Prototype Previews: Hopback and Heat Stick

Yakima 728
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Bobby, I finally got some leaf hops in and will be brewing this Wednesday. So, is it recommended to use another screen? This will be the first time using the hop back after I had to fix the leg supports. I plan on letting gravity feed the hopback then my chiller, (no pumping). Sorry it's taken so long to review.
 
Yes, use the extra screen. Basically put the screen between the hops and the thicker perforated plate on the side of the hopback that is the outflow. I do recommend that the bottom of the hopback is the "in" port and the top of the unit, that has the TC cap and clamp be the outflow. If you use it that way, you can mount the screen below the stud mounted perforated disc. The rational with this additional screen is that it helps keep the floppy hop petals from cutting off flow through the holes. Since the screen is woven, it will still allow flow.
 
Brewed with the Hot Rod today and it worked like a charm! Got my strike and sparge water heated up within 15 mins with the help of the stove and 6.5 gallons of Pliny wort to a rolling boil(160deg to rolling boil) in 18 mins.
I did pull the pot off the stove to see if it would maintain the boil with just the hot rod and viola! It did.
I took the Hot Rod out of the pot once it came to boil and the stove held it through the brew.
:)
Well made product!
 
I have used my hot rod and have a few comments.

It took me quite some time to assemble the thing, getting the cable down too a bit of work but wasn't that bad.

The majority of the time was spent fiddling with the ground wire. I used 12g wire and it was considerably small for the wire crimper things ( I know so technical) I couldn't crimp it tight enough to make a solid connection, then I said screw it I will screw it directly to the back with the included screw and then I noticed that the screw threads were longer than the female threads in the back so this was not an option. So back to plan I went and somehow managed to get it tight enough although I'm not confident how long it will stay connected.


actual use of it was very nice, it is much quitter than my other heat stick which is the traditional 2000w high density one. I used this hot rod with the stainless 2000w element combined with a 3500w induction burner to boil ~14 gallons of wort. I kept the induction burner between 800-1000 watts and that kept a nice vigorous boil. At full power it raised the temp from mash to boil quite fast too.
 
Sometimes when you buy 12g bundled wire the ground will be 14g. And sometimes 10g bundles will have a 12g ground.
 
I just ground down the bolt that came with mine a little to make sure it didn't bottom out and could securely tighten the ground. No problems crimping but since mine is for 220v use I used 10/3 wire.
 
The ring lugs which were included with my Hot Rod are nice, thick, heavy duty lugs. I was impressed that I felt no need to replace them with something better. I terminated thousands of wires as part I of my job for well over 40 years so I am a bit picky about such things. i did use a professional Klein crimper on the included lugs but any quality crimper designed for uninsulated wire connectors should do the job.

I would want to have complete confidence in all three of the connections inside the Hot Rod. In my case I do. The lugs are solidly connected both mechanically and electrically.
 
Finally got my control panel finished and installed in the brewery last night. Wired up the HotRods over the weekend. Did a water test last night and everything worked really well. Excited to brew this weekend.

Nice job on these Bobby.
 
I had my feelings that the braiding would be too tight to relieve the plugging issues.
 
It holds an oz of hops easily. It just plugs up towards the end of a 5 gallon batch with standard 1st run screens
 
The heatstick is awesome, but I do have one suggestion. I don't know if this is really an issue, but it would certainly be safer to replace the wingnut on the clamp with a locking nut. The best would be to use a high pressure clamp, although they are quite a bit bulkier and more expensive.
 
orangehero said:
The heatstick is awesome, but I do have one suggestion. I don't know if this is really an issue, but it would certainly be safer to replace the wingnut on the clamp with a locking nut. The best would be to use a high pressure clamp, although they are quite a bit bulkier and more expensive.
Click to expand...

A lock nut would defeat the purpose of being able to easily adjust it and move it to different vessels. I'm not really seeing a need for a more secure mounting. The worst that could happen being the burner touching the side of the pot which doesn't really hurt anything. Unless I'm missing something.
 
All I did was used a grinder to grind down the bolt that goes in the nut a little bit to make sure it didn't bottom out.

I do have one suggestion for future builds off these though. Can you spec to have the nut for the ground put at the bottom instead of in the middle? This would make more room for the connector and allow a bit more ground wire to be left on.
 
As soon as I realized the ground lug didn't fully tighten, I added an extra washer to the bag. Orangehero's suggestion on the high pressure clamp is related to the TC clamp holding the element adapter to the base enclosure. I'm a little confused as to why the wingnut is a safety concern. High pressure clamps are about $11 more than standard ones and I'm selling the Hotrod to discourage people from DIY drain pipe and JB weld units. It has to be a reasonable price point to do that.
 
Nice. I just have to talk my wife into the purchase now. The possibility of not having to brew in her kitchen might swing the decision.
 
I used the Hot Rod again today. I love this thing. How often should we do the leak test on it?
 
Placed an order for the HotRod with the 5500w element tonight. Now I need to upgrade my control box to 220v.
 
How is everyone implementing their RTD/Thermocouple? It looks as if you could put a port for one on the body of the hotrod pointing straight up or sideways....but I guess if it used NPT threads there would be an increased risk of leakage.
 
On my prototype, I pushed the thermocouple down into the drop tube and it's forced against the side in contact with the metal tube by the 10 gauge wires. I just used it in a test run today and I'm excited to say that putting the thermocouple inside the down tube is satisfactory.

I'm testing with 8 gallons of water and I was getting something like 4F of rise per minute so the slightly isolated thermocouple always lagged behind by about 4F. This does cause an overshoot even when the controller is trying to pamper the last few degrees because it's not being told the actual temp. My solution for this would be to set your controller to about 5F low and when the alarm goes off, go ahead and set it to your actual desired temp.

Keep in mind that my thermocouple is the one that is normally captured by a 1/4-20 hollow hex bolt. I removed the bolt leaving a small 3/16" OD capsule and that's just held firm against the ID of the down tube. If you want faster response, you'd use a bare junction thermocouple that is just coated with heatshrink and then be sure to wedge something in (a chunk of silicone tubing) so it holds it firm against the down tube.

I've had the kettle recirculating for about an hour and the actual temp as measured by my thermapen is only drifting from the display temp by +/- 1F.
 
I am very interested in the Heat Stick. Whats the recommendation on using these in a keggle setup? Bend or no bend? Clamping to the Keggle? I'd like to see some more pic's of them in use if anyone has any to post.
 
Here's another picture of mine better showing how it's mounted with the spring clamp. I do plan to put a bend in mine though as soon as I find someone with a bender. The only reason is I want to put the HLT back up on the top of my stand so I don't have to use the pump to mash in and sparge and it's too tall as it is. I may have to put the bend at 135° or 90° from the element instead of 180° so I can still use the spring clamp.

View attachment 1417884131272.jpg
 
Hey truckmann, remember where you got those spring clamps holding the silicon hose in the picture?
 
Yakima 300

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