4V electric herms build

[fishy]

Hi guys,

Apologies straight away for the wall of text, but had to get a few things down here.

Been around the site for a while but have finally got around to getting my rig together and had my first brew on it on the Saturday just gone - so I thought that qualified me to finally post about it!

Spent about 12 months in the planning and design of it, slowly acquiring parts as budget would permit, and in the process tricking myself about what the overall cost was.

Originally planned to do it on the cheap, little brown pumps runnings it with STC-1000 as temp control etc...but as I began the slow process of saving up and designing, I figured that an extra 6 months would be worth the extra quality of components and as such began to upgrade the design as I went – PID's, a large magnetic driven pump etc.

A couple of you might have seen me post about my overheating chugger pump in the other thread, and as you saw there I got it replaced last week and all is well, pump performed flawlessly - brew went off without (much of...) a hitch.

I'll chuck a couple of the build photos but there's not really much to see that you wouldn't have already.

Photos here are mostly of the control panel, which going on someone's post in a thread somewhere (which I now can't remember), was built in a Bunnings first aid box. The box worked well enough but is very soft aluminium/tin? and that sometimes has its issues. Otherwise a pretty economical option and a tonne of space.

I really wanted the control panel to have a logical layout and design that was semi-intuitive. The reason being that if I had built it without a graphic overlay and just labels, I would still very easily know what switch did what and where my power was going etc. BUT, if I wanted to try and teach someone how to use the rig, or at least help them understand, a graphical overlay would at least make things slightly clearer.
I saw the control panel of time4another1 on youtube, and like the idea of having the vessels and flows shown. Mine is more cartoony than professional but I'm happy enough with it.

Electrics were kept very simple so I didn't have to use any special wiring or upgrade existing outlets etc. I am using two seperate 10A circuits, as you can maybe see on the panel, the red leg is one and the purple leg is the other (you'll get a better look with the photos further down). I've got 1 keg king element in the HLT, a K-mart element in the HEX vessel, and 2 keg king elements in the boil kettle.

I can switch the two to where I need, whether it's HEX and HLT running at the same time, or HEX and BK element 1, or finally in the boil both BK elements. Again, nothing new but practical enough for my needs (no back to back batches...yet).

The back of the control panel is a bit busy, and here is where I had my only issue with my last brew day. I made all of my probes detachable, and this ended up working against me for one main reason – my soldering/joining skills aren't up to snuff and the PT100 probes really do require very clean and solid connections. I would calibrate my PT-100 probes and then mid mash test etc they would start jumping around the place.
I would switch the panel on and off and they would all go out by up to 20 degrees of each other, a real pain.

I simply didn't make clean enough connections I'm guessing so I've ordered a few more probes off the bay and will just be hard wiring them straight into the PID's, no mucking around this time.
Completed my brew on the weekend with my trusty BBQ thermometer and my cheapie chinese without too much issue, so crisis averted this time...

EDIT: Should mention that weird photo of the white bubbling paint is the first aid box with paint stripper doing it's thing!!

 

[fishy]

The only thing I really regret about my build was cutting the tops out before I knew I wanted bottom draining vessels. That meant going through the pain (for me anyway) of pulling dimples and soft soldering in some 1/2" couplings. Some people make it look really easy but I really struggled with this.
To make matters worse, I decided that I wanted my mash tun to be clean in place (ish) and as such required a larger than 1/2" opening on the bottom.
So as you'll see, my mash tun has a monstrosity attached to the bottom which is as follows:

1.5" coupling to 40mm aluminium camlock male, joined then with aluminium camlock female to 1.5" to 1/2" reducer to 1/2" elbow and then threaded pipe. Was a bit of a pain but I guess it was worth it!?

The HLT and BK just have 1/2" couplings with a detachable camlock setup which is the elbow, threaded pipe and ball valve. So I can properly drain the kettle fully as well as the ball valve assembly.

 

[fishy]

Pictured is the HEX which is just the BigW 19L pot with k-mart element on the bottom. Insulated the pot with camping mat and some aluminium foil tape. Pot filled with probably 15L of water and maintains temps well but ramp times are in the slower end of the spectrum - takes approx 18-19 minutes to go from 67c to 78c.
Has a 25' stainless immersion chiller that I bought from NY brew supply a while back and is what I used in my old setup as my immersion chiller.
HEX has a 60 RPM stir motor running through the top, just to agitate the water enough, and in my (in no way scientific or quantifiable) testing, increased the ramping rate by probably 20%.

I am probably going to build a HERMIT PVC style rocket soon, and chuck a bunch of copper in it.

Shot of the back of the panel, with those damned probe connections haha.

System uses a brown pump for moving water from HLT to MLT and then a Chugger pump to mash and transfer to the boil kettle.
Camlock fittings all round.

Photo in there as well of the garden hose into my HLT, and below it if you look hard there;s a water manifold of sorts, cheap bunnings 4 way hose connector with little valves. One goes straight into HLT, one wraps around straight into plate chiller and then I've got one that goes into a spray gun hose for cleaning up around the rig and in the vessels.


EDIT: Should quickly mention the couple of oddities on the control panel. Firstly, the STC-1000 labelled as "HEX temp monitor/limiter" is switching the HEX element before it gets to the PID - This way it either acts as a fail-safe in case I accidentally have the HEX switched on without the pump, I can set it to say 85c, and I won't have a boiling HEX,
OR
it can act as a limiter when ramping the mash temp, so that I can be sure that the mash never is too hot (if the arguments about denaturing the mash at high temps etc are true) - Ie. set it to 80c or whatever.

Also theres a green switch to the left that was going to switch between two PT100 temp probes, one at the HLT and then one connected to the plate chiller WORT OUT port. Abandoned that due to poor readings and the PID was getting confused.

 

[fishy]

Couple of shots of brew day, nothing much there really. First batch was Dr Smurto's Golden Ale which I'd never brewed until now! Smelling so good in the fermenters!!

Only things I haven't really mentioned are the plate chiller, which is this one http://brewhardware.com/plate-chiller . I wasn't originally planning on getting my pump or plate chiller from brewhardware.com but i was pricing up my camlocks and sight glasses from there and to add the pump and the plate chiller was only marginally more (extra $20-$30 IIRC) on the shipping so I impulse bought them both with the rest of the gear.

The plate chiller is a beast and maybe slightly overkill with my batch size but I'm loving the speed of the chilling regardless. I use a hopsock that I bought from Ross so there's no issue with clogging or anything like that.

Anyway that's about it, any questions fire away!

Just happy to have it operational at the very least.

Cheers

Fishy.

 

[mxd]

well done, love the control panel

 

[OzPaleAle]

+1 for the control panel, it looks great!

 

[fishy]

Cheers mxd and OzPaleAle

It was looking mighty suss after I had drilled the holes and taken the overlay off!

Planned on getting a sign shop to do a nice vinyl adhesive printout of it but they were going to charge me $90 (its only A3) so I just got it printed out and laminated at officeworks for the grand total of $4/copy! Got a few copies made, one to drill through etc, one spare etc. Turned out better than I thought!

 

[Yob]

jeebuz there are some drool worthy controllers coming out of the woods lately..

Fantastic job. :beerbang:

 

[MastersBrewery]

Really nice job, love the laminated overlay idea, works well.

 

[fishy]

Lost a couple of piccys in an edit that timed out.
Put em back here.

EDIT: Annndddddd a shot of my wiring to make everybody feel very good about themselves...

 

[Grainer]

great looking front panel on your control box

 

[Dan Pratt]

that control panel is awesome, hope the beer turns out awesome too B)

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

jeebuz there are some drool worthy controllers coming out of the woods lately..

Fantastic job. :beerbang:

I wonder why you need so much to control so little, it has me puzzled .
Oh well its bling :super:
Nev

 

[Camo6]

I read this thread and walked outside and kicked my brew rig. Damn my covetous eyes.

Well done mate looks fantastic. I've got a mate who flies passenger jets who'd struggle with that control panel.

 

[fishy]

Haha I'm hoping the beer turns out well also!

Nev it is all a bit much but I decided as I was taking my time, extending the time i had to save up, then why not have a PID for each vessel. That way I can set alarms for temperatures and have a good idea of what my vessels are doing. Also means I can manually throttle one of the boil kettle elements through the PID to control the boil better. Overall just have a better idea of what's going on - all for around a hundred bucks extra when all said and done (and a bunch more hours wiring haha!!!)

I feel like the graphic makes it look a lot busier than it is, not much more to it than most (some?) of the control panels around here!

Anyway the proof will hopefully be in some drinkable beers so that's the focus from now on! A lot of recipes on the to-brew list I can assure you!

Cheers

Fishy

 

[fishy]

PS. Camo, don't know why you'd be kicking your rig - just checked out your gallery, that rig is niceeee...very schmick build! I'm going to get a taller, skinnier HEX built permanently onto the stand like yours at some stage.

Cheers

Fishy

 

[Truman42]

Awesome stuff Fishy. You must be a real gadget man.

With your STC to stop the herms over boiling if flow stops, I considered buying one of those flow control valves that are operated my a magentic reed switch. The idea was to put it in line between the herms outlet and the MLT and connect the wiring to the output from the pid to the SSR.

So if I had to turn off the pump or flow stopped for whatever reason the switch would isolate the herms and stop it over boiling. I didnt bother in the end as my RTD probe Im using with my PID is longer than the STC probe I used to use. It reaches down into the coil so the herms wont overboil.

 

[fishy]

Thanks Truman!
I feel like this hobby has turned me into more of a gadget man. That flow control valve sounds very cool, first time I've heard of something like that.

I figured that at least having some kind of re-assurance that my HEX wouldn't boil unattended was important, as well as being able to ensure it didn't get too hot during ramp mashes or mashing out - depending on what everyone believes RE denaturing of mash enzymes in very hot water (I'm of the opinion that it's not a big deal, citing step mashes of boiling water etc as the main proof, but figured I could justify it with that as a reason anyway).

Even just being able to see what temperature the HEX is at while I'm prepping the brew day is a nice feature, get it in the ball park before adding the grain and recirculating.

It will be more important when I re-do my HEX into the HERMIT style rocket, cause as it stands now, with the 15 litres or so never runs away from the PID set temp, it tracks a steady 2-3 degrees above and then settles once it reaches the set temp. (Only just finished the rig and already talking upgrades - I'm in trouble!)

Guess I just wanted to cover all bases first time round and have no regrets later on, hence why there is shit going on everywhere haha!

 

[MCHammo]

Lost a couple of piccys in an edit that timed out.
Put em back here.

EDIT: Annndddddd a shot of my wiring to make everybody feel very good about themselves...

Wiring.... Cannot. Be. Unseen...

Nice job on the rig, but that wiring will give me nightmares for a long time! Then again, I may be the only one here who would consider some conduit/dune tube to route all my wiring. When I get to that stage. BIAB is sufficient for now. *starts designing a control board*

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Haha I'm hoping the beer turns out well also!

Nev it is all a bit much but I decided as I was taking my time, extending the time i had to save up, then why not have a PID for each vessel. That way I can set alarms for temperatures and have a good idea of what my vessels are doing. Also means I can manually throttle one of the boil kettle elements through the PID to control the boil better. Overall just have a better idea of what's going on - all for around a hundred bucks extra when all said and done (and a bunch more hours wiring haha!!!)

I feel like the graphic makes it look a lot busier than it is, not much more to it than most (some?) of the control panels around here!

Anyway the proof will hopefully be in some drinkable beers so that's the focus from now on! A lot of recipes on the to-brew list I can assure you!

Cheers

Fishy

Could you talk us thru how the overlay was done ? Easy, Exy ?
I have a bigger project that may be enhance by that.
Nev