Show us your brewrig

[Denobrew]

Spoon hook: check. You've got some organised thinking there.


I've taken notes mate

Here's a video of a brew day a few weeks ago if you're interested cosdog

https://youtu.be/vQRgK-EK1OI

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

With Your gravity fly sparging, if you add a ball valve to the inlet to the top of the mash tun, open the HLT outlet ball valve 100% and throttle the flow with the newly added valve you'll probably find it easier with the flow towards the end, cheers!

 

[Mardoo]

Great advice. Thanks!

 

[Denobrew]

With Your gravity fly sparging, if you add a ball valve to the inlet to the top of the mash tun, open the HLT outlet ball valve 100% and throttle the flow with the newly added valve you'll probably find it easier with the flow towards the end, cheers!

Thanks DJ, I find fly sparging the most labor intensive, anything that will help is good advice. Cheers Tim

 

[Nebes]

What about a blichmann auto sparge arm then you only have to adjust the outlet of your mash tun

 

[Denobrew]

What about a blichmann auto sparge arm then you only have to adjust the outlet of your mash tun

Another great idea. Tidal Pete recommended I take a look at my recirculation and that there could be room for improvement, I'll take your advice on board and see what I can manufacture. Cheers Tim

 

[Zorco]

Spoon hook: check. You've got some organised thinking there.


I've taken notes mate

Here's a video of a brew day a few weeks ago if you're interested cosdog

https://youtu.be/vQRgK-EK1OI

Ripper video mate. The gear looks excellent. It was a good watch while I negotiated my hangover on the lounge this morning too!

I've learnt a few things from gash as well! A top bloke. I wonder if he is on AHB?

 

[simchez]

Great day to brew!!

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Hopefully this goes into use tomorrow:



Bling


Designed for 25 litre batch size; I don't drink enough to need anything bigger.

Top left is mash / wort kettle with agitator and induction heatiing. Middle right is lauter tun / whirlpool. Bottom left is sparge water heater.

All the vessels will be insulated in two layers of foam before this goes into use, I had the foam off whilst doing a final cleanup.

Gravity flow except for lauter tun to kettle which is manual (by bucket). If I get sick of bucketing I might put a pump in.

All butterfly valves except on water tank because I hate ball valves. Butterfly on the mash exit is 1.5", hopefully the mash won't block it. We used to pump 10 tonnes of mash through a 3" plug valve so it should be OK.

Yes, the sparge tank is too small. I already had that pot so I went with it. If it turns out to be too much of a PITA I'll increase it.

 

[Meddo]

Nice looking rig LC. Any pics inside?

Forgive my ignorance please - after draining the mash through the kettle outlet, how will you be sanitising the outlet prior to draining cooled wort to FV? Is just a rinse and spray of sanitiser enough?

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Some bits that go with the above:


Bling bits

Left to right: mash agitator already mentioned, SS sparge distributor, carbon fibre lauter plate. Lauter plate spacing is 0.6mm.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Forgive my ignorance please - after draining the mash through the kettle outlet, how will you be sanitising the outlet prior to draining cooled wort to FV? Is just a rinse and spray of sanitiser enough?

Mash drains to lauter tun. Green wort returns to mash / wort kettle and is boiled. Final wort drains to lauter / whirlpool and is cooled in place. Whirlpool end of drain hose is left in place, other end is uncoupled and placed in tank of hot water. Cooled wort drains to FV through this hose.


mash inner


Lauter inner

Sorry for the bad pics, I'm not a good photographer and the bling confuses the autofocus on the camera.

I should have mentioned that the motor on the agitator is a windscreen wiper motor from our friends at Motion Dynamics.

 

[SBOB]

carbon fibre lauter plate.

so it drains faster?

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Nice one.

No, it just turned out to be easier to fabricate in carbon than in SS.

 

[Camo6]

Hopefully this goes into use tomorrow:



Bling


Designed for 25 litre batch size; I don't drink enough to need anything bigger.

Top left is mash / wort kettle with agitator and induction heatiing. Middle right is lauter tun / whirlpool. Bottom left is sparge water heater.

All the vessels will be insulated in two layers of foam before this goes into use, I had the foam off whilst doing a final cleanup.

Gravity flow except for lauter tun to kettle which is manual (by bucket). If I get sick of bucketing I might put a pump in.

All butterfly valves except on water tank because I hate ball valves. Butterfly on the mash exit is 1.5", hopefully the mash won't block it. We used to pump 10 tonnes of mash through a 3" plug valve so it should be OK.

Yes, the sparge tank is too small. I already had that pot so I went with it. If it turns out to be too much of a PITA I'll increase it.

You know what they say: "Big pot, big spout...little pot, allllll spout."

I like the wort return LC. Nice and simple to construct. HLT scales also a bonus and that stirrer is very neat. I'm both surprised at, and admiring of, the lack of over-engineering. I kinda expected a spectromagraph or platominator incorporated in somehow but you've shown amazing restraint.
Who are you Lyrebird_Cycles?

 

[SBOB]

HLT scales also a bonus and that stirrer is very neat.

isnt that the induction heater and not scales?

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Yep, that's the induction heater. The scales are separate (not shown).

 

[Camo6]

isnt that the induction heater and not scales?

My bad. I was distracted by that spout.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

I'm both surprised at, and admiring of, the lack of over-engineering.

There's more to this than meets the eye. The lautering system is designed to automatically hold a diffferential pressure set point, I don't know of any home scale brewhouse that has incorporated this feature previously. I haven't shown the bits that accomplish this as I don't want to publish it yet.

I built two smaller prototypes and they worked a treat, this is the final proof of concept. I am certain it is patentable but I don't know if it's worth doing so, having been through the wringer some years ago on a wine technology I invented which cost a fortune to develop and went nowhere in the market. The financial effects of that are still plaguing me today.


I will also eventually add automatic control of mash temperature (hence the thermowell) and when I do it will be incorporate a bit of fun: The agitator drive will be linked to the heater controller so the motor goes to 65 RPM x 100% duty cycle when the heater is on and back to 45 RPM x 30% duty cycle when it isn't.

 

[GibboQLD]

The lautering system is designed to automatically hold a diffferential pressure set point, I don't know of any home scale brewhouse that has incorporated this feature previously. I haven't shown the bits that accomplish this as I don't want to publish it yet. I built two smaller prototypes and they worked a treat, this is the final proof of concept.

Looking forward to the write-up! Sweet rig!