Upside Down Keggles?

[carpenike]

And here's the SketchUp.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

Looking good... Nice progress! I actually am in the midst of building a new system, and I find myself in the same boat as you with the panel, even though I bought (what I thought was) a huge one. And yet, now I am not so sure as I start mocking things up!

And this is my fourth panel build!

 

[carpenike]

Didn't have much time this week so things are progressing slowly. Got holes cut today. Had to change the orientation on the bottom because of where the gronding peg on the bottom... Measure many times, cut once.

 

[carpenike]

Painted. Hopefully it'll dry before it gets too cold...

 

[carpenike]

Got the dry fitting done for the din rails, mounted the din rails, mounted the heat sink on the top of the case, and mounted the receptacles on the bottom.

Getting the big heat sink on the top was a pain -- hard to find where to drill the holes for the screw holes in the top of the case and hard to mark it as the fins / heat sink are huge. Ended up using a small drill bit and getting the first two drilled in / mounted and then drilling marker holes for the rest. Got 4 of the 6 screws in this way, the other two aren't lined up right but it's secure enough.

Also, need to buy new 30 amp receptacles... the plugs that I have are the right kind while the receptacles are the wrong ones -- as I noted above. So those two slots are still open.

 

[jcc4507fly]

Looks very nice! Thanks for the pics! I am at a stand still with mine. Once I start making some progress I will post up some pics.

 

[decoleur]

Whose heat sink is that? Looks like it can hold many ssr's.

 

[carpenike]

Whose heat sink is that? Looks like it can hold many ssr's.

The one ebrewsupply sells. Came pre-tapped as well.

 

[jcc4507fly]

Carpenike, how's the build coming?

 

[carpenike]

Hey all,

Sorry for the (very) long delay... Life / work / travel got crazy...

Good news is my panel is nearly complete -- just need to solder in the temp probes and connect to the BCS. Plumbing is good to go, just need to hook up the exhaust vent and clean up the brew room a bit.

 

[jcc4507fly]

Looking very nice! Finally finished up my eherms. Need to post some pics. First brew was 2weeks ago. Already brewed 4 various sized batches on it. Loving it!

 

[carpenike]

Looking very nice! Finally finished up my eherms. Need to post some pics. First brew was 2weeks ago. Already brewed 4 various sized batches on it. Loving it!

Nice!

Did you use a BCS? If so, any idea which of the 3 pins on the XLR for temperature probes you need to use to wire into the BCS? I believe you only need two of them but I'm not sure which ones the quick disconnects use.

Also, did you just use CAT5/6 cabling soldered onto the XLR connector?

Thanks!
Ryan

 

[sandyeggoxj]

The bcs just needs two. I ohmed out the temp probe end and then used the matching ones on the cable to the box. I used xlr at the panel end as well. It worked out pretty well. You should see 10k ohms of resistance at room temp if I remember right.

 

[jcc4507fly]

I am using a BCS-462. However, I had the folks over at Electric Brewing Supply put it together so I could focus on other parts of the brewery. But looking inside the panel as sandyeggoxj posted above you only need 2 wires. My panel has xlr at the panel and I have M12 quick disconnects at the kettle. At 70* my readout was 11k ohms. I really like the M12 QD at the kettle.

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[jcc4507fly]

On a side note put this together the other day for about $12-$15. It is really only useful when brewing 10gallon batches, because of the volume of wort. Haven't brewed a 10 gallon batch since I made it but plan using it this weekend. However, I did use it to tie off my hop bag on the last 5 gallon batch. Worked great to keep most hop particle out of the final wort!! Didn't even have to whirlpool!

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[jcc4507fly]

Carpenike, what type of false bottom did you decide to go with?

 

[carpenike]

Carpenike, what type of false bottom did you decide to go with?

I got this one from Brewhardware awhile back. We'll see how well it works.

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/fb15h.htm

 

[carpenike]

Also, picked up one of these to wifi-enable my BCS... It works really, really well... very simple too...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003KPBRRW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[carpenike]

Well, it took 9 months or so, but Big Head Brewing -finally- got its first brew day in. Brewed the "Virgin Blonde" based off of BM's Centennial Blonde. Everything went pretty well. The automated setup with the control panel made it almost two easy... only time I really needed to pay attention was when I was moving liquid between pots.

More or less built out the BCS programming as I was doing the brew -- would you recommend a process for each phase or a single process multiple steps?

Lessons learned --

1. Remember to take my OG rating
2. Finished volume was too low.. I think I need to account for some loss in the CFC and add more to the pre-boil volume during sparging.

Pictures below.