Brew Rig Options

[Jono_w]

Hey,
I'm putting together the parts I need to build a new all stainless steel automated brew setup.
I have these SS vats that I got at a very reasonable price. 100L brews is the goal..

The two 98L vats will have conicals welded to them to make two 130L fermenters.

I currently do half batch sparges in my 50L setup and it works great so Ill prob do the same, or maybe continuous sparge.
I'm thinking the 141L-HLT, 173L-Mash and the two 88 welded together to make a 172 L kettle.
What configuartion of these vats would you guys do? :huh:

 

[Jono_w]

Another question.
Are there any standards as to how much head space is needed for mash tun and fermenters?

 

[domonsura]

Personally I would make your HLT and the kettle equal sized vessels, and use the 141 litre vessel for your mashtun. It would give you more sparge water without a re-fill/re-heat, and I don't reckon you'll be able to utilise 172litres of mashtun without making your kettle much bigger.
So what I would do is use the 173l for your kettle (it also has a more appropriate 'form factor' for use as a kettle, wider means less boilover surge - easier to manage, but slightly more evaporation which I think is fine )
I'd use the 2 x 88l vessels (probably separately actually, might allow some different temperature settings and more versatility maybe ?) for HLT's. You could heat one while using the other......

and I would use the 141l as the mashtun.

Come to think of it, I wish I had those vessels...........

The fermenters, I would allow 20% of the height of the vessel as head space (being conservative here and allowing for vigorous krausen), the mashtun I would suggest that headspace is kept to a minimum, even so far as to use a insulated spacer to fill up excess headspace or mat to cover the mash if you do a mash that is significantly less that the volume of the tun.

Hope those suggestions help maybe?

edit: added more stuff

 

[Keifer]

Correct me if im wrong but i remember reading somewhere that some wheat beers can explode in an orgy of fermentation and need 33% headspace? Can't remember more than that...

Looks like your using gas? Have any probs with ventialtion in there (whereever there is, basement?).

 

[BOG]

What are you going to do with the old equipment you will have left over?

I wonder if she'd let me ...........



BOG

 

[Jono_w]

Thanks for the input guys.

domonsura:
Actually I also was thinking the 141L would be better as a mash tun. I thought Kettles were better being tall and thin to promote a rolling boil? I may have this round the wrong way?

Keifer:
The gear is set up in a large shed, thats the stairs to my room in the attic..
The setup in the background is all electric.
I'm thinking of using a 50KW instant gas hot water system that I have in a closed loop with a HLT to produce the Hot water and to heat the Mash using a Heat exchanger, It has electronic control so I can automate it quite easily and dont need exposed gas burners except on the kettle.

BOG:
Well I'm thinking of ratting some gear off it such as the automated valves and replacing them with manual ball valves and selling the whole thing. Not sure. Surley you could talk her into it, it's a great course, just think of all that beer...

Also having trouble finding someone to roll a conical for the fermenters, I have access to a folder to segment fold them but thats not as neat as rolling, also have access to rollers but the roller radius is 70mm
so the bottoms would have a 70mm hole. Anyone know someone able to roll or spin these?

Cheers

 

[Screwtop]

Hmmm, Noice!

Go the heat exchanger design, best to have a variable speed pump though, so the temp for mash and boil can be adjusted simply by varying the rate of flow through the heat exchanger. Heat exchangers provide gentle heating, the best, no caramelisation, which is why breweries use steam jacketed tube in tube heat exchangers.

 

[Jono_w]

Hmmm, Noice!

Go the heat exchanger design, best to have a variable speed pump though, so the temp for mash and boil can be adjusted simply by varying the rate of flow through the heat exchanger. Heat exchangers provide gentle heating, the best, no caramelisation, which is why breweries use steam jacketed tube in tube heat exchangers.

Screwtop:
My current setup uses a rims chamber , I have on occasions had stuck sparge and it takes only seconds to caramalise in the RIMS, thats the reason for the gentle heat exchanger option. I was thinking maybe just a valve bypassing the heat exchanger and keep the flowrate throught the mash the same.

 

[Yorg]

Hmmm, Noice!

Go the heat exchanger design, best to have a variable speed pump though, so the temp for mash and boil can be adjusted simply by varying the rate of flow through the heat exchanger. Heat exchangers provide gentle heating, the best, no caramelisation, which is why breweries use steam jacketed tube in tube heat exchangers.

This may be turning into a HERMS / RIMS dynamics discussion, but what the hell:
Humbly beg to differ with Screwtop on this one.
Don't vary rate of flow - at least don't use slow pump rate through Heat Exchanger to maintain Mash temp.
Explanation:
The design specs of a HERMS should include:
Maximum ramp rate for moving to next temp rest
Without overheating wort in the Heat Exchanger

To do this you:
Use the smallest vessell possible to contain the heat exchanger.
For example, I don't use the Hot Liqour Tank because it takes too long to heat all that water to impact the heat in the mash - instead, I use a small pot with a "big" element as a dedicated Heat Exchanger for controlling - and more significantly - ramping mash temp.
In this small pot is stuffed as much coil as you can.
Why? Because it is a choice somewhere along this spectrum:
* Pump slowly with a short length of coil in the heat exchanger and have to heat the wort in the HE well above your desired mash temp to impact the great amount of liquid in your mash tun OR
* Pump quickly with a lot of liquid in a lot of coil and heat a lot more liquid in the HE to only a tiny bit over the desired mash temp to impact the mash tun temp.

Therefore, pump as quickly as possible without compacting the grain bed, and don't use a bypass unless you want to cook enzymes in the HE and want to make it even more complicated than HERMS already is for little added value - compared to more traditional methods.

My thoughts, happy to be corrected.
Cheers.

 

[Zizzle]

Sounds good to me Yorg.

From an automation standpoint, it's easier to control temperature by switching the heating element than variaing the speed of the flow too.

This bloke has some discussion on his site:
http://sdcollins.home.mindspring.com/HERMSDesignSpecs.html

 

[Chris]

Also having trouble finding someone to roll a conical for the fermenters, I have access to a folder to segment fold them but thats not as neat as rolling, also have access to rollers but the roller radius is 70mm
so the bottoms would have a 70mm hole. Anyone know someone able to roll or spin these?

Cheers

If you can get it down to say 75 mm you could use a SS conical reducer down to maybe 25 mm (3" to 1" conical pipe reducer), so weld this on the bottom and a 1" TOE nipple or whatever on the end. Blackwoods would be a good place to start.
Make sure you get full penetration with the welds, gas purge or direct gas directly onto the back of the welds, and clean the welds afterwards with pickling/passivating paste, so the heat affected zone doesn't pit and corrode.

Edit: Something I knocked up.

 

[domonsura]

showoff....:lol: what is that Chris? looks like maybe some kind of drier/separator?
Pretty impressive anyway...

 

[Screwtop]

Screwtop:
My current setup uses a rims chamber , I have on occasions had stuck sparge and it takes only seconds to caramalise in the RIMS, thats the reason for the gentle heat exchanger option. I was thinking maybe just a valve bypassing the heat exchanger and keep the flowrate throught the mash the same.

Sorry, was referring to the use of tube in tube steam heat exchangers used in some micro's. The flow rate can be varied to alter the rate of heating of the mash/wort.

 

[Jono_w]

It's funny that the more questions you ask, the more opinions you get, yet again there are a whole lot more questions.
So im still not sure on the Mash tun heating. I want to keep it simple. I found the less pipe work, valves and so forth make cleaning and keeping things insulated easier. So im looking at going with a gas burner under HLT, MLT, and Kettle. Each being able to be automated with HI and LOW burner settings. This will allow quicker step temp ramp ups. Using a pump to continously circulate wort in MLT to stop caramilzation. I don't like the idea of using the HLT or Heat exchanger for MLT temp control as you cant have different temps in the HLT and MLT. And I also dont like the idea of cleaning a heat exchanger full of wort.

I'm looking for food grade pumps. How do you know that they are "Food Grade" do they have to be certified?
What are your opinions on these?
http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/prod1032.htm

Cheers..

 

[dicko]

It's funny that the more questions you ask, the more opinions you get, yet again there are a whole lot more questions.
So im still not sure on the Mash tun heating. I want to keep it simple. I found the less pipe work, valves and so forth make cleaning and keeping things insulated easier. So im looking at going with a gas burner under HLT, MLT, and Kettle. Each being able to be automated with HI and LOW burner settings. This will allow quicker step temp ramp ups. Using a pump to continously circulate wort in MLT to stop caramilzation. I don't like the idea of using the HLT or Heat exchanger for MLT temp control as you cant have different temps in the HLT and MLT. And I also dont like the idea of cleaning a heat exchanger full of wort.

I'm looking for food grade pumps. How do you know that they are "Food Grade" do they have to be certified?
What are your opinions on these?
http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/prod1032.htm

Cheers..

Hi Jonathon,

http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/prod1032.htm

That looks like a pretty serious pump but in the specifications from the link there is no reference to temperature.
Most of us at the HB level use a March magnetic drive pump which is rated to 121deg c IIRC.
March brand have a large range - do a search.
If the pump cant handle the heat then it has no place in the brewery.
If I was setting up your system I make sure of the pump specifications prior to building and brewing.

Cheers

 

[Jono_w]

Hi Jonathon,

http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/prod1032.htm

That looks like a pretty serious pump but in the specifications from the link there is no reference to temperature.
Most of us at the HB level use a March magnetic drive pump which is rated to 121deg c IIRC.
March brand have a large range - do a search.
If the pump cant handle the heat then it has no place in the brewery.
If I was setting up your system I make sure of the pump specifications prior to building and brewing.

Cheers

Thanks dicko,
Yeah i hear about these march pumps alot. I use a "Little Giant" pump currently wich is great just hard to come by cheaply. So I geuss my main question is, if i was thinking of going commercial. Do the pumps need to be certified food grade?

 

[Andyd]

If you're going to go commercial, everything pretty much needs to pass inspection, so it'll need to be food grade. That really only means that those parts of the pump that come into contact with the wort need to be manufactured in a material which is not going to degrade with food contact at temperature, and where no non-food fluids can enter the food stream.

If you've got specs for your "little giant", and it meets the food handling specifications, you might get away with it. Having said that I've heard some stories about inspectors being very picky.

Andy

 

[Jono_w]

If you're going to go commercial, everything pretty much needs to pass inspection, so it'll need to be food grade. That really only means that those parts of the pump that come into contact with the wort need to be manufactured in a material which is not going to degrade with food contact at temperature, and where no non-food fluids can enter the food stream.

If you've got specs for your "little giant", and it meets the food handling specifications, you might get away with it. Having said that I've heard some stories about inspectors being very picky.

Andy

Thanks Andy,
That clears that up. I think I would be better investing in some good stainless pumps.

 

[Jono_w]

Hey lads,
I have been busy doing research and putting some new bits together for the new RIG.
Here is a Peristaltic pump that I designed and cut out on a CNC router I built a while back..
Its made from nylon and perspex. The tube is 1/2 inch silicon hose. Should sort out the food grade pump issue. I have tried it with an 18v drill and it works great, no specs as yet.



Don't laugh ok, but i have been toying with the idea of a digital Refractometer, I have written some code to decode the image from a webcam. lol, silly i know, but would be so cool to have an inline refractometer.

tootaloo for now...

 

[Jye]

Nice work on the pump :super: They are such simple pieces of equipment and work beautifully.

I dont know where you got your tubing but Ive found the G&G stuff to be spongier and makes it easier for the pump to turn.