Halfluck Automated Brewing System (habs) - Brewday Pics!

[randyrob]

Hey Guys,

Thought i'd post up a few pics of a brewday I had today :icon_cheers:

Cheers Rob.




Designing Recipe



Weighing Hops



Very important step, Making Coffee



Weighing Specialty Malts



Weighing Base Malt



Filling Hopper



Crushing Grain



Grain Mill



Filling Mash-Tun with grain



Filling HLT with water



Pressing the GO Button



Brew Rig



Shot taken thru porthole, while mash is stirring



Start of Boil



Hydro Sample



Fermentation Controller / Data Logger



Graph of Brewday, Blue = Step Number, Red = HLT / Kettle, Orange = Mashtun

 

[mika]

I seriously thought there would be two pictures, one of you sitting back controlling things with your iPhone and another shot of the rig sitting in the corner just whizzing away doing it's thing.

 

[chillihilli]

So you are ready to make the step up from a kit and a kilo then? Wow.. Impressive set up :blink:

 

[randyrob]

Mika - if it's any consolation the first 12 pics were taken in the first 1/2 hour of the brewday, then there wasn't a whole lot to take pics of.

 

[leiothrix]

A few questions for you randyrob --

What are the vessels? The insulated one on the left I'm guessing would be the MLT, one in the middle HLT & kettle? What's the urn for? An extra HLT for sparge water? Or HERMS vessel?

Also, what are the specs of the element that you have there? I.e. size, material, power, source, cost, etc?

Thanks,
Rob.

 

[randyrob]

A few questions for you randyrob --

What are the vessels? The insulated one on the left I'm guessing would be the MLT, one in the middle HLT & kettle? What's the urn for? An extra HLT for sparge water? Or HERMS vessel?

Also, what are the specs of the element that you have there? I.e. size, material, power, source, cost, etc?

Thanks,
Rob.

Hey Leiothrix,

Yes Close, The MLT is the Insulated one on the left and the Combined HLT/Kettle is the one next to it.
the Urn is just used for for CIP for my Cold side (March Pump, Counter Flow Chiller & Silicon tubing)

Element > 3267AG724, 2400w 1'' BSP H/W Element, $68.70 from Tobins (HERE)

Rob.

 

[dent]

Curious trace on your graph. I guess you don't add any heat during the mash?

 

[mr_tyreman]

c'mon mate, your making us look bad with serious 'brew day porn' like that!

 

[Spoonta]

good work rob

 

[Sammus]

I like all the nice staino benches/stands, then one of the vessels on a milk crate hahaha

looks tops, tech is the bomb. Now wait for all the nay sayers whinging about how it takes the "fun" out of brewing :blink:

 

[randyrob]

Curious trace on your graph. I guess you don't add any heat during the mash?

Hey Dent,

Looking at the log file now and once the mash stabalised it dropped 3*c over a 60 minute mash,
Not something i'm concerned about, My beers are achieving the desired body i'm chasing and attenuating as desired.

I like all the nice staino benches/stands, then one of the vessels on a milk crate hahaha

looks tops, tech is the bomb. Now wait for all the nay sayers whinging about how it takes the "fun" out of brewing :blink:

Sammus, Well Spotted

My original concept had a built in CIP, but i just really like keeping everything on the cold side totally seperate.
Plus the March Pump / Chiller is portable for Group Brewdays!

I've learn long ago to make good beer you need at least four of the following : Handy Bucket, Duct Tape, Zip/Cable Ties, Milk Crates.
Remove them from the equation and you are living on the edge

Rob.

 

[raven19]

Awesome logging temp graph fella - thanks for sharing.

 

[dent]

Fair enough, just thought you might have had something more complicated going on. Back when I tried using bang-bang temperature control on the esky mash tun, it would keep getting too hot because the exothermic mash would generate its own heat over and above the setpoint, after the element had already shut off. Took a while to figure out what was going on, I was blaming the controller for a while. In the end I ran it like yours until the next revision.

 

[Bizier]

Bloody ripper Rob!

 

[Zizzle]

Getting some press coverage today!

http://hackaday.com/2012/04/19/automated-beer-brewing/

Good stuff.

 

[randyrob]

Thanks for the heads up Zizzle, very cool.

 

[eviljesus]

I knew I had seen this earlier today! Nice job mate.

 

[mikec]

Nice work Rob.

There's only one thing I couldn't understand from your pictorial.

It looks like you are making coffee?

I'm unable to brew beer without drinking beer at the same time. It just doesn't feel right otherwise...

 

[thelastspud]

Hey I commented on the Hack a day site about the NES controller. What does the controller do?