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

[razz]

Nice job Braden, well done mate. A family heirloom to be sure.

 

[SBOB]

you need to start building those benches/kettles for sale

 

[husky]

I think I'm in love, first beer run last weekend and it was by far the most relaxing stress free brew night ever and seemed to have loads of time to do other things and play with the PLC program. Decided to do a brew around 7.00pm and was all done in the fermenter around midnight. Filled with water and set to preheat while I measured out and crushed the grain, ran a basic 90 min 2 step mash then a 60 min boil. Recipe was a Citra Pale Ale for a hot summers day.
A few changes to the brewery since the initial trial run:

• Added drain line with valve off the base of vessel to aid cleaning
• New procedure for transferring wort to fermenter by putting return hose on 10 min before end of boil and recirculating. Hose stays in kettle until fermenter transfer and wort id cooled
• Validation that the whirl pool works well. Even with all the cold break, the hops formed a nice cone in the centre
• Tweaks of the PID controller during the brew to improve temperature control. Generally holds within 0.05 degrees throughout the whole mash during the mash step, I verified this by placing 3 x thermometers in the grain bed as well.

Super happy! time to start tweaking and making mods!

 

[trhr]

I know I really like this but I'm so confused...this sends emails but also makes beer?

I thought BIAB was an old hessian bag over a pasta pot in the kitchen?

 

[husky]

Yeah the title is a bit deceiving as it's not BIAB anymore. I have tried to update the title but can't. It's really a 1V RIMS system I guess or Brew In A Basket!

 

[trhr]

Yeah the title is a bit deceiving as it's not BIAB anymore. I have tried to update the title but can't. It's really a 1V RIMS system I guess or Brew In A Basket!

Mate, it's fantastic. Thoroughly confusing.... but fantastic.

The pot in the table is a great idea, I think I may go down this route with a brew in a basket build if I can get my hands on Lael's Brauduino kit.

I like how much safer this could be with little kids running around. No boiling pot to knock off and the basket is low and can just lift a little out for sparging.
Cover the plumbing with some lockable doors and it's nearly child safe!

 

[Fents]

Amazing.... :kooi:

 

[husky]

Mate, it's fantastic. Thoroughly confusing.... but fantastic.

The pot in the table is a great idea, I think I may go down this route with a brew in a basket build if I can get my hands on Lael's Brauduino kit.

I like how much safer this could be with little kids running around. No boiling pot to knock off and the basket is low and can just lift a little out for sparging.
Cover the plumbing with some lockable doors and it's nearly child safe!

One thing I don't like about my 3V is the height of everything. By building the vessel into a table it lowers everything and gives a workspace. It's also super easy to hose down. If I didn't like looking at the pipework and instruments so much I would add some doors and then no little people can tough anything hot. My brewing is confined to 7pm onwards generally so not really an issue for me.
Defiantly worth it for the extra hassle and $$ to build into a table top. Might redo the 3V one day the same way.

 

[Zorco]

This is seriously excellent Husky!

I don't even know how to bend stainless pipe properly. You've made me realise the gulf between my dreams and my abilities.

 

[husky]

This is seriously excellent Husky!

I don't even know how to bend stainless pipe properly. You've made me realise the gulf between my dreams and my abilities.

Mate, there is a massive gulf between my first crack at a brewery versus this also. Anything is possible, just takes time and money. Much much more time than money funnily enough.

Haven't brewed since my last post however seems I now have some mini kegs from a recent BB to fill so a burst of motivation has seen me delete the level switch and replace with a pressure transmitter. I plan to use this to calculate the volume at any given level, temperature and gravity. Initial testing if very accurate however the accuracy drifts by around 0.5L at boil temps but close enough for my purposes.
Hopefully do a brew soon and will take a vid of it in action.

 

[husky]

Finally put down brew #2(Bling Bling clone) on the new rig after making some automation changes and just generally playing/tweaking over tha last little while. I have trialed several level measurement devices and settled on a pressure transmitter which has been good fun learning about. Managed to take a couple of videos during the mash and the boil today so below are some pics and a vid.
All in all a good brew day. There was nearly 300g hops in the boil and I was surprised at how well it formed a cone during the whirlpool.


https://youtu.be/JtnpH1gfhq8 - quality seems a bit dodgy, will put up a better one tomorrow










Will put up a vid of the boil step tomorrow.

 

[husky]

Having some issues getting the video up, hopefully these work. A couple of short clips showing the mash and boil steps.


<iframe width="640" height="480" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>




Buggered if I know why they wont embed, anyone know how?

 

[Zorco]

60 seconds......... lap dances are longer than that and just as teasing.

When you have it perfected, i'd love to see a mill to fermenter video.....

 

[altone]

Dammit man that's just showing off!!

I have 3 questions..

1. Does it make better beer than my old urn and bit of curtain?
2. Can we buy tickets to see it in action?
3. If you can halve the footprint can I place an order?

Awesome piece of bling gear.
I'd love something similar but smaller if the accountant would
give the go ahead (snowballs chance)

 

[husky]

Dammit man that's just showing off!!

I have 3 questions..

1. Does it make better beer than my old urn and bit of curtain?
Nope, the beer tastes as good as the old 19L Big W pot and a curtain! But it is a lot more fun and controllable.
2. Can we buy tickets to see it in action?
I'm not against letting others brew on it, Its been up and running for quite a while now and I have brewed twice. Might be good to gather more data. I simply don't drink enough beer to brew as often as I would like to.
3. If you can halve the footprint can I place an order?
The original design was half the footprint. The control panel was beneath the tank. However I never brew without needing a flat surface for measuring out hops and placing PH meters, refractometers taking notes etc so I added a bench. If you have the space it's well worth it!

Awesome piece of bling gear.
I'd love something similar but smaller if the accountant would
give the go ahead (snowballs chance)

 

[droid]

You know ***** real when you'd have to include a day or 2 of training with the sale of this thing!

Awesomness mate, inspiring stuff. Maybe I can cut some of that stainless sheet I have sitting in the shed for a bench-top cover on my own afterall h34r:

 

[husky]

You know ***** real when you'd have to include a day or 2 of training with the sale of this thing!

Awesomness mate, inspiring stuff. Maybe I can cut some of that stainless sheet I have sitting in the shed for a bench-top cover on my own afterall h34r:

No chance it will ever be sold so shouldn't be an issue!

A few minor updates:

• Added a pre chiller to the jacket water. Should help to get lagers and all summer brewed beers down to pitching temps straight out of the kettle. Plan is to run tap water through the jacket until temp his 20 ish and the divert through the pre chiller which will be sitting in a bucket of water and ice. Small glycol chiller on the to buy list one day.
• Added a shelf for putting sanitisers, refractometer etc during brew day to keep them out of the way when not used, frees up some bench space.
• Made a polycarbonate lid for the vessel to see what's going on inside during brew day. Hopefully condensation forms and allows some vision inside. Last brew I had the aeration stone poked through the lid and turned out it wasn't submerged as someone forgot to measure correctly. This should stop that happening again.
• New PLC program with heaps of extra functions that I can't wait to try out!
• Made up two new wort returns to try out. Last brew with just a return hose I got a pretty poor efficiency in the high 60s as the return dug out a section of grain and channelled the flow. The new ones should more evenly distribute the return.

To Do:

• Add a seal beneath the polycarbonate lid to give an air tight seal. The plan is to seal it up at the end of the boil and have a sanitary air vent to allow clean air only in as the wort cools and shrinks.
• Add the buzzer and current/voltage displays to the control panel. I have been lazy and left them sitting inside the cabined for now.

The missus just popped out future brewer #5 this week and has requested a celebratory Vienna lager so hopefully I'll get a brew done in the next week or so! Yay!

 

[husky]

In an effort to make full use of the fact I'm chilling in the kettle I wanted to remove the cooled wort and transfer to the fermenter leaving the break material behind. Currently the pump suction is on the base of the tank so lots of break enters the fermenter. I contemplated adding a racking arm similar to what you would find on a stainless fermenter but instead decided to try vacuum transfer out the top of the tank.
I wasn't sure if the plastic fermenters would hold vacuum so to test it out I had to hunt for the rubber seal and fermenter lid hoping it hadn't been thrown out as I cling wrap these days.
Anyway attached is a short vid below showing how well it works. It makes use of a vacuum sealer and should allow me to lower the tube into the wort until it starts sucking up break material and then stop, much more control than the current method.


<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WcXvJWwToF8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Anyone know why youtube vids wont embed into a post anymore?

 

[gezzanet]

Looks like it's there on my iPhone and opens ok

 

[feralbass]

What a great post.Just started making a 68 ltr stainless steel pot this week, (3 mm 316), (welded the barrel yesterday, 2 of the fittings tonight, base will go on tomorrow afternoon) I want to do a manual boil this weekend. You have inspired me to take this further. Now I'm on the search for a controller. Cheers, John.