Arnie's Brew Rig

[ArnieW]

The machine has been a 'work in progress' for about the last 6 years, and is now well into incarnation #5. We are having some beer enthusiasts over this Sunday for a bbq, so took the time to tidy up the RIMS rig for a bit of show and tell.




Top left is the mash tun, to the right is the kettle, and bottom left is the hot liquor tun. On the bottom right at the front is a march pump, and towards the back on the right, on the pump out side is a home-made copper heat chamber. Brew capacity is 42 litres into the fermenters. The rig is all electric and is controlled by a PC. The grey box at mid level to the left is the control and interface circuitry - the 240V (solid state) switching is in another box that is pretty much out of the picture, but on the left end towards the bottom.

Version 6 is well under way, with all-new control gear and an industrial stainless rack.

In between times I occasionally get to brew with it

cheers, Arnie

 

[fixa]

Nice setup. So is there any user intervention required all going well?

 

[warrenlw63]

G'day Arnie.

When do we get to see sneak pics version 6? Mate I've been sitting here in anticipation for a few months... Certainly hope we don't have to wait until you hit. Version 6.1. :lol:

I wanna see that rack you scrounged in action. :beerbang:

Warren -

 

[yardy]

nice unit Arnie, envious.

 

[Peter Wadey]

Arnie,
A few months back in a related post you wrote of a new style heat exchanger.

Could you please provide more details on this part of Herman's anatomy.

Rgds,
Peter

 

[ArnieW]

Nice setup. So is there any user intervention required all going well?

Hi fixa,

I anticipate #6 will be pretty much a self-contained creature. Part of the reason Warren is getting anxious waiting is that I'm doing a lot of R&D. #5 was built to a critical time schedule - ie. before we ran out of beer. :chug:

The level sensors had a design flaw, so that means user intervention is required when filling, sparging etc. The auto controlled valves have had as many versions as I've had hot dinners (ok, not quite that many), and I've only just built a model I'm totally happy with. Doing some final testing on that at the moment. So configuration changes need manual assistance.

The auto part that has been working well for a long time now is mash temp regulation including steps, timing of boil, hop addtions etc. The other benefit of the PC is that it steps us through the process so that we don't forget some of the fiddly things like water treatment. It is a quality control assistant.

cheers, Arnie

 

[ArnieW]

G'day Arnie.

When do we get to see sneak pics version 6? Mate I've been sitting here in anticipation for a few months... Certainly hope we don't have to wait until you hit. Version 6.1. :lol:

I wanna see that rack you scrounged in action. :beerbang:

Warren -

Hi Warren,

the rack is sitting in the shed waiting for all the parts to come together. This is what it looked like recently:



and this is what the control gear on the rack is like:



It gets closer week by week. Still a fair bit of work to do on the control side - but doing a double-batch this weekend to make sure the beer stocks are high. I still enjoy that side of the research too

Arnie

 

[ArnieW]

Arnie,
A few months back in a related post you wrote of a new style heat exchanger.

Could you please provide more details on this part of Herman's anatomy.

Rgds,
Peter

Hi Peter,

It is a heat chamber rather than exchanger, so the machine has technically become a RIMS where it started life out as a HERMS.

Basically we made a copper chamber out of a 2" water pipe with end caps and a bit of extra plumbing and whatnot to fit a 3600W heating element inside.



You don't need an element this big for maintaining and stepping mash temps, and you can find many USA references to people 'scorching' their mash liquor. During the mash, the element will run at about 20% power via a solid state relay.

The advantage of having the power is that we can actually heat sparge and strike liquor on demand if we wish. We only really do this when doing a double batch as it works out quicker than using our HLT. The other advantage is that we can heat mash liquor above 80 deg C before it is pumped into the kettle which means it helps to sanitise the counter-flow chiller.

cheers, Arnie

 

[warrenlw63]

I still enjoy that side of the research too

Arnie

As you should. :lol:

Warren -

 

[sqyre]

Arnie thats brilliant mate! :super:

i'm guess ing the element is out of a hot water system??? i found some when searching for elements to make a boiler and came across the long thin elements..i thought to myself at the time "How the hell could i use one of them to make up a boiler?"

Hello Arnie... Thinking out side the square,hexagon and pentagram..



Love your work..

 

[ArnieW]

It seems about time to re-kindle this thread.

I've actually been doing a bit of work on the new rig lately (rather than drinking its spoils, that is). I'm aiming to have it fully up and running to celebrate batch #200! Not sure how many AG batches - about 170 I think.

Here is a pic of its current form:


Anyway, rather than clutter up this forum with nauseating details, I've discovered the art of blogging. It has helped me 'journal' what is going on and think through some design issues. So while I'm doing it so that I can remember what I did (or was planning to do), it might be of interest to others, so I thought I'd let you know the link.

check out: http://hermanmachine.spaces.live.com/

By the way, the blog space is free (apart from a few ads that don't seem to distract me)

cheers, Arnie

 

[Cortez The Killer]

That's a sweet setup!

Cheers

 

[ArnieW]

Arnie,

It looks like you can launch a missile from your control gear.

Very impressive.
Wally

Yep, that's a missile launcher button :lol:
OK, it might be a quick kill switch but that's not nearly as exciting.