As with most brewery builds on here it seems this one has also been progressing slowly. We now have a lot of the materials and am hoping to progress quickly in the coming weeks. This is a joint venture between myself and another friend, effectively doubling the budget (haha). The brewery will be located at his place as he has more room, and as such I don't have too many pictures currently (I keep forgetting to take some).
Currently going to use 50L keggles for the vessles (not ideal, but its what we had easy access to) It will be fed with 240V 50A, and controlled via BrewTroller. Originally we were planning to fully automate with 1/2" motorized ball valves, however as time went on we got concerned about never getting this finished. We ended up deciding to forgo the motorized ball valves, although since we had already budgeted for them we ended up deciding to use that money for TC valves/fittings instead... We also had some concern as we wanted to hard plumb the setup the amount of cleaning/dis-assembly that might be required with 10-12 threaded motorized ball valves.
We will be silver soldering all the components, and we have had pretty good success with this so far. We have a 25ft 1/2" .035 SS coil for the HEX, and all hard plumbing will also be 1/2" .035 SS. CFC is 25' 1/2" .035" Copper tubing in 3/4" ID heater hose.
Next thing is to place another order from brewershardware for the TC valves, as you can see the handles interfere, so we'll either end up bending them or having new ones manufacteured. Otherwise we will have to add extensions to give the valves more space. I am waiting until I have the valves in hand to decide on this.
Attached is the solidworks model I have been using to plan it out. I have access to solidworks through work but only rarely have reason to use it, so this was a good excuse to get some more practice with it. Keep in mind the tubing routes/bends arn't likely ideal, we'll decide on this when it actually comes time to bend, right now its mostly for estimating required length. Also an earlier picture of the stand before the trays were done and welded on.
Any comments/feedback would be appreciated on the layout/valve layout. I have to do up a proper plumbing schematic also, I wanted to go ahead and get this post started as I have been putting it off for some time. I realize that this will not be a sanitary setup, sudden changes in pipe size, etc. A true sanitary setup was not the goal here.
I have some concerns if the TC sightglasses are worth doing, considering the loss of measurement range with the elbows and all.
Currently going to use 50L keggles for the vessles (not ideal, but its what we had easy access to) It will be fed with 240V 50A, and controlled via BrewTroller. Originally we were planning to fully automate with 1/2" motorized ball valves, however as time went on we got concerned about never getting this finished. We ended up deciding to forgo the motorized ball valves, although since we had already budgeted for them we ended up deciding to use that money for TC valves/fittings instead... We also had some concern as we wanted to hard plumb the setup the amount of cleaning/dis-assembly that might be required with 10-12 threaded motorized ball valves.
We will be silver soldering all the components, and we have had pretty good success with this so far. We have a 25ft 1/2" .035 SS coil for the HEX, and all hard plumbing will also be 1/2" .035 SS. CFC is 25' 1/2" .035" Copper tubing in 3/4" ID heater hose.
Next thing is to place another order from brewershardware for the TC valves, as you can see the handles interfere, so we'll either end up bending them or having new ones manufacteured. Otherwise we will have to add extensions to give the valves more space. I am waiting until I have the valves in hand to decide on this.
Attached is the solidworks model I have been using to plan it out. I have access to solidworks through work but only rarely have reason to use it, so this was a good excuse to get some more practice with it. Keep in mind the tubing routes/bends arn't likely ideal, we'll decide on this when it actually comes time to bend, right now its mostly for estimating required length. Also an earlier picture of the stand before the trays were done and welded on.
Any comments/feedback would be appreciated on the layout/valve layout. I have to do up a proper plumbing schematic also, I wanted to go ahead and get this post started as I have been putting it off for some time. I realize that this will not be a sanitary setup, sudden changes in pipe size, etc. A true sanitary setup was not the goal here.
I have some concerns if the TC sightglasses are worth doing, considering the loss of measurement range with the elbows and all.