The panel is completed and tested (for basic functionality, still don't have the elements or probes built yet). Some finished pictures of the control panel, which took about 45-50 man hours to complete and may be one of the more complex projects I've undertaken in the recent past.

 

[Roadie]

Points for the nice clean look of the wiring.

 

[hunter306]

Spent some time finishing the plumbing and finishing the clean-up/wet area of the ebrewery this afternoon. Also got the new wort chiller in from MoreBeer.com and it looks really nice, getting excited to run a batch (hopefully soon!).

A few pictures of the progress.

Water filter with Cam-Lock disconnect, Wort Chiller cold water connection:

Also installed a stainless wire rack for equipment storage:

Unpacked the Blichmanns to start figuring out the vent hood sizing:

 

[DFHEK]

Rock on man. Looks absolutely fantastic. You deserve a lot of credit for the obvious thought and hard work put in here. The electric brewery looks to be a great setup. I hope you enjoy it! Subscribed!

 

[Chrisl77]

Do you have anything between the kettles and that metal table? If not you might want to put a piece of wood or cork under them as a thermal break to keep heat from transferring from the kettles to the table.

 

[hunter306]

Do you have anything between the kettles and that metal table? If not you might want to put a piece of wood or cork under them as a thermal break to keep heat from transferring from the kettles to the table.

Thanks for the headsup, definitely planning on putting down some insulating medium before I fire them for the first time. I just got the Blichs out of the box this evening to determine what the height of the hood was going to look like

 

[Roadie]

Envious of your ceiling height. Looks like considerable room. Are you doing HERMS?

 

[kchomebrew]

Thanks for the headsup, definitely planning on putting down some insulating medium before I fire them for the first time. I just got the Blichs out of the box this evening to determine what the height of the hood was going to look like

A suggestion for insulation is to go to Home Depot and they have precut round lazy Susan pieces that just happen to be 17.5in in diameter, which are the same as your blichmann kettles. I used it on my build. Check my brewery build link for detail. Your build out looks really good so far. Nice job !

 

[hunter306]

Envious of your ceiling height. Looks like considerable room. Are you doing HERMS?

The ceiling height isn't bad unfinished, so I can't really complain there.

I'll be doing the same HERMS design as the other 3-kettle breweries, with the 50ft stainless coil in the HLT to heat the mash. I ordered my HERMS coil from:

http://stainlessbrewing.3dcartstore...s-request-035-304304L-Coiled-Tubing_p_30.html

I got the 12.5" width with the standard bends to put on compression nipples and unfortunately, it's a bit large for my 15gal Blichs. I would recommend the next step down (even though it's taller) if you're trying to squeeze it in a 15g kettle. That being said, I do believe it will still work ok, I just needed to change to a lower profile compression fitting. The reason I was really trying to fit the larger diameter was so that during 6.5 gallon batch production, the coil would still be mostly submerged.

We'll see if it pays off!

 

[hunter306]

A suggestion for insulation is to go to Home Depot and they have precut round lazy Susan pieces that just happen to be 17.5in in diameter, which are the same as your blichmann kettles. I used it on my build. Check my brewery build link for detail. Your build out looks really good so far. Nice job !

Thanks for the Kudos Kchrome, I checked out your build before I started mine and I was impressed with the transformation your space made. One thing I really liked was your custom vent hood solution, it seemed like it was easy to assemble (Relatively) and it looks like it works perfectly for the space.

I'll probably go looking for some of these lazy-susan pieces and stain them a dark black/brown color to throw under the pots. Great idea

 

[Heffe53]

Excellent build! I'm getting ready to build an E-Herms brewery using Kal's concepts and ebrewsupply.com's parts. I have been looking for an example panel using their kit for a long time now and your build just became my inspiration for the project. One thing I was wondering is what kind of VOLT/AMP meter you were using and how did you wire it up? I didn't see (our maybe I just overlooked it) a shunt in your box and thought about adding one like yours as a quick stop to Amazon revealed the cheaper price tag.
Thanks,
Jeff

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[hunter306]

@Heffe53:

Thank you for the kind words, I noticed there weren't a ton of examples using the Ebrewsupply kit either, so I'm glad you have some inspiration. I ended up ordering the 220v/100a meter from Amazon for 18.95. If you shop around on ebay, you can find them for about 10, but then you have to wait for delivery from China-- and if it's defective returning can be a hassle.

Here's the Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EC849VM/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Regarding wiring it up, it actually uses a small circular inductive current probe which I have wrapped around the red leg of the 220v input from the plug... If you look really closely, you can see the black probe and two wire ties holding it in place on the wire on the right side.

The power for the unit, and the method by which it reads the voltage is the same, a small wire that runs to each side of the 220v input. I used some fine wire to run this to the terminal blocks for the two buses.

The biggest downside to the meter was that it uses really fine wiring and the leads included in the package are only about 3" long. To remedy that, I simply attached some similar gauge wire and heatshrinked the soldered extension. Works great, I haven't tested it with the elements on, but I'm seeing amp draw which appears quite accurate with my pumps.

 

[Docbruw]

Dang wish I would have waited a day or two longer to see this post. I ordered the same ammeter off ebay from china for only $2 less. Not that I'm pressed for time but that's free 2 day shipping as a prime member from Amazon. Well worth the extra $2 in my book.

 

[allaboutduncan]

Great pics and info. Getting ready to do something very similar myself.

 

[Heffe53]

Thanks for the info Hunter. I made the plunge and ordered everything today for the panel (to include the meter you linked), HERMS coil, false bottom, all valves and fittings, temperature probes, all three PIDs, and all tubing and Camlocks. The only thing I need to get now is an enclosure (EBrewSupply was out of stock). I am going to check out some of the local electrical wholesalers tomorrow then as soon as it all gets here my epic build will be underway.

 

[hunter306]

A quick update on the state of things!

I'm working on getting quotes from a few places on Vent Hoods right now. The objective is to get something about 60" long (the length of the table with the kettles), 20" deep, and about 10-12" tall. I referred to the build that Kal used and it seems like it should fit the space. I've talked to a few fab shops, but haven't found the right numbers yet on this.

In the interim, I built one of the three temperature probes yesterday night. I actually bought the probe kit from The Electric Breweries store, with the expandable braided sleeving, the probe quick disconnects, and all the necessary parts to assemble. My first probe went together ok, but I did find that the braided sleeving is a REAL BEAR to work with at such lengths. I made some slight changes to the design that Kal used on his, but I'm happy enough with the first one. Two left to build!

On the Kettle front, I have been really hesitant to drill my kettles, although I know it needs to be done. I expect that once the probes are wrapped up, I'll get to work on the kettles and element construction.

Last, I need to get my 120v GFCI Breaker in the main panel. This breaker is for all of the 120v standard outlets in the brewery, used by the kegerator, the fermenter heater, the lights, etc.

Stay tuned, more REAL updates forthcoming with the weekend.