# Fothie's New Rig



## JaseH (25/2/12)

The last few weeks I've been gathering bits and pieces to build an electric 3 vessel AG brewing rig. Its not yet complete but its at stage currently where I could brew on it finally! I decided to do a dry run today to check everything out - was bloody hot in Melbourne, high 30's, but it went pretty well. Here are some pics!

The rig pre dry run:






Mash Tun false bottom:





Looking through the lid of the boil kettle:





Inside HLT with Keg King element:





My Mash Tun false bottom using male camlock fitting - works well, almost drains the mash tun completely.





During the 'dry run' with the Mash Tun wrapped in an old camp mat for insulation.





My high tech Blirkmann Bathometer/Evaporometer device:






Was bloody hot work slaving over an electric brew rig today! My brew partner struggled:





...then had to go cool off:





I cooled off in my own way





Cant wait to grab some grain during the week and give it a real run next weekend! :kooi:


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## kelbygreen (25/2/12)

looks good frothie


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## QldKev (25/2/12)

Good looking set, it looks like the original style of 3V systems.

Should make plenty of good brews


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## JaseH (25/2/12)

I've got a few questions after the 'dry run' for the experienced AG'ers, before I dive into my first actual AG brew with it.

Firstly my temp losses over an hour in the mash tun were considerable. I started at 67.5c and after 1 hour it was down to 63.5? Thats 4c over an hour. Does actually having grain in the mash help hold some heat or is what I'm seeing here likely to be the same for a proper mash?

I insulated the bottom and the sides with the camp mat but there was considerable 'dead space' in the vessel(
21.5L in 50L keg) and just the glass lid on top.


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## bradsbrew (25/2/12)

Grain will help keep temp stable. That mash tun with a camp mat and a towel shoved on top of the lid should only lose 1-2 degree over an hour tops.

cheers


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## razz (25/2/12)

Nice set up Frothie, well done!
You're on the money, the grain in the mash will slow down the temp loss. You could try some insulation sitting on top of the lid just to prevent a bit more loss. Most people don't worry to much. Down the track you can look at recirculating the mash liquor to maintain temp. RIMS, HERMS etc.
Good luck


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## NickB (25/2/12)

Looks great mate! However (and not to be one of 'those people'...) might consider blurring out the branding on your 'keggles'. Don't want this hobby to turn into one that actively encourages use of 'formerly loved' kegs. In fact, the forum rules (unless I'm mistaken) strictly forbid it..... Just sayin'... Don't hate me!

Great work going electric I say (though may be biased as an apprentice Sparky). Just (finally) converted my kettle to electric (95L stainless, 2 x 2200w Keg King Weldless Elements) and extremely happy with the maiden brew on it... Time now to convert the old gas-fired kettle (60L aluminium) to the new Mash Tun. Have also recently (3 brews ago) christened a new HLT (again, 95L stainless, but with 1 Keg King Weldless Element).

Good luck with future brews!


Cheers!


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## fergi (25/2/12)

frothie are you pumping wort from your mash tun to your kettle, just wondering how you do that with one pump.
fergi


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## Crusty (25/2/12)

fergi said:


> frothie are you pumping wort from your mash tun to your kettle, just wondering how you do that with one pump.
> fergi



I've only got one pump on my 3V. Hook up suctiuon to mash tun, pump outlet to ball valve on the kettle.


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## kelbygreen (25/2/12)

yep one pump here. I use a 2 lt jug for fly sparging just pour it in manually. Only gotto pump from hlt to mt then mt to kettle


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## JaseH (25/2/12)

> You're on the money, the grain in the mash will slow down the temp loss. You could try some insulation sitting on top of the lid just to prevent a bit more loss. Most people don't worry to much. Down the track you can look at recirculating the mash liquor to maintain temp. RIMS, HERMS etc.



Good to know, I thought it was strange as I'd seen similar systems reporting only a 1-2 degree loss over an hour. Yeah RIMS is on the future wish list. Want to get a bit of experience with the basics first!



> Looks great mate! However (and not to be one of 'those people'...) might consider blurring out the branding on your 'keggles'. Don't want this hobby to turn into one that actively encourages use of 'formerly loved' kegs. In fact, the forum rules (unless I'm mistaken) strictly forbid it..... Just sayin'... Don't hate me!
> 
> Great work going electric I say (though may be biased as an apprentice Sparky). Just (finally) converted my kettle to electric (95L stainless, 2 x 2200w Keg King Weldless Elements) and extremely happy with the maiden brew on it... Time now to convert the old gas-fired kettle (60L aluminium) to the new Mash Tun. Have also recently (3 brews ago) christened a new HLT (again, 95L stainless, but with 1 Keg King Weldless Eleement).



Names have now been suppressed to protect the guilty. h34r: 

I have a single 2200w Keg King element in my HLT and a 3600w in the kettle. They work great, the 2200w keg king is such a simple neat install, but just a bit low on wattage for a good boil of 25+ litres. I've also got a control box coming along with switches for the pump and elements, and an STC 1000 for temp control on the HLT. Just waiting on some parts to arrive before I wire it up.



> frothie are you pumping wort from your mash tun to your kettle, just wondering how you do that with one pump.
> fergi



With lots of hose swapping! I was planning on just batch sparging by swapping hoses around after transferring from MT to kettle then back to HLT to MT, but dump the water through the top of the MT via the hose onto the grain bed. But kelbygreen's method of using the 2liter jug to fly sparge actually sounds a bit simpler and possibly less messy? The outlet of the pump I have rigged for two outlets with valves but I only have one rigged up at the moment, this should help reduce some hose swapping, I may need to rig dual inlets as well.


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## wakkatoo (25/2/12)

looks good. I'd suggest changing your clamps tho - it may be nothing but having the plastic bits sitting in a hot mash may impart flavours you dont want.


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## goomboogo (25/2/12)

In addition to the other suggestions, you could try a piece of alfoil on the top of the mash. This may help reduce some of the temperature loss.


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## fergi (26/2/12)

putting allfoil on top of the mash helps reduce temp loss heaps, this is where the most heat is lost, through the top,

now a question on pumping from mash tun to kettle,i can see this being ok when there is plenty of wort to pump, but what about when the mash tun is getting near empty, doesnt the pump cavitate when there is a lack of wort as the last bit of wort filters through the grain bed.

fergi


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## leiothrix (26/2/12)

wakkatoo said:


> looks good. I'd suggest changing your clamps tho - it may be nothing but having the plastic bits sitting in a hot mash may impart flavours you dont want.



yeh -- and you should probably make sure they are 100% stainless. not nickel plated anything, or brass, or whatever else.


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## kelbygreen (26/2/12)

fergi said:


> putting allfoil on top of the mash helps reduce temp loss heaps, this is where the most heat is lost, through the top,
> 
> now a question on pumping from mash tun to kettle,i can see this being ok when there is plenty of wort to pump, but what about when the mash tun is getting near empty, doesnt the pump cavitate when there is a lack of wort as the last bit of wort filters through the grain bed.
> 
> fergi



I find it no different to gravity feeding as you dont want to pump the wort out at full speed (well not when fly sparging) so it will pump till the wort reaches the pick up or manifold. You will see air being drawn into the hose and I stop there and let it rest for 10 mins and see if it will drain any more but usually not much more comes out. 

I used to use styrofoam on top of my mash but with new esky I get bugger all heat loss being double batch helps to. I do use alfoil ontop of the mash when fly sparging I poke holes in it with a fork and tip the water on there from least height as posible so it wont disturb the grain bed


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## JaseH (27/2/12)

For those using converted kegs, whats the deal with weldless bi-metal thermometer placement? I want them vertically inline with the taps, which basically means they have to be placed above the ring/bulge in the keg. For those that have them positioned there do you find you any problems with this, are your readings fine?

This will just be for the HLT and MT. I cant see myself wanting to do anything smaller than a 24L batch so am thinking this should be fine? What level does your mash sit at in the MT for a typical 24L brew?


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## JaseH (3/3/12)

Fitted some thermometers from Keg King. Then decided to put some water in it.






...then some of this:





...and some of these:





...and whatddya know! Beer came out!





Well ok, it wasn't quite that simple! Had some problems hitting mash temp but I think it worked out in the end, the equipment performed well, I just need to get used to it. :drinks:


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## booargy (3/3/12)

Good shit. 
BTW there is some nice rock on your website.


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## tanukibrewer (4/3/12)

Nice setup Frothie
Checked out your website.I too have a few Japanese knives,mainly from Sakai and Miki.have you been over there?
I lived there for four and half years.Had a nice brewery not far from my wifes hometown.
http://www.akashi-beer.com/index.html#
Sorry Japanese language only,but pictures don't need translation


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## JaseH (4/3/12)

booargy said:


> Good shit.
> BTW there is some nice rock on your website.



Cheers mate, I like to get out on the rock as much as possible. Stuffed my ankle late last year so was laid up for a while, thats when the brewing bug bit!



tanukibrewer said:


> Nice setup Frothie
> Checked out your website.I too have a few Japanese knives,mainly from Sakai and Miki.have you been over there?
> I lived there for four and half years.Had a nice brewery not far from my wifes hometown.
> http://www.akashi-beer.com/index.html#
> Sorry Japanese language only,but pictures don't need translation



No I havent been to Japan, its definitely on the agenda to visit one day soon. I like all things Japanese(except their desire for killing whales!). I have a few more knives I haven't put on my website yet, including one of my favourites, a Yoshikane wa gyuto.


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## spog (5/3/12)

looking good. call your brewery the hot dog brewery......cheers...spog.......


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## tanukibrewer (6/3/12)

Gyuto = 牛刀　牛GYU meat 刀TO knife
anyway enough of a Japanese lesson
There are some great brews to be had in Japan.A big drinking culture exists over there,beer,sake (nihonshu) and shochu.
As for the whales,most young people over there don't eat it as it is uncool to do so.
Any Japanese beer related questions just pm me
Cheers


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## Vanoontour (6/3/12)

Hey Frothie, where bouts did you get those knives? They are just pure awesome!!


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## Wolfy (6/3/12)

Frothie said:


> ...and some of these:


What/how are you using as a kettle-filter?
I'm looking to setup something very similar, but have not yet decided how to filter the kettle before the plate-chiller.


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## JaseH (7/3/12)

vanoontour said:


> Hey Frothie, where bouts did you get those knives? They are just pure awesome!!



Mostly from Japan - a few from the U.S. There are a few good japanese knife vendors around. You dont know what sharp is until you use a well sharpened high carbon japanese blade  



Wolfy said:


> What/how are you using as a kettle-filter?
> I'm looking to setup something very similar, but have not yet decided how to filter the kettle before the plate-chiller.



I used a hop spider:





It uses a muslin sock, but I bent a piece of wire into a large circle and put it in the sock so it expanded the sock out and the hops didn't get compressed, there so many that it was still a bit crowded in there, but I could stir them around a bit inside. Its amazing how much hop pellets expand when they're boiled! I squeezed all the juicy stuff out before removing it.

It worked well, no hop material got into the boil, but I might look at making a large stainless mesh basket at some stage, I reckon it would provide a bit more freedom for the hops to release their goodness!


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## Wolfy (7/3/12)

Frothie said:


> I used a hop spider...
> 
> It worked well, no hop material got into the boil, but I might look at making a large stainless mesh basket at some stage, I reckon it would provide a bit more freedom for the hops to release their goodness!


I often use a lot of whole hop flowers, so I suspect that the hop spider might get over-full pretty quickly.


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## JaseH (13/3/12)

Second brew on the system over the weekend! A Robust Porter using a recipe I made up.

Having never brewed a dark beer before, knowing nothing about dark malts and being only my second ever AG brew, why not make up a porter recipe? :huh: 

Well I loosely based it on some other porter recipes I found around the net and adjusted it to suit Joe White malts as they are what's easily available to me at the moment. I think it should turnout alright. Tastes very chocolately at the moment after a couple of days in the FV.

So brew day went well enough. After the huge drop in strike water temp last time, I started recirculating via the pump as I got close to strike temp to ensure there were no cold spots in the HLT. I think I found part of the problem, as the temp dropped considerably. I don't have my notes handy but it was in the order 6-10 degrees after starting to recirc. So I think I have a cold pool of water sitting in the bottom of my HLT, combined with some heat loss from the plumbing between the HLT and MT, this probably accounts for the majority of the strike water temp drop I got last time? The recirc worked well as it equalised the temp in the HLT and brought the pump and hoses up to temp before I transferred the strike water.

So of course this time I overshot the temperature! But had a few liters of cold water on hand to stir in to adjust.

The only other problem was I forgot to add the rolled oats I had included in my recipe, it was half way through the mash when I remembered so I added them in anyway.

Hit OG spot on again @ 1062 and got 24.5L into the FV(aiming for 24L) with Estimated Mash Efficiency of 80.7% using a 2 step batch sparge.

Very happy with the system so far. Cant wait to get the control panel sorted to make the element/pump switching much easier, and tune in the strike water temp some more, otherwise its working great!


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## JaseH (13/5/12)

So I've got a few brews down on the rig now and this week finally got the control panel sorted. I've also added some sight glasses to the HLT and Kettle. This thing is a joy to brew on now.

Heating/recirculating the strike water in the HLT





Using an STC1000 for HLT temp control & PWM voltage dial for the Kettle. The bottom right red switch is tagged for future RIMS addition. There is also an over-ride for STC1000 on the HLT elements, so I can bypass the temp control. I only have a single pump but have an extra switch(AUX1) for expansion to a second pump at some stage.





The back of the control box





Transferring 1st batch sparge infusion from the MT to the Kettle





Sight glasses are the way to go!





During the boil, I've removed the MT to wash it out.





MT cleaned and returned. Kettle still boiling. I'm recirculating warm sanitising solution from the HLT through the plate chiller to sanitise it prior to chilling the wort.





Chilling the wort into the fermenter





21 C into the fermenter, the whole kettle(27L into fermenter) chillled in under 5min.


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## Yob (13/5/12)

Dat is sum sweet mu'fukn sheeeat..

Serious drool factor


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## spog (13/5/12)

nice setup,gives me ideas for mine,going down the path of electric biab ,brew in a basket/st.......cheers........spog.......... setups so i can sort my system ouubstituting a smaller pot inside a larger pot rather than a bag,its the control system that has my intrerest so looking at different


Frothie said:


> So I've got a few brews down on the rig now and this week finally got the control panel sorted. I've also added some sight glasses to the HLT and Kettle. This thing is a joy to brew on now.
> 
> Heating/recirculating the strike water in the HLT
> 
> ...


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## Wolfy (13/5/12)

Frothie said:


> So I've got a few brews down on the rig now and this week finally got the control panel sorted. I've also added some sight glasses to the HLT and Kettle. This thing is a joy to brew on now.
> ...
> Sight glasses are the way to go!
> ...
> ...


Looks great, hows the beer it makes? 

After having my urn-sight-glass clog up with break material and hop debris, I was not planning to put one on my new kettle, do you have an easy way to remove/clean yours?

Was that 5mins to drain the kettle via the plate chiller without pumping it?


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## JaseH (13/5/12)

Wolfy said:


> Looks great, hows the beer it makes?
> 
> After having my urn-sight-glass clog up with break material and hop debris, I was not planning to put one on my new kettle, do you have an easy way to remove/clean yours?
> 
> Was that 5mins to drain the kettle via the plate chiller without pumping it?



It spits out some pretty good beer! No problem with the equipment - the operator still needs a bit of fine tuning <_< 

After piss farting around with some ploycarbonate tube and trying to find some economical fittings to make my own sight glass for the HLT, I decided to just order one from Brew Hardware in the states. Then of course whilst I was ordering one, I might as well order 2 and fit one to the Kettle. He also sells a specially designed brush for cleaning the sight glass, so I grabbed one of them as well. They can be unscrewed and removed if needed. They are open at the top so I just squirt some water down it when cleaning and didnt appear to have trouble with gunk today, I'll see how they go. I also use a hop spider due to the plate chiller so dont get any large particles floating around in the boil.

Yeah I gravity drain/syphon the wort through the chiller, it runs quite quickly. I could probably put a valve on the outlet and throttle it back to pick up another degree or two but its close enough for me at the moment.


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## mxd (14/5/12)

Frothie said:


> So I've got a few brews down on the rig now and this week finally got the control panel sorted. I've also added some sight glasses to the HLT and Kettle. This thing is a joy to brew on now.
> 
> Heating/recirculating the strike water in the HLT
> 
> ...



looks great.


I need to get off my FA and do my control panel, do have some pics on the inside ? 

Did you have any issues building it ?

thanks


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## JaseH (14/5/12)

mxd said:


> looks great.
> 
> 
> I need to get off my FA and do my control panel, do have some pics on the inside ?
> ...



Don't actually have any pics of the inside sorry. I tried to keep it as neat as possible but its still a bit of a birds nest in there! This was my half-arsed wiring diagram I put together to help me wire it up if it helps. Its really pretty basic.

The only issues I had building it were waiting for the switches to arrive! I ordered the illuminated rocker switches from RS Components and a couple of them took about 2months to finally arrive. I work with a bunch of test & measurement technicians so after I built it they checked it out for me and safety tested it so I was confident it was good to go.

Its the best enhancement to the system so far. Makes the brewing process a lot smoother!


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## cooraf (15/5/12)

awesome rig. 

where did you get the variable switch for the 'Kettle (v)' from?


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## JaseH (15/5/12)

cooraf said:


> awesome rig.
> 
> where did you get the variable switch for the 'Kettle (v)' from?



It's this one. Works a treat :icon_cheers:


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## cooraf (15/5/12)

Frothie said:


> It's this one. Works a treat :icon_cheers:



Thanks,

Designing my HERMS control panel at the moment and that will work a treat... been wondering how/where to get a regulator for my elements.


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## Maheel (16/5/12)

where did you get the red / green switches 

are they water proof ?

thanks


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## JaseH (16/5/12)

Maheel said:


> where did you get the red / green switches
> 
> are they water proof ?
> 
> thanks



I ordered these ones from RS Components. But a warning, the 6-8 working days they quote to supply from the UK turned into over 2 months for the green ones! The orange and red arrived within a couple of weeks.

They aren't water proof but you can get water proof boots for them cheaply. I haven't bothered with the boots yet, if it looks like I'm going to have problems with the control box getting wet I can always retro fit them.


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## Wolfy (16/5/12)

Maheel said:


> where did you get the red / green switches


There are lots all over Ebay, @ couple $ or 2 each, start with a "_rocker switch red_" or "_rocker switch green_" search, then choose the switch type, voltage/amp rating and shape/style you want.


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## cooraf (17/5/12)

Where did you get your box from? Whats the dimensions???


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## Maheel (17/5/12)

hey thanks Wolfy ebay and "rocker switch red" works very well 

i was just searching switch and getting to many hits... 

cheers


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## JaseH (17/5/12)

cooraf said:


> Where did you get your box from? Whats the dimensions???



I was lucky with the box - found it in a pallet of electrical junk at work, so cost me nothing!

Its a Clipsal box marked "No 265/7" and is 300mm x 200mm x 152mm


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