cheap entry into electric brewing

[paul m]

Hi All,

I've found Reubens Blog v. useful ,and keen to go the electric route rather than gas bottle and ring burner. I'm still on the gas hob and 'er indoors don't want a brewery in the kitchen!

I've bought a 51L ss pot and will do 25L to 38L batches (two corny kegs). Any ideas on whats the budget way to get started down the electric route?

I'm thinking a 3kw element and then plug it into the wall.  My query is  what's the cheap way to control the heat output of the element? Is there some sort of variable resistor with a dial wired between the element and the wall? or is the way to go some sort of tempcontroller with sensor like with the fridge fermenter brewmate type thing?

All advise is appriciated

[David Upex]

Can you give us an explanation on what is going on there, but damn, it looks pretty shit Orsome.

[Ralph]

Tell me Vesku, is the cat an integral part of that setup?

[Vesku]

Seems like it, but it might be the fact that the top of the mash tun is the only warm place in this house that makes Pixie so eager brewer...

 -> Anton, I think that the simmerstat might not be good enough for controlling the heat exchanger. It's accurate enough for boil/HLT, but with HERMS it might not be ideal. Hard to tell before trying it though.

It's really hard to control the mash temperature by just one sensor in the heat exchanger. There's a lot of lack in the system with the thermal mass of the grains, the mash water and the H.E.-water.

1st I had my sensor at the output of the H.E.-coil and that was a mistake (although it's said to be the best place for it in many www-sites). It took quite a long time to heat the wort to desired temperature and by then my H.E.-water was boiling (~12L + 3kW = not so long to boil)...massive over shoot...

With the controller that I build (schema on the previous page) I can keep the H.E.-water with in ~0.4C (the sensor in the H.E.-water) and the mash temperature ~1.0C, but for that I need to make wee adjustments during the mash.

I would love to have a system that has a couple of sensors, 1 in the mash tun and 1 in the H.E. and of course some sort of "brain" to control the heating. I think that it could be done with analog electronics too, but there would be so many things to calibrate that I don't want to go there...the BCS-462 looks very tempting...

The internals of the H.E. below, hoses of the H.E.-coil are off, you have to imaging them. It takes about 10 minutes to do all the plumbing before the brew day (wife doesn't let it sit on the kitchen between brew days).

Early flow chart of the whole system:

[Anton]

That's wicked Vesku!! Good advice re the heat exchanger too.

Could you give us some more pics inside your exchanger?? How do you control it at present?

I'm pretty much finished converting the kettle (needed to add the element and a sight glass) then I'll crack into the HERMS plumbing (wife permitting). It's a crash coarse in electrical components for sure!

Biggest issue so far is re-jigging my immersion chiller to fit around the element...and figuring out whether I need an simmerstat or see how the element goes without one first.

 

 

 

[Anton]

That's very cool. I hadn't thought of using the heat exchanger for cooling too, I might steal that idea!!

Do you have any heat issues putting an element in a chilli-bin??

You sound pretty gadget savvy, so if you're interested in an alternative to the BCS type controllers you could check out these guys:

http://www.brewtroller.com/wiki/doku.php

Cheaper alternative, where they send you the parts and you solder it all together. Small LCD rather than a fancy web based gui.

[Vesku]

No issues with the chilly bin...yet... Not a very safe or recommendable design, it's OK as long as I remember to fill it with water LOL. I was planning to put a ss-plate at the bottom, but didn't even do that (too lazy), but it has been working OK (maybe 40 patches done). A round chilly bin would be better, easier to get proper whirlpool going.

The cooling works fine even with out the pump, I just use gravity for that. The flow needs to be quite low anyway to get the temp low enough. It takes care of the aeration as well when the small flow drips to the fermentation bin. There's about 20cm of foam on top of the wort after the cooling.

I've been planning a compact HERMS-design that would use a really small heater tank (~2L), an external counter flow plate heat exchanger plus a circulation pump. The goal is to make a HERMS that is about size of a 24-beer pack. Just need to get access to TIG + lathe...and get the motivation to do it.

I've seen the brewtroller before, it's quite nice too. What makes me huge fan of the BCS is the fact that it could be used to measure and control all sort of stuff remotely. I might have to buy house in the near future and I want to have central heating, solar and all that hippie stuff... I could use BCS to monitor and control all that shit as well.

[Anton]

Yeh I liked the idea of controlling my fermentation off the same controller as my HERMS, so BCS for me too. Plus my soldering is pretty average...

If I wanted an RCD somewhere in my set-up do you reckon it'd be better at the plug before the controller or have it wired closer to the elements?? Complete electrical novice....

 

[Vesku]

Put everything behind the RCD. The RCD breaks the circuit when there's a current leaking between the phase and the earth, no matter where in the circuit. The RCD is a very good move, I should use one, especially if you don't have modern circuit breakers in your house.

And always remember the most life saving advice when working with electricity:

"Keep a one hand in your pocket!", you do not want to make a closed circuit trough your heart... that's the thing that kills you.

I just have been tasting from two kegs, made with same recipe, but different mashing temperatures. Only ~1C difference in the mash, FG (1009-1012) and the taste are different. Not much, but still.

Have to come up with abbreviation like A.N.A.L. for my next HERMS :P or R.a.d.l.e.r. 

 

[Anton]

I'm going to call mine 'Control Freak' but I guess I better check to see if some mass producer of bad beer has trade marked it first....

Pretty cool you can taste a difference, makes it all worth while...apart from the compulsion to make brewing more complicated than it really needs to be...

I'm off to drink 'The Beer That Used To Be Called 'BOCK'' before it was trademarked too...Cheers for the advice. Bound to have more questions as I go along!

[Sparky]

The RCD increases electrical safety when correctly applied, however remember your heart is between not only your hand but also your two feet which are generally on the ground. And the ground is where the 230V & 400V systems are wanting to go.

 

Please consider electrical safety

Cheers

WayneO

 

 

 

 

[paul m]

I was looking at the aussie website and at "grain and Grape" webiste they have hand held 2.4kw elements for $129. This looks like a flexible option. Does anyone know any pro and cons of these hand held elements?

cheers

Paul

[Vesku]

Safe to use, but expensive.

 

I made a wee video of my brew day for my brother. I though I might as well share it here too:

Panovideo