Husky's Full Stainless Automated(partial) BIAB RIMS Brewery

[droid]

I see a kids balance bike and a VW in your future, or maybe even now

 

[Adr_0]

Thats wort return beneath geain bed on mash only. Comes out after mash

Cool - so by the valves (look like butterfly valves used in small water pipelines) I'm guessing most will go to the top and you'll just put a bit through the silicone? When will you use the silicone hose?

 

[husky]

Cool - so by the valves (look like butterfly valves used in small water pipelines) I'm guessing most will go to the top and you'll just put a bit through the silicone? When will you use the silicone hose?

Silicone hose in during the mash only to return some wort below the grain bed and across the heating element. Most hopefully above and through grain bed. When mash is finished silicone comes out to allow all pumped flow to return tangental after the boil.
It makes sence in my head but will have to see how it works in practice.

 

[Adr_0]

Yeah, only thing I was thinking was the short path from the return to the suction line and that you're turning over a lot of wort through the pump and element, but not changing the grain bed much - or at least getting inconsistent temperatures and rates. I think most - if not all - would need to go through the top. There will still be movement over the element as the pump draws from the bottom of the vessel. You could probably leave the silicone hose out since you have tangental flow in/out anyway. I dunno.

 

[Judanero]

Making the most of a sudden burst of motivation, and some late nights in the shed. Gear tray being assembled as far as I can until I get up to some components that I am still waiting on.

20150825_225509_resized.jpg


Hopefully ends up looking like this:

Gear Tray1.JPG

It is sad i find this sexy.

 

[husky]

Not sure if you've thought of it, or if it would even be an issue.
If one of your temp sensors fail and reads minimum the element will drive to 100% power. If not monitored it probably wouldn't end well. If it fails to maximum the element would go off.
You should be able to monitor for wire breaks or shorts. AB may even do it already

Good luck and have fun
Oh and make lots of comments in the code

Thanks mate, exactly the sort of feedback I'm after as I had not considered that. I do recall in the PLC manual mentioning wire break monitoring so will try find it again, defiantly want the temperature transmitters to fail maximum range. Might even be possible to put in an alarm if the CV value changes greater than a certain rate, hmmmmm.
Agree on the comments! I have been making lots. the code evolves so much over time it's hard to remember how it is all supposed to work. I think I will go backwards and write a process description from the code once its finished, usually should be done the other way around!

I see a kids balance bike and a VW in your future, or maybe even now

It never ceases to amaze me what people pick up in photo backgrounds!

Yeah, only thing I was thinking was the short path from the return to the suction line and that you're turning over a lot of wort through the pump and element, but not changing the grain bed much - or at least getting inconsistent temperatures and rates. I think most - if not all - would need to go through the top. There will still be movement over the element as the pump draws from the bottom of the vessel. You could probably leave the silicone hose out since you have tangental flow in/out anyway. I dunno.

I know what you're saying, really won't know how it behaves until the first brew. The silicone hose may not be required at all and purely the tangential return may be enough to keep the liquid moving across the heater at a fast enough rate. The silicone will give the ability to change how the flow returns to beneath the grain bed during mash only. During the boil it will come out and the tangential be used to whirlpool. I will be putting another temp transmitter in the base of the pot central, so this should give a good idea of what the flow and temps are doing below the grain bed.

 

[Barge]

How did this go? Brewed with it yet?

 

[husky]

How did this go? Brewed with it yet?

No brewing yet, still ticking away as time permits, lots of optimisation of the PLC code while I have the PLC mobile and can easily make changes and test. Might try get the PLC mounted in the control panel this weekend and finish the wiring. It should then be time for water testing. Will get some pics up this weekend of progress.

 

[husky]

A quick update:

• Mounted panel in cabinet and connected field wiring for instruments to their terminals
• Downloaded current PLC and HMI programs to test out
• Sorted out some minor issues with temperatures not coming into the PLC
• Stood back and marvelled at my creation!

Next on the list of things to do:

• Add more functionality to the brewery - Buzzers, alarms, recipes etc
• Tidy up PLC wiring and add final section of duct
• Add volt and current meter
• Fill with water and test out the PID heating loop. Planning on giving this a go tonight.

Some pics below of the panel nearly complete and some of the HMI screens to date. The beauty of the PLC is that I can have a program that runs and be continually working on a new and improved version. Lots and lots of tinkering to be done!

 

[dannymars]

/tipshat

 

[Diesel80]

This thing looks tits!
:icon_chickcheers:
Cheers,
D80

 

[husky]

Just a quick update. Have spent a sh!t load of time sorting out the horrible inbuilt PID controller in the software package. After 3 weeks its all sorted and I have put a lot of time into updating the HMI screens and setting up heaps of trends to monitor the temperatures throughout the system.
Have successfully run about 10 dummy runs on water ramping and holding various temps and it keeps temp to within 0.02 degrees! Nearly time for a run with some grains.

 

[TheWiggman]

You have an AB Panelview and associated I/O? Dafuq man? This is elite level stuff, short of hiring your own staff to manufacture your own hardware this is as good as it can get. Or paint it red so it can awesome faster.

 

[Benn]

Right on Husky! I'm workin on my own Hot Tub Time Machine as well man. At this stage it's just a keg, an esky and a $10 rusty spiral burner from some e bay stoner. Watch this space!!

 

[Adr_0]

Looks amazing. Glad you have got the PID and SSR functioning correctly. What's the first recipe?

 

[husky]

Looks amazing. Glad you have got the PID and SSR functioning correctly. What's the first recipe?

Not sure mate, need to check what ingredients I have but I'm thinking a vienna lager with plenty of step mashing. Hoping to get a brew down in the next couple of weeks, need to find all brew gear and build a starter etc etc first.
Brewery is complete enough to run its all nice to have's remaining.All I want to complete before running the first brew is:

• Run some boil off tests to determine how much power to put in to achieve 10% boil off per hour.
• Set up some hop addition timers on the HMI to alarm when the additions are due
• Run a caustic solution through the system

Will definitely take some pics on first brew day but it really needs a video to see what's going on, will see how I go.

 

[zappa]

Remind you of anything?

https://youtu.be/vHk40VvFsp4

 

[Benn]

https://youtu.be/vHk40VvFsp4

I completely understood all the information presented during the entire 2 mins of of that clip.... :blink:

 

[husky]

It's alive! After spending a good at least 100 hrs over the past few weeks debugging and improving the software I thought it was time to add some grains. I sort of cheated and ran a trial batch to make some starter wort instead of a full batch.
It went about as good as I had hoped. Procedure was:
Pre heat to 55 degrees(mill grain at same time)
Add grain
Set mash schedule(5 step) hit go and monitor the trends.
Raise basket to drain wort from grain and set heater to 100%(20A)
Boil using 60% power to achieve 16% boil off rate
Cover and run cooling water to drop temps to 40 degrees C(about 10 mins)
Whirlpool while cooling - Got first ever trubb cone!!!! woo hoo
Transfer to fermenter and several starter jars. Dumped the fermenter on the grass and added some 1 year old yeasties to the starter jars top prepare for a real brew next week.

Overall could not be happier. Had to play with valve positions and stir a couple of times through the mash to get the balance correct b/w wort to recirc over heater and wort through grain bed. Used temp probes in the middle of the grain to confirm the temps all through the ystem were within 0.05 degrees of setpoint! super happy. Had to run reasonably quick through the grain bed to ensure it was the same temp in middle of the bed as surrounding wort which was doable. I would have been happy if it was a bit lower expecting enzyme activity would predominantly be taking place in the flowing wort anyway.

Clean up took about 15 minutes to flush the system and disconnect the pump to drain all the lines. Way faster than previous 1V breweries as everything could be chucked in the vessel with water and then heated to 45 degrees and scrubbed then rinsed. Might run a caustic through it every few brews but a rinse should be fine for now.

Lots of things I thought of through the brew that I would like to add but not totally necessary so I see endless scope for mini projects when time permits. I took a few short vids that I will put up at some stage but some pics below for now.

All up start to finish took 5 hours but that could easily be improved upon next time.
I now have a German lager years starter and English ale yeast on the go ready for some serious brewing over the holidays.

 

[husky]