TheDom's Two Vessel RIMS Build

[TheDom]

He doesn't much care for the wort, but he loves "beer flowers". For some reason "beer" was one of the first words he learned. Weird.

 

[jpalarchio]

I was curious about this two vessel RIMS build. Any updates?

 

[TheDom]

Hey, thanks for asking! I've actually got a half done post sitting on my laptop about it back at the house.

The abridged version of the story to come:
1. It is all done, first brew completed yesterday.
2. Overheating SSRs can cause huge overshoots. Fans are your friends.
3. A 4a fast-trip breaker running a march pump and two contactors has not caused nuisance trips.
4. Forming a ring of solder before heating makes it way easier: less burnt flux and re-done fittings.
5. PJ's e-stop is sweet.
6. The LEDs in the auber illuminated switches are not interchangeable. I figured they were all white; they are not.

I'm having problems uploading pics from the phone right now. I'll post some later when I get home. Someone previously asked for detailed pics of the wiring. Those are coming soon too.

Edit: app made a liar out of me on the pics. Better ones to come as I take them.

 

[jpalarchio]

Is this sort of a Brutus 20 type setup or are you all out no-sparge?

Please explain your process if you could; I'm almost done building something very similar and I'm curious how my efficiencies might be. Not so much that I care about the efficiency as much as I'd like to know how big of a beer and how big of a batch I can make. Fallback plan is to go back to 3 vessels.

 

[TheDom]

Is this sort of a Brutus 20 type setup or are you all out no-sparge?

Please explain your process if you could; I'm almost done building something very similar and I'm curious how my efficiencies might be. Not so much that I care about the efficiency as much as I'd like to know how big of a beer and how big of a batch I can make. Fallback plan is to go back to 3 vessels.

No, not quite a Brutus 20, I've only got one pump. I may go to no sparge at some point, but I have yet to experiment with that. I heat strike water in the BK, since 5500W heats water faster than 1500W, and pump it over to the mash tun. Add grain, stir, get mash recirculating, set my mash temp and walk away for a while. When there is 20mins or so left in the mash, I fill the BK/HLT with sparge water and heat to temp.

For the sparge I use a 5gal pot to transfer sparge water from the BK/HLT. For smaller batches, I usually have around 5gal give or take of sparge water, so I just fill the 5gal pot, pump over the first runnings to the BK, dump the sparge water into the mash tun, recirc for a minute, and pump over to the BK. For 10gal batches (haven't done any on this system yet), I plan on adding as much sparge water as will fit in the mash tun before collecting first runnings, and likely using additional pots from the kitchen for transferring sparge water as with the 5gal batch. Depending on how big of a PITA it is, I may get another 10gal cooler and mount it above the current MT and use it as a temporary HLT. For 5gal, my current system works great.

 

[TheDom]

May have spoke too soon on the SSR thing. I have yet to open the panel up and double check the wiring, bit after a few runs of it hitting temps perfectly, I just walked out to a steam filled garage from a kettle that was supposed to hold at 170. I have a 40a SSR with a heat sink running the 22-ish amps for that 5.5k element. I think my SSR is bad. Hopefully amazon/light object will replace it.

 

[Dgonza9]

Not a real build thread....I've got a wiring diagram thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/diagram-critique-my-brutus-20-10-a-279903/

And a few pics (click for bigger, don't wanna hijack your thread too much!):

I dig on that flexible hood! What did you use there? I Have a similar setup with rigid exhaust, but the final piece can be adjusted somewhat. Yours is more flexible, though.