Brew in a Basket - 82L pot with 56L malt pipe

[fdsaasdf]

Greetings AHBers,

After about 40 AG brews (mostly 3V double batches) the guy I usually brew with is moving interstate and taking most of the vessels and gear. I have a keggle, 3-ring burner, brewing bench on wheels and a couple of little brown pumps with a bunch of 1/2" stainless plumbing fittings.

I want to continue brewing 30-50L batches, and incrementally improve the setup to increase automation and control over time.

Drawing inspiration from the build details posted by enoch, takai and others I'm looking at a brew in a basket setup with an initial startup cost of under $300.

The plan for now

• Aquire some cheap ebay 82L + 56L pots (~$140 posted), and use the 56L pot as a malt pipe by cutting slits in the base of the pot and sitting it a couple of inches off the base of the larger pot with stainless bolts (to keep space from the gas-fired base, and leave space for a future element).
  
• Buy a pair of 30cm hop bazookas (~$30 posted) using a stainless tee and elbows to run in parallel for the kettle.
  
• Re-use my keggle as a HLT with a new keg king element (~$40) controlled by a spare STC-1000, with a view to making a HERMS in future.
  
• Buy some stainless ball valves, tees, barbs and fittings (~$70) to mount one LBP under the 82L pot bottom drain to allow mash recirculation - also to allow easy expansion to the future HERMS.
  
• Use a block and tackle to lift the malt pipe as I brew under the house and have plenty of strong beams to attach to.

Future expansion

• HERMS/HLT in a single vessel (most likely with 3-5m of copper pipe in an old 9L aluminium pot) - small volume HLT should be fine with minimal sparge
• Grab a cheap electric winch/hoist from ebay.
• Upgrade LBP to a mag-drive pump (if I burn out the LBPs due to sediment etc)
• Electronic monitoring (and eventually control) of temperature
• Replace/augment gas burner with ULWD element
• Automation of ball valves (unlikely based on current costs)

I've got plenty of cubes to ferment out at present so this build will probably take a couple of months including shipping time of the fittings from china, but if any of you have thoughts or suggestions based on your past experience it would be most welcome!


Cheers :chug:

 

[Meddo]

Hey fdsaasdf, I've got three of the 38L versions of those pots and using one as a malt pipe and the other two as FVs. They're pretty flimsy, I'm not sure that I'd want to use one as the main vessel at that size although I think a few others on here have - they may be able to give you better feedback. They're certainly affordable though...

Mine is working well as a malt pipe although you need to leave a fair bit of metal around the legs when you're cutting in the slits - the base flexes pretty easily.

Cheap alternative to the winch - bit of cord and a few snap hooks / eye bolts etc and you're set (see my pic below):
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2PCS-1-1-2-37mm-DOUBLE-Wheel-Pulley-Block-Swivel-Snatch-Rope-Hanging-Wire-HD-/271852841830?hash=item3f4bb12b66&_uhb=1

Good luck with the build!

 

[Bribie G]

What wattage would you be looking at? 2400 is just adequate for a Crown or Birko 40L, you'd need a couple of elements I guess then you'd need to look at whether that would trip your domestic circuit.

Do you have a 15 amp circuit?

 

[fdsaasdf]

Thanks for the advice Meddo. Your rig looks great, I think I'll copy the bracing you've used to lift the malt pipe

I'll be sure to leave plenty of un-slotted space around the malt pipe legs. I was planning to leave a cross-shaped area of the base untouched too to keep enough integrity in the base.

 

[fdsaasdf]

What wattage would you be looking at? 2400 is just adequate for a Crown or Birko 40L, you'd need a couple of elements I guess then you'd need to look at whether that would trip your domestic circuit.

Do you have a 15 amp circuit?

Thanks Bribie G, I will be starting with a 3-ring burner underneath the pot and 2400W element in the HLT.

Down the track I would like to get at least one of the 4500W / 5500W Camco elements. No 15A points available however with an extension lead I can run my brewhouse off 2x10A circuits if needed.

 

[Bribie G]

2 circuits works well, I occasionally run my urn with an additional over the side 2200 W immersion heater on an extension lead.

 

[fdsaasdf]

Yeah, it's been pretty handy so far. We often have another mate around doing BIAB with a Crown urn, so I run an extension lead for him to brew alongside the big 3V rig.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Here's a possible alternative to slotting the base:

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Lauter_4_ proto

After a few false starts* I think I have finally worked out a cheap, easy way to make a proper slotted bottom. I put a prototype together a couple of days ago, the first practical run is tomorrow (I hope).


* Including making one from carbon fibre which looked as though it would work but didn't.

 

[fdsaasdf]

May I suggest an alternative to slotting the base?

Absolutely! I want one already Are the slats aluminium or stainless? Do you have a build thread somewhere?

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

The prototype is aluminium: I got tired of throwing away expensive mangled stainless from the previous trials. It's basically $25 worth of aluminium flat bar and some food grade silicone.

If this one works I'll think about making the next one stainless but I'm also considering going up in size so it will need to be 375mm (this one is 315).

If it works I'll post a build thread. If it doesn't, I'll tell you it didn't.

 

[JDW81]

I'm looking at doing something similar.

I'm moving house soon, and the place I'm going to is a fair bit smaller, and although I love my 3v RIMs system, I'll struggle for space (the upside is I'm moving to a place that has a massive wood fired pizza oven)

I just need to decide which vessel to keep (115L vs 70L), and work out what size malt pipe to make.

Stand by all, there might be some nice gear coming up for sale soon!!!

 

[Bribie G]

Better sooner than lauter.


OK couldn't resist that one, mod me .. mod me... :lol:

 

[fdsaasdf]

The prototype is aluminium: I got tired of throwing away expensive mangled stainless from the previous trials. It's basically $25 worth of aluminium flat bar and some food grade silicone.

If this one works I'll think about making the next one stainless but I'm also considering going up in size so it will need to be 375mm (this one is 315).

If it works I'll post a build thread. If it doesn't, I'll tell you it didn't.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out. As keen as I am to get building now I've got at least a month before all the bits arrive and I start drilling.

 

[fdsaasdf]

I just had an idea that could get my HERMS to be installed shortly after the initial build... In the process of cleaning out my shed today I found an old corny that I've never used - someone sold it to me with a rusty base with a lump of welded slag underneath (I was young, foolish and in a hurry so didn't realise until after the transaction). The lid, dip tube and poppets have since found homes on my other kegs.

By the looks of it a 3/4" diameter hole in the base of the corny would completely eliminate the rusty area, so I could use this hole for a bottom drain or element mount in a combined HERMS/HLT. To go down this path I would just need to purchase an element and copper for a coil.

 

[buckerooni]

one thing to consider with your pot sizes, if you want to allow room for adding an element look into how much room you actually need so the element has enough room between the base of the outer pot and the base of the grain basket. This depends on how you do your recirc, if you do it through the lid of your pot then this won't be an issue.

As I want to run recirc through the side of my pot, I ran into an issue with a 100L pot (cheeky peak) and the 56L pot/ grain basket (cheap ebay) as my elements needed 90mm. See http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/93631-cutting-the-lip-off-a-54l-pot-to-reduce-height-to-use-as-1v-grain-basket/

This is with the 38L pot in the 100L with 90mm element clearance and enough room for sidewall recirc :

Part of my issue is running the silver soldered triclover element fittings which take up a bit more room as they need to be soldered on a flat sidewall, above the curve of the base. A bendable romar element would probably require less room.

The quality difference between the cheeky peak and cheapy ebay pots as mentioned is significant, but unsure if there's any real material benefit from the higher quality pot, apart from being, err..higher quality.

 

[fdsaasdf]

Thanks buckerooni, assuming the eBay seller's dimensions are close to correct I'll have about 80mm difference in height between pots, and I'm budgeting ~60mm to be able to install the bazookas and a future element or two under the malt pipe. I'm only intending to use screw-in fittings.

I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of measuring to get this exactly right when the pots turn up!

 

[Meddo]

Originally I built my 1V with a KK element but wanted more grunt so replaced it with two Romar 2400W elements (to run off two separate circuits, ~$85 each from memory) bent to spec. They didn't quite offset enough as received but I was able to adjust the bends a bit to sit them where they needed to be. If you end up needing additional clearance a similar bend as these but oriented with a 90 degree rotation would effectively lower the inner height of the elements.

 

[fdsaasdf]

Originally I built my 1V with a KK element but wanted more grunt so replaced it with two Romar 2400W elements (to run off two separate circuits, ~$85 each from memory) bent to spec. They didn't quite offset enough as received but I was able to adjust the bends a bit to sit them where they needed to be. If you end up needing additional clearance a similar bend as these but oriented with a 90 degree rotation would effectively lower the inner height of the elements.

Handy to know, thanks. Are those Romar elements ULWD? I haven't thought about using a KK element for boiling wort as I have read and heard about scorching issues.

 

[Meddo]

I haven't done the calculations but old mate at Romar said that they are ULWD and appropriate for brewing, and from eyeballing them they've got a lot more surface area than the KK version. I didn't have any scorching problems with the KK, I was just impatient about the time taken to ramp to boil...

 

[Matplat]

I use one of these:

http://www.stoveconnection.com.au/shop/index.php/store/hot-water/elements/kz24hq00.html

Has performed well enough for single batches, but I wouldn't mind 3600W to ramp quicker etc. The only time I had a problem with it was when the STC-1000 switched on with an empty pot! Since I replaced the element, there have been zero issues.