mb-squared
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- 18/2/14
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I know that a lot of people are moving over to electric setups these days, and if money were not an issue, I would too. But for those of us on a budget, it is still possible to build a really nice home brewery with perfect temperature control and very high efficiencies -- Beersmith tells me that my brewhouse efficiency is consistently over 90%.
I have a pretty standard 3V system with two Chugger pumps: the water pump and the wort pump. During the mash, the water in the HLT is recirculated to maintain even temps throughout the pot; the hot wort is recirculated through 50' of 1/2" copper tubing, which sits in the HLT. Thus, this is a standard HERMS system where the mash temp is controlled via the temperature of the HLT. All sorts of different temp steps and ramps are possible with this system and because the wort constantly recirculates through the grain bed during the entire mash, the wort is very clear going into the boil kettle.
The heart of my brewery is a BCS-460. It simultaneously controls all the temps on my brew rig as well as my fermenters. I will write about how to wire that up in the future if there is interest, but today I thought I'd talk about another key component: the gas valve. I use a Honeywell VR8200A2132. These things are built to run gas furnaces in home/office heating systems across the world (but are not widely used in Australia) and, from what I can tell, are just about bullet proof. Critically, the valve won't open and let gas flow to your burner if the pilot light has gone out. This feature is absolutely critical if you brew outside with the occasional gust of wind, like I do, and you want to live to taste the beer you're brewing.
This is what the valve looks like. You'll see that, not surprisingly, gas comes in one side and goes out the other. The wires supply the 24V AC power (coming from a transformer that I have sitting in the control box). The aluminium tubing supplies gas to the pilot light; the copper wire connects the thermocouple to the valve.
From this angle, you'll see that the gas comes into a 'T' connection so that any sediment that might be in the gas can fall to the bottom of the sediment trap as opposed to entering the valve.
Here you can see how the valve is connected to the burner. Note my cheap-as wind break for the burner.
Here you can see how I've attached the pilot light to the burner -- a 4-ring job from a vendor at the local weekend markets. I drilled and tapped the cast iron burner to fit a SS machine screw. I coated the screw in some J-B weld (high-temp epoxy) when I assembled it. But when I put this all together, some fifty-odd brews ago, I thought for sure that this was the weakest link in the system. So far so good though.
From this angle, you can see both the pilot light and the thermocouple. The pilot light gets the thermocouple red-hot. If the pilot light ever blows out, the thermocouple cools off almost immediately and then the valve won't open.
Because the pilot light is bolted to the burner, I've had to restrain the burner from moving around too much during the bumpy ride to and from the carport, which is where I brew. I've achieved this by bolting these small right-angle tabs to both the legs of the burner and the table.
Here's the HLT, with the HERMS coil sticking its head out.
And here's the control panel -- a $10 toolbox from Bunnings. The only thing to note here today is the "auto - off - manual" switch for the gas valve. Again, I will describe the BCS-460 and other goodies that live in the toolbox some other day.
I have a pretty standard 3V system with two Chugger pumps: the water pump and the wort pump. During the mash, the water in the HLT is recirculated to maintain even temps throughout the pot; the hot wort is recirculated through 50' of 1/2" copper tubing, which sits in the HLT. Thus, this is a standard HERMS system where the mash temp is controlled via the temperature of the HLT. All sorts of different temp steps and ramps are possible with this system and because the wort constantly recirculates through the grain bed during the entire mash, the wort is very clear going into the boil kettle.
The heart of my brewery is a BCS-460. It simultaneously controls all the temps on my brew rig as well as my fermenters. I will write about how to wire that up in the future if there is interest, but today I thought I'd talk about another key component: the gas valve. I use a Honeywell VR8200A2132. These things are built to run gas furnaces in home/office heating systems across the world (but are not widely used in Australia) and, from what I can tell, are just about bullet proof. Critically, the valve won't open and let gas flow to your burner if the pilot light has gone out. This feature is absolutely critical if you brew outside with the occasional gust of wind, like I do, and you want to live to taste the beer you're brewing.
This is what the valve looks like. You'll see that, not surprisingly, gas comes in one side and goes out the other. The wires supply the 24V AC power (coming from a transformer that I have sitting in the control box). The aluminium tubing supplies gas to the pilot light; the copper wire connects the thermocouple to the valve.
From this angle, you'll see that the gas comes into a 'T' connection so that any sediment that might be in the gas can fall to the bottom of the sediment trap as opposed to entering the valve.
Here you can see how the valve is connected to the burner. Note my cheap-as wind break for the burner.
Here you can see how I've attached the pilot light to the burner -- a 4-ring job from a vendor at the local weekend markets. I drilled and tapped the cast iron burner to fit a SS machine screw. I coated the screw in some J-B weld (high-temp epoxy) when I assembled it. But when I put this all together, some fifty-odd brews ago, I thought for sure that this was the weakest link in the system. So far so good though.
From this angle, you can see both the pilot light and the thermocouple. The pilot light gets the thermocouple red-hot. If the pilot light ever blows out, the thermocouple cools off almost immediately and then the valve won't open.
Because the pilot light is bolted to the burner, I've had to restrain the burner from moving around too much during the bumpy ride to and from the carport, which is where I brew. I've achieved this by bolting these small right-angle tabs to both the legs of the burner and the table.
Here's the HLT, with the HERMS coil sticking its head out.
And here's the control panel -- a $10 toolbox from Bunnings. The only thing to note here today is the "auto - off - manual" switch for the gas valve. Again, I will describe the BCS-460 and other goodies that live in the toolbox some other day.
