Introducing Brewton

[angus_grant]

The boil pot is 50L and 40cm in diameter.

The element is a 2400W element with 3 loops.

I think where I am losing out is that the pot is square in that it is 40cm high and 40cm diameter so there is too much surface area to get a good strong boil going. The pie tin (or lid when I build it) will get a good strong boil going. The element gets a very gentle boil going with some evaporation. I haven't measured % boil off yet

 

[iralosavic]

Hop socks will have a tendency to float, so as long as the pie tin leaves enough surface area to share, they'll just float in harmony. Even just a 20cm D tin will be plenty enough surface area reduction to get you a vigorous boil.

 

[angus_grant]

Yeh, I don't think I will require much to get the strong boil happening. Off to get a pie tin tonight. Do they make them in stainless???

 

[matho]

Yeh, I don't think I will require much to get the strong boil happening. Off to get a pie tin tonight. Do they make them in stainless???

hey angus,

with a 40 cm opening you will be loosing about 90% of your energy out the top of the pot, so that will explain the long times and lack of a strong boil, if you reduce the opening to 30cm or get a pie dish 13cm in diameter then the energy loss drops to 50%

cheers steve

 

[angus_grant]

Well I wasn't able to get a pie tin and I have a full day installing a new patio at our unit so no beer-related shopping tomorrow. On the plus side, I will be able to get my kegerator and ferment fridge back around the back and out of the car port and then park the car in the car-port.

Cheers Steve. I found a good page on pot sizes, boiling power, pot diameter, etc after I purchased my pot. But I think ripping off Edaks lid system will achieve good string boils. And the pie tin will be a great interim solution so I can start nailing out some BIABs.

Doing some work on my ferment controller tonight. Wiring up the DS18B20 stainless temp probe I have to a fermentor and will hook that up to my data acquisition device. Will then be logging ferment temp info to the laptop and controlling a SSR to power the fridge when required. Will hopefully get that finished on Sunday as I have to get a Morgans Golden Saaz kit on the ferment in time for Xmas. Will be cutting it a bit fine including lagering time.

 

[stux]

SS bowl will work too.

 

[angus_grant]

A friend told me about a kitchen warehouse place (on the corner of Tooheys road and Evans Road in Moorooka in Brisbane). Went there and they had one remaining SS pot (although very thin) in the exact size I needed. And for the princely sum of $15 including 15% discount).

10 minutes with the dremel and voila: spanky new hood for my brau-clone

I was getting some bits and pieces from CraftBrewer and took a video in of the boil. Ross had a look and said it was fine. He also mentioned that the hood was allowing enough steam out to not worry about DMS (it is actually about the same dimensions as the BM hood) so at this point, I will not be worrying about drainage for the hood. Simplifies things somewhat although I will have to work out a "condensation return system" as the pot allows dripping down the outside of the pot. This will be easier than a drainage system though. Done...

Also drilled hole in the pot for one of the stainless skin fittings and fitted brown pump and 3-piece ball valve and then cam-lock fittings. I may look at doing a recirc BIAB run for the first run, but my initial thinking it to keep it as simple as possible so probably just normal BIAB. Will need tweak some changes for my PID temp control processes (running ferment fridge at the moment) to control the mashing process before I can do the BIAB though. This will also require making some hardware changes (extra temp probe plug plus extra power outlet) to control Brewton

Progress is finally being made....

 

[spog]

doing an R2D2 clone brew are we.? ....cheers....spog....

 

[QldKev]

doing an R2D2 clone brew are we.? ....cheers....spog....

Brewton after it's consumed a few of it's own

 

[angus_grant]

Brewton after plugging it into a 15A socket... he he

I suppose it does bear some resemblance to R2. It's too late for a name change now, it's already got its own thread on AHB....

 

[angus_grant]

Well it seems things are ticking along fairly well. I have now completed my temp probe installation. After much umming and ahhing: should I install it on the top of malt pipe, in bottom of main pot priotruding into the malt pipe, just sittign in outside liquid of main vessel I took some of Big Nath's advice on AHB and installed it in the main pipe. The mash liquid is always going to be recirculating and the liqiud spilling over the malt pipe down onto the element will be the coolest liquid in the system.

And at some point the system should reach a temperature equilibrium so it doesn't really matter where I measure the temp from.

Temp probe installation in main pot

Temp probe from control box on main pot.
The two red wires hanging around are from the heating element. I will have to wire them back up to run some heating and temp reading tests later this week

The control box where my data acquisition device is, the two Auberins solid state relays are. This is the temp probe plugged in to the control box and providing some temp readings.

At the moment I have my fermentation fridge hooked up to the control box and being controlled by software. I am thinking I will construct a new STC 1000 device to control the ferment temp as it is a stand-alone device and doesn't need to reboot for upgrades. My laptop has rebooted itself a couple of times so I would have to set up an automatic logon and get my control software to boot up automatically for it to be a feasible way to contrl fermentation. The STC 1000 is attractive as it doesn't need software upgrades and when powered up just starts off from where it left with regards to temp settings. Any way, something for me to ponder.

 

[angus_grant]

Well now comes the hard part: tuning the PID library. I have been doing some testing on my PID library and I think I have it dialed in.

A shot of the software side of the controller. You can only see one line in the graph as the target temperature and current temperature are close enough.

An outside shot of the system with the little brown pump recirculating the water to the top of the system to achieve a consistent temperature

An inside photo of the pot with my glorious recirculating system. I am thinking I will recirculate the mash water when I do my first BIAB batch this weekend.

Stay tuned!

 

[Edak]

Looking great Angus, I think it will get the job done just right.

 

[angus_grant]

Did some ramping tests and maintaining temps tests last night and finally found remaining bug (that I know about) about ramping temps and switching over to PID mode within 95% of target temp. Was to do with PID library not being instantiated properly and then providing an element firing time of about 30 seconds when current temp was inside 95% range. 30 seconds is good for 4 or 5 degrees increase so this is bad when you are at 64 and target temp is 65 and you end up at 70 degrees. Sounds confusing and it took me ages to find the bug.

So will do some final tests tonight and if all is good, will brew my first AG tomorrow morning. waaahhhhh!!!!! I have booked out the morning but yet to tell 'er indoors it might take the whole morning. h34r: shhhhh..

I'll have to clean out one of my cubes as I will have to no-chill my first batch as I still have a Coopers IPA kit in the fermenting fridge. I may actually fire up my spare fridge and put the wort into a cube but then chill it in the fridge. So the boiling wort into cube should provide some additional sanitising and then the fridge should prevent any infection or wild yeast activity.

Ooh, that reminds me, I have to fit my sight glass to the pot tonight.

:super:

 

[Diesel80]

Should have booked the whole day off mate.

Generally first AG is a total, yet enjoyable clusterf*ck!

Good luck mate! Can't wait for the report.

Cheers,
D80

 

[Dan Pratt]

can we get a look at your malt pipe and filters? how will they function for the mashing.

 

[angus_grant]

Hmm, maybe I should book the whole day off....... :blink:

My first AG will be a BIAB. I am still working on the malt pipe, filters and seals. As per a previous post in this thread, I will be using a stainless bbq grill with voile filter fitted for the top filter. I am thinking of using a normal 9" false bottom for the bottom filter. I will lose a little bit of volume so will have to do some calculations on that to see how it affects my max grain bill. I will have to work out a way to seal the hole where the elbow was fitted in the false bottom as I am yet to find somewhere that sells a false bottom with no elbow

I wonder know whether I could use a 12" false bottom for the top filter. The top of the Big W pot is 30cm and 12" false bottom is 30cm. Coincidence???? And the beauty of that is the volume I lose in the domed bottom filter I gain in volume in the domed top filter. Hmmm, this is sounding too good to be true... And I just seal up the hole for the elbow with a plate and don't actually modify the false bottoms. SO if I was to move to 3V system I can still use the false bottoms.....

This sounds too good to be true. I have to be missing something...

Edet: spelling.

 

[angus_grant]

Well fired off my first BIAB + no chill. I created a new thread.

Was pretty painless apart from draining the bag where I slightly burnt my left hand, which was painful. Will have to look at block and tackle or some lifting mechanism as it was a bit of hard work lifting the bag full of grain and wort. I imagine lifting the malt pipe will be similarly hard, although it will be resting on top of the main vessel to drain so different story I suppose.

All in all, a fairly easy brew day, got very close to most of the targets defined in Lord Raja's brewsheet. I bought some grain packs off him that he wasn't going to be able to use with his imminent relocation.

Software worked well, boiler worked well, etc, etc.

 

[angus_grant]

My 4th AG brew tomorrow and I have made quite a few bug fixes and one very important (but fairly small) feature:

If you have trouble seeing the screenshot, it is an auto-start feature. So I have it scheduled to start ramping up to mash temps at 5:45 in the morning. The theory being that I wake up around 6:30, walk down stairs and mash in thereby saving 45 minutes or so of waiting around for temps to ramp up. Saweet

 

[QldKev]

You would be saving more than 45min on brew day. 45min to hit strike temp plus all the setup time.

You ever thought of mashing in cold? I can't remember who is was but they used to throw the grain and cold water in when they went to bed. Next morning they would wake up at mash out. There was some threads on it a couple of years back.

QldKev

 

[angus_grant]

Hey Kev,

Thanks for the suggestion. I am following a topic where Florian talks about doing an overnight mash but hasn't responded to someone's question about more details. I think I will still need to do a few more brews to make sure my mash programme all works correctly.

That would certainly make a brew day a lot more palatable to my wife than writing off an entire morning.

I ended up waking up at 5:45 anyways and couldn't get back to sleep so went down and watch the temp rise to mash temp anyways.... :blink:

Thanks,
Angus.

 

[angus_grant]

Ooohh, back on the brau-clone pathway.

Toys ordered:

threaded rod, and various nuts and bolts to attach to pot. Am worried how my drill and bits are going to handle getting through the plate on the bottom of the pot.

And the big buy of the system: 230V inline Chugger pump. Has a stainless head and a bracket all included in the original purchase price.

So will be getting some more work done on the brau-clone in the next few weeks. I have 11L of Belgian Triple, a 20L batch of Lord Nelson has almost finished fermenting, and I then have a batch of DSGA to ferment. So I will have 2 & 1/2 kegs to get this system working. he he

 

[grimpanda]

Shaping up nicely Angus.

Did you buy the Chugger pump direct from the manufacturer? If so was it a custom order?
The only 230v pump I can see from them has a centre inlet.

Cheers,
Gabe

 

[angus_grant]

Bought the chugger from the new Australian distributor: www.chugger.com.au. The website has both the inline and centre inlet. And 230V obviously although I still asked the question. he he

I'm yet to use the pump yet, but it certainly feels like a beast compared to the little brown pumps I have been using.

Hopefully this week and slightly possible this weekend will see a fair bit of work being done to Brewton. The weekend after is free at the moment so I hopefully should have all the parts procured by then and matter of drilling holes and bolting things on. Even the recirculating pump mounted on the bottom will really help out with the ramping speed as I will be able to have the lid sealing the pot completely. Will make things cleaner having the pump plumbed into the pot instead of silicon hose running off the tap and up outside the pot. My little fellow shouldn't be able to reach the silicon pipe but that is 66 degree liquid flowing through there.

 

[angus_grant]

Well I finally got some solid time to work on my beer system. I purchased a pump about a month ago and hooked up some bits I purchased about a year ago.

So I have to finish off the malt pipe and then about 5 hours of software work and I should be able to crank out some beers.

A shot of the camlocks underneath the pot. The central camlock will be the pathway for the recirculating wort to enter into the system.

The chugger pump with the camlocks hooked up. The outlet of the pump has the ball valve to throttle down the flow rate if necessary.

The chugger pump hooked up to the camlocks. I will shorten the silicon tubing up before using the system to minimise heat loss.

I will also look at insulating the tubing as well to minimise heat loss.

A close-up of the central camlock and the very dodgy pine stand I whacked out in about 30 minutes.

A full shot of the system.

Please disregard the dodgy pine stand. I will be getting a friend to weld up a metal stand and add a touch of professionalism to the system. he he

I have done a leak test with the cam locks joined straight together and the only leaking was from the main ball-valve. I had run out of thread tape but thought I would run the leak test anyway. Off to Bunnings for some thread tape during the week and finalise the plumbing after another leak test.

Some really good progress this week.

Now onto the malt pipe which is going to be the challenge of the entire system. The sealing and also the bottom filter locating are going to be the key challenges for this phase.

 

[djar007]

I love those camlocks. Where did you source those? Been meaning to tidy up my plumbing with some and just starting the search for them now. Purple pig is an option but hoping for something cheaper.

 

[angus_grant]

Got all the plumbing gear from CraftBrewer. I had read some threads about Chinese camlocks not fitting correctly and was a bit wary purchasing over the Internet/eBay/etc..

I had chosen the camlocks at CB and paid for them. I happened to test a couple of them and they were really hard to lock out. Felt like I was going to snap the handles. I could see the marks on the hose tails where the locks didn't quite fit in properly.

I swapped them all around and selected some ones that fitted together nicely. I didn't get an itemised receipt, but seem to remember about $15 for the cam-lock hose tail. Spent about $80 for the 3 camlock sockets and 3 hose tails. I liked getting a female socket which would screw straight onto the pump to reduce number of fittings when I pull it all apart to clean.

 

[djar007]

Great. I will go and have a look now. Thanks. I use four inch cam locks at work and they are usually a bugger to get on. I find putting one arm on a little. Then the other a little. Then I find a rock to bash them on. Love the build so far btw.

 

[angus_grant]

CB only have 2 types of the camlock fittings on their website, even though they have 1/2" female sockets, 1/2" male sockets, caps, tail ends, male and female ends, etc, etc, etc. Basically about 3 metres of shelving with camlock fittings. Don't know why they don't have it all listed on their site.

4" cam lock fittings. :-O That's pretty big stuff...

 

[QldKev]

Get your camlocks from T&S Valves (no affiliation), excellent quality and about half the cost of other retailers