My Electric Brewery Build!

[jbsengineer]

Chiller:

 

[CidahMastah]

Nice! Pretty soon you are gonna be burning up some of your grain

Let me know how that chiller works out for you. I reshaped my copper chiller to be wider and now I am getting 11G of boiling worts chilled to 130F in 3 minutes!! I was going to go convoluted CF chiller like the one you have (or at least it looks like one), now I am not so sure.

 

[lschiavo]

Wow! Just nice...except your chiller guage is upside down Otherwise, awesome!

 

[jbsengineer]

Nice! Pretty soon you are gonna be burning up some of your grain

Let me know how that chiller works out for you. I reshaped my copper chiller to be wider and now I am getting 11G of boiling worts chilled to 130F in 3 minutes!! I was going to go convoluted CF chiller like the one you have (or at least it looks like one), now I am not so sure.

It has been far to long without brewing any beer. I have a backlog of grain as you know! I chose to invest any free time into getting the brewery online. First batch is this weekend. Keeping it easy with a Amber Ale.

Will do. I did a test run with 160F water and it chilled easily to 70F coming out. Still need to do a test run of the boiling water.

 

[jbsengineer]

Wow! Just nice...except your chiller guage is upside down Otherwise, awesome!

Actually the chiller is. I have a picture of it mounted.

I hope to post another set of photos later today or tonight!

 

[Fly_Rodder]

It has been far to long without brewing any beer. I have a backlog of grain as you know! I chose to invest any free time into getting the brewery online. First batch is this weekend. Keeping it easy with a Amber Ale.

Will do. I did a test run with 160F water and it chilled easily to 70F coming out. Still need to do a test run of the boiling water.

I did a final test run last night from boil and it was the first time I got my chiller dialed into 70F quickly. It's a bit of game to get max flow while maintaining a consistent temp. Excellent chiller though. It's a little wobbly at the bottom and I don't quite trust the compression fittings - but I haven't had any leaks yet and nothing has fallen off or bent - so, time for beer making. :rockin:

 

[jbsengineer]

Nice! Pretty soon you are gonna be burning up some of your grain

Let me know how that chiller works out for you. I reshaped my copper chiller to be wider and now I am getting 11G of boiling worts chilled to 130F in 3 minutes!! I was going to go convoluted CF chiller like the one you have (or at least it looks like one), now I am not so sure.

I did a test run with water tonight. From boiling I was able to move 12.3G down to 66 degrees in 11minutes.

Water temp is 53 degrees, so that gives me a good amount of flexibility.

 

[Fly_Rodder]

I did a test run with water tonight. From boiling I was able to move 12.3G down to 66 degrees in 11minutes.

Water temp is 53 degrees, so that gives me a good amount of flexibility.

Are you using the Hop Stopper that Kal recommends? If you are, then plain water won't give you issues when draining the kettle for chilling. When he says that you have to slow the output to a trickle once the stopper is exposed to air, he means it. I found out the hard way when I drained the BK and slurp siphon was lost and I left about 2.5 gallons in the BK.

Chilling with a Hop Stopper takes a bit longer - upwards of 30 minutes.

 

[CidahMastah]

Are you using the Hop Stopper that Kal recommends? If you are, then plain water won't give you issues when draining the kettle for chilling. When he says that you have to slow the output to a trickle once the stopper is exposed to air, he means it. I found out the hard way when I drained the BK and slurp siphon was lost and I left about 2.5 gallons in the BK.

Chilling with a Hop Stopper takes a bit longer - upwards of 30 minutes.

See comments like this make me think the IC might be a better tool for me.

Start temp for my well water (usually 54F ish)
For an 11G batch:

1. just over 3 minutes to get to 130F or less.
2. ~15mins total to reach low to mid 70's
3. 18 mins to chill into 60's

Then I can just whirpool and let the hot break and hop fall, then drain.

 

[jbsengineer]

Drawing out the cut lines:

Slow but rewarding process. I'm really glad I installed a TV downstairs. Kept me entertained while I dodged metal shavings flying at me:

Ended up using the same punch on the XLR holes that I did for the 22mm lights and switches. Just needed to file some notches:

 

[jbsengineer]

Little hiccup was that I had to fabricate the top by flattening it out (hammered the heck out of it on cement). Was able to flatten it out and applied a few coats of JB weld, sanding in between. The finally product was excellent!

After painting, testing the "look":

 

[jbsengineer]

At this point I realized I was over the hump. What I feared most about the project was the metal working:

 

[jbsengineer]

Soldering some cables:

 

[jbsengineer]

I did the internal wiring in 5 days. Every night I worked a few hours on it. Still need to go back through and tighten/neaten it all up:

I have to thank Kal for his excellent documentation of the wiring and what each part does and why. I learned a lot!

Initial power on was successful except for power to the pumps. I forgot the pumps -> neutral bus wire:

 

[jbsengineer]

Getting ready for a test run:

 

[jbsengineer]

All last week I did test run with water to get myself and the computers "tuned."

Yesterday I ran my first batch.

Everything went excellent. As Kal suggested I definitely need to re-work my ventilation as I had a lot of drip-page.

From start to finish I had 12 gallons of beer in the fermenters in ~5 hours. What the great thing was that is was relatively hands off! I missed my gravity of 1.056 and got 1.060. I estimated my efficiency for the recipe at 87%. I ended up hitting 89.1%. So next run I should have it dialed it!

The cleanup was 1.5 hours and I'm sure I will get that down to 1.0 hours.

As far as the hop stopper, I did a fair amount of research about the negatives. So I have able to get 10 gallons of the wort cooled with 15 minutes and it took me another 15 minutes to get the last 2 gallons.

Can't wait for the next batch!

 

[CidahMastah]

looks great man! Really nice full on Kal build

Now you can brew brew brew!

 

[jbsengineer]

looks great man! Really nice full on Kal build

Now you can brew brew brew!

Your not kidding! I was so relieved last night. Finally was able to get the fermenters rollings and get my life back, !

I plan to brew on Monday as well. Not sure what I'm going to do yet.

It was a great to see 20lbs of spent grains!

 

[CCB451]

Hey beautiful build!! I know what you mean by getting your life back and seeing spent grain again, as I also Just finished my build and brewed two batches this past weekend.:rockin:

I was curious where you got the matting on the floor from?

Great work on the build!

 

[jbsengineer]

Sam's Club for the mats. Thus far they have been a lifesaver for my feet and back!

 

[CCB451]

Sam's Club for the mats. Thus far they have been a lifesaver for my feet and back!

Thanks for the info, will be looking for that next time I am there.

 

[jbsengineer]

After some more tweaking in BeerSmith I believe I actually hit an efficiency of 91.4%.

My sparging was done in 1/2 the expected time so I will slow it down more in my next batch which could increase the efficiency a little bit.

I plan to do another Kal recipe on Monday (it's helping me familirize with the new process and dial in the equipment into BeerSmith). I'm going to try his Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA clone recipe.

 

[CidahMastah]

After some more tweaking in BeerSmith I believe I actually hit an efficiency of 91.4%.

My sparging was done in 1/2 the expected time so I will slow it down more in my next batch which could increase the efficiency a little bit.

I plan to do another Kal recipe on Monday (it's helping me familirize with the new process and dial in the equipment into BeerSmith). I'm going to try his Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA clone recipe.

Funny I just rebrewed the BYO Torpedo clone last week - Have brewed it 4 or more times, it is dead on.

Love that brew

Good luck!

 

[mendozer]

is the efficiency that high due to better sparging? i know the temperature control is perfect, but that's obvious

 

[kal]

is the efficiency that high due to better sparging? i know the temperature control is perfect, but that's obvious

It's dozens of factors. Basically careful attention to detail. Including:

- Good crush
- Proper mash pH
- Long mash with good recirculation
- Doing a mashout to allow wort to flow easier
- Slow fly sparge / keeping water above grain bed / proper flow rate
- Excellent Blichmann false bottom which basically completely elliminates any channeling/shunting

Probably forgetting a few. Again, it's basically looking at each aspect and doing it the best way possible. My efficiency's typically a consistent 95%.

Kal

 

[mendozer]

I heard pH matters but someone told me they used 5.2 and their eff dropped 2%.
What do you mean by "mashout"? I mash in a cooler then drain off followed by a sparge

 

[kal]

I heard pH matters but someone told me they used 5.2 and their eff dropped 2%.

The product called 5.2 stabilizer from Five Star chemicals? (IMHO that stuff is more trouble than it's worth), or do you mean that they modified or did something else to their mash to get to 5.2 (like adding salts or various grains known to modify mash pH)?

It could be that for someone somewhere doing something to their mash caused their eff by 2%. Without really knowing exactly what they did, it's not very useful information for you to use. Who knows exactly what they did. Proper mash pH is important for proper conversion and many other factors (body/flavour). That much is true. There's not one "right" pH necessarily either. There's a range. Really depends on what you're going after.

What do you mean by "mashout"? I mash in a cooler then drain off followed by a sparge

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter17.html

What is Mashout?

Before the sweet wort is drained from the mash and the grain is rinsed (sparged) of the residual sugars, many brewers perform a mashout. Mashout is the term for raising the temperature of the mash to 170°F prior to lautering. This step stops all of the enzyme action (preserving your fermentable sugar profile) and makes the grainbed and wort more fluid. For most mashes with a ratio of 1.5-2 quarts of water per pound of grain, the mashout is not needed. The grainbed will be loose enough to flow well. For a thicker mash, or a mash composed of more than 25% of wheat or oats, a mashout may be needed to prevent a Set Mash/Stuck Sparge. This is when the grain bed plugs up and no liquid will flow through it. A mashout helps prevent this by making the sugars more fluid; like the difference between warm and cold honey. The mashout step can be done using external heat or by adding hot water according to the multi-rest infusion calculations. (See chapter 16.) A lot of homebrewers tend to skip the mashout step for most mashes with no consequences.

You should probably start a new thread or search here if you have pH/efficiency questions.

Kal

 

[jbsengineer]

Funny I just rebrewed the BYO Torpedo clone last week - Have brewed it 4 or more times, it is dead on.

Love that brew

Good luck!

Mind sharing your recipe?

 

[jbsengineer]

I haven't done anything with PH yet. I do plan to in the near future.

Also, I just sent out a water sample to Ward labs to get a baseline for brewing salts.

 

[CBK]

Awesome build. You have some serious woodworking skills. Your stand is beautiful. Now lets see how quickly you use up that pallet of grain from the last group buy.