My 20 gallon EHERMS build

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HornyGoatStout

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New to posting on the forum, though I’ve been reading for years and depend on this community for all my HomeBrewing needs....

I’ve been working on converting a dirt floor garage space to a full on electric brewery for over a year, and finally am reaping the rewards.

My control panel build via ebrewsupply is a 50A build it yourself BCS box. This was a doozy, but I’m no stranger to working with electricity, drills, crimpers or my hands. I made a few on the fly modifications so that if I wasn’t using both boil elements or both hlt elements both SSRs wouldn’t power on. Other than that it is by the guide.

After many DIY pots, keggles, and repurposed dairy stainless, I have finally landed on a Spike Brewing system and fermenter. I gotta say, I love it!

I use a 60” dunnage rack as my table and it’s nice to be able to tower over the tops of the kettles.

Stainless table and sink make setup and cleanup nice. And an iPad for my remote control.

I happened to have an extra walk in cooler sitting around so I installed it with an AC and a Coolbot as my refrigeration and kegerator.

For my water, I have a RO system fill and IBC tote for all my brewing and cleaning water. (Our well water is over 1500 ppm tds)


It’s always a work in progress and is changing every day, but this is my space and I am really enjoying it!

Thanks for looking.
 
Looks like a dream to brew in. Love the sleek equipment against the rustic outdoorsie backdrop!


Thanks! It is a blast. This week I’ve brewed 15 gallons of Citra IPA, been installing the taps on the outside of the walkin, adding a nitro system, and balancing lines.

Thinking about doing the Glycol Chiller DIY for the conical temp control. Right now I have a 50 gallon tank in the walkin providing 37 degree water for temp control, but it won’t cold crash beyond about 45ish at the very lowest. I’d like to take that lower and force carb in the fermenter.
 
Finished a glycol chiller build today. All I can say is wow! Able to cold crash 15 gallons from 65 to 34 in just a few hours with the Spike Conical cooling coil. Me likey.
 
How'd you go about the chiller build? Got any pics?
I’ll upload some pics tomorrow. Relatively simple:

I used a window ac unit I had in the shed. (8000 btu I believe)

Carefully opened it up and took off the evaporator fan.

Gently maneuvered the evaporator into a cooler that I put a notch in.

I used a triclamp thermowell I had lying around to put the thermometer for the external thermostat.

Drilled holes for my insulated tubing to my cooling coil.

I used two submersible pumps in the cooler. One to run whenever the ac is running, and the other to recirc the glycol to the chill coil.

Have it set to hold the glycol mix between about 24-29* F

Works like a champ! Cold crashed another batch today. 85 degrees outside and it barely even needed to run. 69*-34* in 5 hours on a 15 gallon batch!
 
@HornyGoatStout, I was given an old countertop soda dispenser with an ice bath tank, and converted that to glycol use. I have a homebuilt ferm chamber that's about 8 Cu. Ft., and I built a plenum inside that has a couple of 4" muffin fans and a transmission cooler I got off of Amazon. I dropped a little pond pump into the glycol tank and ran the hoses to the plenum. The blue lines in the graphs show the temp, and the red lines show when the compressor/pump/fans kick in and out. The graphs show the most recent three hours of activity.

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Mine uses a BCS and an iPad for control.

I can always intervene on the control panel manually, but monitor temp on the iPad or my phone if I’m walking around.
 
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