Lets Do This - 20 Gallon Concord 3 Vessel HERMS

[FuzzeWuzze]

Electrician coming tommorrow @ 8am...hope to be able to finish my box while hes here so its ready to test. Plan is to hopefully do my first batch this next weekend.

 

[QuinnR]

Electrician coming tommorrow @ 8am...hope to be able to finish my box while hes here so its ready to test. Plan is to hopefully do my first batch this next weekend.

That's pretty sweet! What do you plan on brewing?

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

That's pretty sweet! What do you plan on brewing?

It works out pretty well actually, the buddy who did all 12 welds for me for free wants me to brew a Ginger beer i do for my wife for his wifes birthday coming up.

It will be an easy starting recipe because its very light on malt, and gets a lot of its fermentables from honey. So ill still have to go through the mashing process but if something goes horribly wrong on brew day i'm only out probably $10 in 2 row for a 10 gallon batch(5 for my wife!).

I'll of course be doing a mock batch with some water sometime this week to play with the StrangeBrew elsinore software, make sure my probes are functioning, pumps are functioning, theres no leaks, that the elements work and ramp up properly etc. As part of that mock setup i'll be cutting my giant 50' roll of ultra clear Silicone i got from BobbyM @ BrewHardware and putting on my camlock ends once i know how long things need to be so i dont end up with hoses that are too long for the task.

I already did some basic leak tests on my herms coil but I think when I do it next time I'll put some dye in the water being pumped through so I can more easily spot leaks into the surrounding herms water.

I think I stole the recipe from here on HBT, it won like 3rd place in some previous HBT competition if you want to find the recipe.

 

[Rivenin]

hah, i've posted in here before but i just read where you were from.

I moved to Sherwood probably 6 months ago now? and I work in Newberg.... hilarious.

Looking good sir!

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

hah, i've posted in here before but i just read where you were from.

I moved to Sherwood probably 6 months ago now? and I work in Newberg.... hilarious.

Looking good sir!

Ha, ill have to have you out some time then when this damn thing actually makes beer!

Anyways, the Electrician came and installed the outlet right where i need it and now i have an inspector coming some day to take a look at it. Need to finish up my panel, but lucky me ive come down with a cold from work...Im hoping it goes away in a day and i can get back to finishing my panel to brew this weekend.

 

[BrunDog]

Don't rush it. Get it where you are comfortable, then RDWHAHB knowing you will learn a lot and need to change plenty along the way as well. Have fun and good luck!

-BD

 

[jcav]

Electrician coming tommorrow @ 8am...hope to be able to finish my box while hes here so its ready to test. Plan is to hopefully do my first batch this next weekend.

Hey FuzzeWuzze, looks like your getting there on your build! That's great! I have a guy coming this Saturday to give me a quote on running the 240v line and installing a breaker in the panel in my garage. I hope he gives me a fair price! Good Luck on your first brew!

John

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Go figure, found out i need some Red ring connectors as well for the 22AWG wire ..Ill have to get those tommorrow to plug my RPI into the SSR input.

Also glad i double checked everything when i took my plate out, i had the SSR wired backwards(120V into the 3-32V input control pin)...im guessing that would have caused magic smoke

 

[Rivenin]

Also glad i double checked everything when i took my plate out, i had the SSR wired backwards(120V into the 3-32V input control pin)...im guessing that would have caused magic smoke

i started rewiring part of my brewing setup when i was still on 2 120v elements, so i had 2 SSRs... i was doing this on new years eve as well, so i started with a beer... bad idea.

i accidentally put both of the 120v power legs onto each side of the SSR where it should have had one 120v load and the other going to the element... Blew the damn thing across the room the next day when i was going to brew.

Although... in my idiotness, i was cleaning up the wires and having them running through a back plate, so i apparently lost track thank god for GFCI! Now i do all my wiring completely sober and THEN congratulate myself with a beer... haha

but then again, that was the ONE time i didn't double check my work and follow wires... and the last time!

 

[BrunDog]

When I wired my panel, I sat with schematic in hand and a highlighter. As I placed wires, I marked the wire with the highlighter. This forced me to work on one wire at a time and track each connection. YMMV.

-BD

 

[AkBrew907]

When I wired my panel, I sat with schematic in hand and a highlighter. As I placed wires, I marked the wire with the highlighter. This forced me to work on one wire at a time and track each connection. YMMV.

-BD

This would be me. I hate electrical and would be double and triple checking every wire I connected.

 

[crane]

When I wired my panel, I sat with schematic in hand and a highlighter. As I placed wires, I marked the wire with the highlighter. This forced me to work on one wire at a time and track each connection. YMMV.

-BD

I did the same exact then, but went a step further. After wiring everything I took another printed copy and ohmed out every connection marking each one off the schematic once I verified it was connected correctly.

 

[SilverZero]

I wired everything to the door one wire at a time, running it from its source (usually one of the terminal blocks) to measure and cut, but then I left everything loose on that end and re-routed every wire to make sure it all went cleanly and layered right while I bundled things. I did a lot of testing with my ohmmeter to figure out which end of one wire went to which end dangling over the side, but it helped me keep track of everything in the end.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Decided to take a bit of a break from the electronics tonight, spent a bit of time in Sketchup putting together a grain mill enclosure because..why not? Its about $13 in lumber from Home Depot, a few 8 foot 2x4's and one 4x8 1/8" hardboard to enclose it all and create the hopper. Overall its about 28" tall, 17" square, the hopper is about 48 degree's from what Sketchup says and the hopper will be about ~1050 cubic inches, by what i can tell from another post on HBT should give me about 25# of grain capacity. Need to source a motor to use on it still, i have good low rpm drill i got from harbor freight i used on my Corona mill i may be able to squeeze in if i make it a tad wider. I set it up to go around one of my bigger 8 gallon brewcraft buckets, but i may see how small i can get it if I make one for a 5 gal homer bucket. I got a Cereal Killer, so for now ill just use their base and crush into a homer bucket until i get around to building this thing(probably after my first brew is on its way). Also note that the front will have a hardboard cover on some cheap hinges i have laying around probably, i just removed it for the image otherwise it looks pretty boring!

Also a buddy came over today and helped a ton, was able to put on the sight glass stickers way faster having one person fill and one person stick them on..did both remaining vessels in about an hour when i spent like 2 just doing one myself. Also was good having a second set of eyes on cutting the silicone tube for the hoses to make sure i wasnt missing anything.

Tomorrow i put the last few wires together for my panel and plug it in very carefully. Im thinking ill turn the breaker off, plug it in and turn the enclosures main power switch to on, then turn the breaker on from across the garage in case something pops, not expecting it by any means but why not?

Also tomorrow i need to build my 20' CFC, already got the copper from HD but didnt like the idea of buying a big 50' hose and chopping it so im going to look if ACE has 25" hose tomorrow.

 

[crane]

Definitely make sure you check that the panel itself as well as the door are connected to ground with a multimeter before powering it on.

I usually go with a similar approach by powering on an untested device farther upstream like what you plan to do by turning the panel power on then the breaker across the room. Last month I had a tantalum capacitor blow up on a new circuit board I designed. I was glad I plugged the power supply to the board before plugging the power supply to the wall. If I had done it the other way around my hand would have been right next to the cap when it blew.

 

[RocketBrewer]

Looking awesome! Those sight gauges are looking a little precarious there though. Are you planning to secure the tops with anything? I used some 1/4-20 stainless eye bolts to secure mine that have worked out pretty well. Here's a pic of one.

Best of luck with the rest of the build.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Oh yes definitely, the kit came with them I just haven't installed yet.

 

[jcav]

I'm digging your stand you got there............

 

[SilverZero]

Sight gauges are one thing I have overlooked so far on my build. I suppose they do make things easier, eh?

 

[iijakii]

Sight gauges are one thing I have overlooked so far on my build. I suppose they do make things easier, eh?

Yeah, makes it a lot easier to nail your volumes and not having any guesswork and what not. This go around I'm going to try just etching on the inside though to see how it goes.

 

[BigFloppy]

I know I should use sight glasses but right now I'm happy using my vernier eyebrows

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Sight gauges are one thing I have overlooked so far on my build. I suppose they do make things easier, eh?

Even more so if you are fly sparging while you lauter to the brew kettle. It makes it easy to get your flows matching for input sparge water and exit into the bk, just watch the mash tun gauge until it stops moving.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

I'm digging your stand you got there............

As far as i can tell the guy built this http://www.ikeahackers.net/2012/08/stainless-steel-kitchen-island-cart.html

Its sad, Ikea no longer stocks the stainless table tops,even though its listed at 390 you could probably get it down to 300 or so if you only went with 1 shelf.

Pretty happy that i got it for $200 i think(?)

 

[jcav]

You did real good for $200! I like the two shelves version that you have.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Ugh so close, but its getting late and im frustrated lol..

Was plugging in the last thing that needed to go back in, the 120V double outlet, wired them up to the 2 channel relay like i have for my brewpi a million times, broke the tab so each hot is isolated and somehow there is continuity between the two hot terminals when i check with my multimeter...i checked my ring connnectors they are no where near touching and the tab is clearly broken with a gap...

Is it possible the stupid outlet is broken? I did bend one of the hot terminals a bit hard when i was trying to twist the tab off..i wonder if i shorted them together somehow? I dont see how they could possibly be wired together through the relay board i double checked all those connections...

Time to have a beer and think about it some more, maybe tomorrow ill just take the entire stupid socket out and test just the hot terminals and see if its the socket or what the hell is going on.

 

[BrunDog]

I don't see how that is possible. You are getting continuity via the circuit its connected to. Disconnect the wires and then measure the outlet hots - you will see there is no short.

-BD

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

So it ended up being how i had the relay wired, got that fixed.

Bigger problem now im hoping someone can help with, although i think i have an idea ...

I plug in my box, and turn on the breaker and it immediately trips. Even with the main power toggle off.

Then i realized something i remember happening when the electrician was installing the outlet. Basically after he got it all wired up he pulled the breaker and it tripped immediately even with nothing plugged in, so he repulled the ground and neutral wires figuring maybe something got screwed up...happened again. After some more debug he determined that on the socket on the Neutral pin there was a long metal bit that seemed to go to ground...after clipping that metal bit off he was able to successfully turn the breaker on and it didnt trip. I asked why and he mentioned he thinks its because some laundry machines only use 3 prong cables? He didnt seem entirely positive about the statement now that i think about it, but the power seemed to be on and working without throwing the breaker so i didnt think about it.

I always read these posts about the breaker tripping without the box even turned on and seem to recall it almost always has something to do with the neutral bonding in the breaker box? My question for those in the know, if he wired something "wrong" in the main panel would it make sense that he would have had to pull that metal bit off the socket?

I realize its also possible my box is just miswired somehow? I need to look into that tomorrow...but seems weird that it could happen without the power switch even being on. To make sure i wired the switch right its a two position switch, one side i wired in one of the Hot lines, and out the other side it goes back to one side of the main power contactor coil, the other side of the switch(off) is totally bare with no wires at all that no power would get through the main contactor..but is that tripping the breaker!? So many questions!

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Figured it out after searching and finding a post on Kal's site, the electrician wired the ground and neutral wrong on the socket.

That means the metal bit he cut off was a grounding bar and it looks like it went to the front metal face of the socket...i think ill call them to complain tommorrow and see if they will come give me a new socket.

But then again they are only $8.50 at Homedepot, so maybe ill just go get my own or tell them to give me $8.50 off my bill lol...

Powers on, but as expected the Wifi is a bit hit or miss so ill work on getting Cat5 to it somehow tommorrow...not sure how yet...i still have some jacks and crimper..i may go super ghetto and just make a small hole for a ethernet cable, then push it through and crimp on new ends on both sides and use a cheap 50 cent coupler to disconnect it from the main cable if the panel ever needs to move.

Also my probes arent being detected so i need to check my RPI tomorrow to see what is wrong with the wiring.

 

[BigFloppy]

Figured it out after searching and finding a post on Kal's site, the electrician wired the ground and neutral wrong on the socket.

That means the metal bit he cut off was a grounding bar and it looks like it went to the front metal face of the socket...i think ill call them to complain tommorrow and see if they will come give me a new socket.

But then again they are only $8.50 at Homedepot, so maybe ill just go get my own or tell them to give me $8.50 off my bill lol...

They probably charged you a lot more than $8.50 for that socket, I'd get them back out to fix their screwup... or reduce your bill by $50 if not more

 

[BrunDog]

Nice electrical work this guy did!

-BD