Fothie's New Rig

[JaseH]

Good ****.
BTW there is some nice rock on your website.

Cheers mate, I like to get out on the rock as much as possible. Stuffed my ankle late last year so was laid up for a while, thats when the brewing bug bit!

Nice setup Frothie
Checked out your website.I too have a few Japanese knives,mainly from Sakai and Miki.have you been over there?
I lived there for four and half years.Had a nice brewery not far from my wifes hometown.
http://www.akashi-beer.com/index.html#
Sorry Japanese language only,but pictures don't need translation

No I havent been to Japan, its definitely on the agenda to visit one day soon. I like all things Japanese(except their desire for killing whales!). I have a few more knives I haven't put on my website yet, including one of my favourites, a Yoshikane wa gyuto.

 

[spog]

looking good. call your brewery the hot dog brewery......cheers...spog.......

 

[tanukibrewer]

Gyuto = 牛刀　牛GYU meat 刀TO knife
anyway enough of a Japanese lesson
There are some great brews to be had in Japan.A big drinking culture exists over there,beer,sake (nihonshu) and shochu.
As for the whales,most young people over there don't eat it as it is uncool to do so.
Any Japanese beer related questions just pm me
Cheers

 

[Vanoontour]

Hey Frothie, where bouts did you get those knives? They are just pure awesome!!

 

[Wolfy]

...and some of these:

What/how are you using as a kettle-filter?
I'm looking to setup something very similar, but have not yet decided how to filter the kettle before the plate-chiller.

 

[JaseH]

Hey Frothie, where bouts did you get those knives? They are just pure awesome!!

Mostly from Japan - a few from the U.S. There are a few good japanese knife vendors around. You dont know what sharp is until you use a well sharpened high carbon japanese blade

What/how are you using as a kettle-filter?
I'm looking to setup something very similar, but have not yet decided how to filter the kettle before the plate-chiller.

I used a hop spider:

It uses a muslin sock, but I bent a piece of wire into a large circle and put it in the sock so it expanded the sock out and the hops didn't get compressed, there so many that it was still a bit crowded in there, but I could stir them around a bit inside. Its amazing how much hop pellets expand when they're boiled! I squeezed all the juicy stuff out before removing it.

It worked well, no hop material got into the boil, but I might look at making a large stainless mesh basket at some stage, I reckon it would provide a bit more freedom for the hops to release their goodness!

 

[Wolfy]

I used a hop spider...

It worked well, no hop material got into the boil, but I might look at making a large stainless mesh basket at some stage, I reckon it would provide a bit more freedom for the hops to release their goodness!

I often use a lot of whole hop flowers, so I suspect that the hop spider might get over-full pretty quickly.

 

[JaseH]

Second brew on the system over the weekend! A Robust Porter using a recipe I made up.

Having never brewed a dark beer before, knowing nothing about dark malts and being only my second ever AG brew, why not make up a porter recipe? :huh:

Well I loosely based it on some other porter recipes I found around the net and adjusted it to suit Joe White malts as they are what's easily available to me at the moment. I think it should turnout alright. Tastes very chocolately at the moment after a couple of days in the FV.

So brew day went well enough. After the huge drop in strike water temp last time, I started recirculating via the pump as I got close to strike temp to ensure there were no cold spots in the HLT. I think I found part of the problem, as the temp dropped considerably. I don't have my notes handy but it was in the order 6-10 degrees after starting to recirc. So I think I have a cold pool of water sitting in the bottom of my HLT, combined with some heat loss from the plumbing between the HLT and MT, this probably accounts for the majority of the strike water temp drop I got last time? The recirc worked well as it equalised the temp in the HLT and brought the pump and hoses up to temp before I transferred the strike water.

So of course this time I overshot the temperature! But had a few liters of cold water on hand to stir in to adjust.

The only other problem was I forgot to add the rolled oats I had included in my recipe, it was half way through the mash when I remembered so I added them in anyway.

Hit OG spot on again @ 1062 and got 24.5L into the FV(aiming for 24L) with Estimated Mash Efficiency of 80.7% using a 2 step batch sparge.

Very happy with the system so far. Cant wait to get the control panel sorted to make the element/pump switching much easier, and tune in the strike water temp some more, otherwise its working great!

 

[JaseH]

So I've got a few brews down on the rig now and this week finally got the control panel sorted. I've also added some sight glasses to the HLT and Kettle. This thing is a joy to brew on now.

Heating/recirculating the strike water in the HLT

Using an STC1000 for HLT temp control & PWM voltage dial for the Kettle. The bottom right red switch is tagged for future RIMS addition. There is also an over-ride for STC1000 on the HLT elements, so I can bypass the temp control. I only have a single pump but have an extra switch(AUX1) for expansion to a second pump at some stage.

The back of the control box

Transferring 1st batch sparge infusion from the MT to the Kettle

Sight glasses are the way to go!

During the boil, I've removed the MT to wash it out.

MT cleaned and returned. Kettle still boiling. I'm recirculating warm sanitising solution from the HLT through the plate chiller to sanitise it prior to chilling the wort.

Chilling the wort into the fermenter

21 C into the fermenter, the whole kettle(27L into fermenter) chillled in under 5min.

 

[Yob]

Dat is sum sweet mu'fukn sheeeat..

Serious drool factor

 

[spog]

nice setup,gives me ideas for mine,going down the path of electric biab ,brew in a basket/st.......cheers........spog.......... setups so i can sort my system ouubstituting a smaller pot inside a larger pot rather than a bag,its the control system that has my intrerest so looking at different

So I've got a few brews down on the rig now and this week finally got the control panel sorted. I've also added some sight glasses to the HLT and Kettle. This thing is a joy to brew on now.

Heating/recirculating the strike water in the HLT

Using an STC1000 for HLT temp control & PWM voltage dial for the Kettle. The bottom right red switch is tagged for future RIMS addition. There is also an over-ride for STC1000 on the HLT elements, so I can bypass the temp control. I only have a single pump but have an extra switch(AUX1) for expansion to a second pump at some stage.

The back of the control box

Transferring 1st batch sparge infusion from the MT to the Kettle

Sight glasses are the way to go!

During the boil, I've removed the MT to wash it out.

MT cleaned and returned. Kettle still boiling. I'm recirculating warm sanitising solution from the HLT through the plate chiller to sanitise it prior to chilling the wort.

Chilling the wort into the fermenter

21 C into the fermenter, the whole kettle(27L into fermenter) chillled in under 5min.

 

[Wolfy]

So I've got a few brews down on the rig now and this week finally got the control panel sorted. I've also added some sight glasses to the HLT and Kettle. This thing is a joy to brew on now.
...
Sight glasses are the way to go!
...
Chilling the wort into the fermenter
...
21 C into the fermenter, the whole kettle(27L into fermenter) chillled in under 5min.

Looks great, hows the beer it makes?

After having my urn-sight-glass clog up with break material and hop debris, I was not planning to put one on my new kettle, do you have an easy way to remove/clean yours?

Was that 5mins to drain the kettle via the plate chiller without pumping it?

 

[JaseH]

Looks great, hows the beer it makes?

After having my urn-sight-glass clog up with break material and hop debris, I was not planning to put one on my new kettle, do you have an easy way to remove/clean yours?

Was that 5mins to drain the kettle via the plate chiller without pumping it?

It spits out some pretty good beer! No problem with the equipment - the operator still needs a bit of fine tuning <_<

After piss farting around with some ploycarbonate tube and trying to find some economical fittings to make my own sight glass for the HLT, I decided to just order one from Brew Hardware in the states. Then of course whilst I was ordering one, I might as well order 2 and fit one to the Kettle. He also sells a specially designed brush for cleaning the sight glass, so I grabbed one of them as well. They can be unscrewed and removed if needed. They are open at the top so I just squirt some water down it when cleaning and didnt appear to have trouble with gunk today, I'll see how they go. I also use a hop spider due to the plate chiller so dont get any large particles floating around in the boil.

Yeah I gravity drain/syphon the wort through the chiller, it runs quite quickly. I could probably put a valve on the outlet and throttle it back to pick up another degree or two but its close enough for me at the moment.

 

[mxd]

So I've got a few brews down on the rig now and this week finally got the control panel sorted. I've also added some sight glasses to the HLT and Kettle. This thing is a joy to brew on now.

Heating/recirculating the strike water in the HLT

Using an STC1000 for HLT temp control & PWM voltage dial for the Kettle. The bottom right red switch is tagged for future RIMS addition. There is also an over-ride for STC1000 on the HLT elements, so I can bypass the temp control. I only have a single pump but have an extra switch(AUX1) for expansion to a second pump at some stage.

The back of the control box

Transferring 1st batch sparge infusion from the MT to the Kettle

Sight glasses are the way to go!

During the boil, I've removed the MT to wash it out.

MT cleaned and returned. Kettle still boiling. I'm recirculating warm sanitising solution from the HLT through the plate chiller to sanitise it prior to chilling the wort.

Chilling the wort into the fermenter

21 C into the fermenter, the whole kettle(27L into fermenter) chillled in under 5min.

looks great.


I need to get off my FA and do my control panel, do have some pics on the inside ?

Did you have any issues building it ?

thanks

 

[JaseH]

looks great.


I need to get off my FA and do my control panel, do have some pics on the inside ?

Did you have any issues building it ?

thanks

Don't actually have any pics of the inside sorry. I tried to keep it as neat as possible but its still a bit of a birds nest in there! This was my half-arsed wiring diagram I put together to help me wire it up if it helps. Its really pretty basic.

The only issues I had building it were waiting for the switches to arrive! I ordered the illuminated rocker switches from RS Components and a couple of them took about 2months to finally arrive. I work with a bunch of test & measurement technicians so after I built it they checked it out for me and safety tested it so I was confident it was good to go.

Its the best enhancement to the system so far. Makes the brewing process a lot smoother!

 

[cooraf]

awesome rig.

where did you get the variable switch for the 'Kettle (v)' from?

 

[JaseH]

awesome rig.

where did you get the variable switch for the 'Kettle (v)' from?

It's this one. Works a treat :icon_cheers:

 

[cooraf]

It's this one. Works a treat :icon_cheers:

Thanks,

Designing my HERMS control panel at the moment and that will work a treat... been wondering how/where to get a regulator for my elements.

 

[Maheel]

where did you get the red / green switches

are they water proof ?

thanks

 

[JaseH]

where did you get the red / green switches

are they water proof ?

thanks

I ordered these ones from RS Components. But a warning, the 6-8 working days they quote to supply from the UK turned into over 2 months for the green ones! The orange and red arrived within a couple of weeks.

They aren't water proof but you can get water proof boots for them cheaply. I haven't bothered with the boots yet, if it looks like I'm going to have problems with the control box getting wet I can always retro fit them.