Braumeister NEXTGEN Build

[Cavemanbrew]

You a legend, off to the shed now, will post out come give me five.
Oh and thanks for sharing the system Steve

 

[Cavemanbrew]

Jumper in, soldering iron heating!
Jumper soldered in and..........

Thanks Steve (legend champ you chose)

 

[Cavemanbrew]

Hi all,

can any one help with a manual on how to drive it now?

 

[djar007]

http://db.tt/cGaHmQep

 

[Cavemanbrew]

Thank you!!!!!

 

[angus_grant]

Well I finally got some solid time to work on my beer system. I purchased a pump about a month ago and hooked up some bits I purchased about a year ago.

So I have to finish off the malt pipe and then about 5 hours of software work and I should be able to crank out some beers.

A shot of the camlocks underneath the pot. The central camlock will be the pathway for the recirculating wort to enter into the system.

The chugger pump with the camlocks hooked up. The outlet of the pump has the ball valve to throttle down the flow rate if necessary.

The chugger pump hooked up to the camlocks. I will shorten the silicon tubing up before using the system to minimise heat loss.

I will also look at insulating the tubing as well to minimise heat loss.

A close-up of the central camlock and the very dodgy pine stand I whacked out in about 30 minutes.

A full shot of the system.

Please disregard the dodgy pine stand. I will be getting a friend to weld up a metal stand and add a touch of professionalism to the system. he he

I have done a leak test with the cam locks joined straight together and the only leaking was from the main ball-valve. I had run out of thread tape but thought I would run the leak test anyway. Off to Bunnings for some thread tape during the week and finalise the plumbing after another leak test.

Some really good progress this week.

Now onto the malt pipe which is going to be the challenge of the entire system. The sealing and also the bottom filter locating are going to be the key challenges for this phase.

 

[aamcle]

Afternoon All.

I'm working through options for a small build of my own, I think I'm going to have a issue with making the filter plates.

I only have simple machine tools, jigsaw, grind stone, disk cutter/angle grinder and a press drill.

So what is the best way to proceed?

2mm plate is very costly in the uk and would be hard for the to work, what alternatives are there?

Any help much appreciated.

Aamcle

PS I'm on holiday so I may be slow to reply

 

[MastersBrewery]

One of the guys did drill out 2mm plate, but lets face it that's a little OCD. This place http://www.johnsonscreens.com/content/maltingbrewing is international and has a branch in the UK haven't checked pricing with them yet though the false bottoms available from the states would probably make their price look reasonable.

 

[lael]

Buy the perf stainless... I drilled out some plates. They work great, but not worth at all work.

 

[aamcle]

Any way of fabricating something using stainless mesh?

I'm trying to stay away from plate steel cause it's hard to work and costly.

I've read through all 60+ pages of this thread and I'm still not sure I've seen coil and mesh used as well as perf plate.

Thanks. Aamcle

 

[Cavemanbrew]

G-day any one know where I can get another kit from, a f$@£^g contractor knocked it off the one i posted pictures of from work yesterday avo. Trying to get CCTV

 

[breakbeer]

The chugger pump hooked up to the camlocks. I will shorten the silicon tubing up before using the system to minimise heat loss.
I will also look at insulating the tubing as well to minimise heat loss.

Looks awesome Angus!

I would definitely shorten the tubing but I personally wouldn't bother with insulating them, for a couple of reasons. (I insulated mine & have since ripped it all off)

Your control panel/PID will maintain temps VERY accurately & in a way compensates for heat loss. You could wrap the tubes in an ice blanket & the PID will still maintain your mash temp

The kind of foam tube insulation I used gets mouldy very easily unless you fully remove it once it gets wet & sit it in the sun

just my 2c

 

[angus_grant]

Looks awesome Angus!

I would definitely shorten the tubing but I personally wouldn't bother with insulating them, for a couple of reasons. (I insulated mine & have since ripped it all off)

Your control panel/PID will maintain temps VERY accurately & in a way compensates for heat loss. You could wrap the tubes in an ice blanket & the PID will still maintain your mash temp

The kind of foam tube insulation I used gets mouldy very easily unless you fully remove it once it gets wet & sit it in the sun

just my 2c

Makes sense as I have been BIAB'ing and recirculating with silicon tubing from the ball valve and up into the top of the pot via outside. Mash temps have been fairly accurate so maybe I won't bother with the insulation unless the 1st brew goes haywire.

 

[Malted]

Any way of fabricating something using stainless mesh?

I'm trying to stay away from plate steel cause it's hard to work and costly.

I've read through all 60+ pages of this thread and I'm still not sure I've seen coil and mesh used as well as perf plate.

Thanks. Aamcle

The major issue is you don't want the filter plate to bend and allow the grain through. To get mesh thick enough not to bend, it generally has larger holes in it. This is the same problem faced with perforated stainless plate. The original Speidel design is to use a thicker perforated plate with large holes in it and then some fine stainless mesh that is quite thin but is supported by the perforated plate. Some folks making their own brew vessel have used thin mesh that has a support frame of some sort. At any rate it will require some fiddling.

Perhaps you don't have to drill holes in the filter plate? Some folks (particularly those making false bottoms for 3 vessel breweries) have cut thin slots into plate stainless using a thin SS cutting disk on an angle grinder.

Generally perforated sheet SS is only available in large pieces unless you get lucky and find someone with some offcuts. Flat sheet SS is usually available in smaller pieces and is often sold by weight instead of size - it can be cheaper in that way.
I have not tried to purchase SS mesh but the quotes I have got are for very large pieces and they are not interested in selling small bits. Plain flat sheet might not be the expensive beast you think it is, relatively speaking.

 

[aamcle]

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into cutting slots in a plate.

Is 2mm thick enough for the top plate? Oh and the bottom plate how thick should that be?

Many thanks. Aamcle

 

[lael]

2mm is what the brau uses (malted posted the specs from his in this thread a while back). It is ideal. Thinner than that and they have been known to bend. The key is getting the crush of your grain right - too fine and it clogs up, and the pressure on the plates from the pump is suprisingly powerful. I have 1.5mm stainless, top plate is 10mm holes i drilled in it. The plate took a dome shape from the drilling, and I've got bars from a bain marie as re-inforcing. On one brew the (more powder in the crush than there should have been and pushing the capacity limits of the machine) the pressure actually flipped the disc dome the other way and bent the reinforcing bars... so if you can get 2mm thick, I would. I don't think the bottom plate is as important as the water just passes through it and then the pressure pushes up against the top plate. But... if you are getting 2mm for the top... you might as well...

 

[notung]

The brew moth awakened for the first time through the week, meaning that I've finally broken through to a testing/fine tuning stage on this project. It's been a long time in the making so far. Here are some pictures:

The brew moth. Picture a plywood box exoskeleton and expander foam insulated cavity. To finish I am planning to pyrograph the brew moth design on the plywood cladding.

Brew moth controller front, with lcd displaying temp reading of 4095degC. I've asked for help on that issue in another thread. Fascia panel printed by Superoo. Thanks again mate, I love it.

Private areas of the brew moth. Element terminals visible inside die-cast sealed aluminium box. Little brown pump outlets up through central fitting. Inlet to pump is visible on right hand side. Temp sensor probe is at 4 o'clock, wired to 3 pin computer fan connectors so probe could be removed without cutting wire (small hole for temp probe fitting). The plumbing arrangements may change a little. Goodness knows I may well need to upgrade the pump. We'll just wait and see how that all goes.

 

[djar007]

That is a behemoth. Really cool mate. Cant wait to see it pumping.

 

[Edak]

Notung that looks the goods, great idea for the stand. I hope it remains easy to clean. Yeah the pump will probably fail but use it as much as you can because you have it.
Do you have a good earth connection to the pot? Don't forget this important detail.

 

[notung]

Thanks edak,

I believe the earth connection is pretty good, although I have not powered up the element yet. You can see the earth wire in the last photo, inside the diecast aluminium sealed box. It is connected to one of the element fastening screws (not the terminal) underneath the nut. In your opinion, have I earthed the whole pot by doing so?

I believe cleaning should be easy once the whole system has its outer plywood cladding. It'll be finished with something to make it a little more wort-proof too. Still working that bit out though...