Would Like Comments On My Brew Rig So Far..

[seravitae]

Hey guys,

Finally found a few hours to work a bit more on the brewery, and wouldnt mind some input if anyone has any suggestions so far.

My setup is going to be a 2 tier march pumped brewery, with a combined mash tun/kettle system to ease the strain on the wallet.



Apologies about photo quality.. late night, phone camera..

So the plan is, load up the HLT with water to strike temp, and feed by gravity into mash tun with grain (the HLT has a bulkhead/ball valve tap on it already, its just on the other side). This will be kept at mashing temp via the HERMS (8" copper pipe shell with 6m of 1/2" copper coiled inside.). During mashing I will refill the HLT with sparge water. Still need to get a fitting and fit a bsp heating element in there. Then, instead of having a seperate expensive kettle with bulkheads/fittings, I'm march pumping the hot wort into a temp hot liquid storage tank (60L fermentor, got it cheap) for approximately 5-10 minutes while i duck outside and empty the spent grain from the mash/kettle. I then return and let the hot wort gravity feed (via a fermentor tap - need to get one of these) back into the kettle which will have a heating element in it (only to be used when kettling).

I chose this design because it takes very little space, and the use of a combined mash/kettle system cuts down on the cost of fittings and containers.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions or ideas or questions so that I can fix anything now *before* i forget "that thing" and have to start all over again or exchange the shelving etc..



Questions i've thought of (and some already answered..)

1) Won't the steam from the kettle destroy the underside of the shelving? A) Yes. Next to the 25L SS HLT is a piece of 2" copper tubing. I am planning on connecting a fitting to the lid of the mash/kettle using that 2" piping (and maybe some elbows) in order to make like, an 'exhaust pipe' so that steam can vent out the side rather than hit the shelf above. Alternatively I may replace that wood shelf with a metal one at a later date.

2) How do you plan to whirlpool? There's not much room to swing a cat in there... A) Seeing as I don't brew often (yes dispite what they say about that being a lie once you have a brew rig) I am content with removing the empty HLT and liquid storage tanks, and removing the wood shelf (it just rests on the frame) to access the mash/kettle through the stand itself. there's plenty of room to do that in there.

3) How do I plan to connect everything? Well, this is pretty simple, I only need a few bits of silicone tubing from HLT to mash, and hot liquid storage to mash, I have quick disconnects to shuttle between the two and between the HERMS unit.

4) How am I going to chill the wort? Well, instead of using a plate chiller, and seeing as I already have a very nice radiator/fan/pump combo from a water cooling system, I realised I could recirculate the contents of the HERMS exchanger and chill that with the wort still pumping around the 6m of copper coil. Essentially I have a heating element and a "cooling element" in there. It might be slower but it seems nice to me in the sense that after boiling in the kettle, you can flick the element off and flick the march and radiator pump/fans on and watch the same temperature gauge until you get the right temp, stop everything, whirlpool, then pump out the good stuff to the fermentor via the march again.

5) Will the march pump have enough head to fill from the top of the HLT and temp storage drums? I have no idea.. Anyone?



Cheers

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

can't answer any of your questions, but I've got those shelves!

I actually only use them for storage, and still juggle gear on my kitchen table. Really need to get onto building a stand....

 

[seravitae]

Yeah, i like how you can make them a 4-shelf or a 2x2-shelf design. I'm still half tempted to break it back up and make a few changes to the layout so I can have two sets of shelves.

 

[Fents]

hahaha i just brought EXACTLY the same shelves from bunnings for my setup. Got it home and built it all up only to find i need the next size up in the shelving.

 

[seravitae]

hahaha i just brought EXACTLY the same shelves from bunnings for my setup. Got it home and built it all up only to find i need the next size up in the shelving.

Haha, danm that would suck. I was kind of annoyed that mine didnt come with the plastic leg stops. Looks like someone returned their shelving and forgot to pack it all back in... maybe I got your shelves?

I was eyeing off the next size up shelving but decided I would rather usemy space as efficiently as possible. Suprisingly good stuff and easy to put together! Best $60 i've spent so far. Gonna pick up some more sets for the workshop.

 

[Fents]

nah didnt end up returning mine i'll just use it in my bar somewhere.

bloody easy to build too.

 

[T.D.]

I reckon the March pump will be able to shift the wort up to the top ok, it doesn't look that high. I have pumped sparge water up around 1.5m without too many issues, so I can't imagine you will have any trouble here.

 

[seravitae]

Ok cool.. Thanks.

That SS stockpot is 40cm tall so im only looking i think at about a meter, maybe a meter 20 to the top of the temp storage. even if the flow rate is low because it's pushing the limit, that's fine with me seeing as it shouldnt take long to remove the lauter and sparge water even at low flow.

*gets excited*

 

[Wrenny]

Not sure if I've got my head around it right, but with your herms / chiller - will you be using the same water? It would be pretty inefficient and slow to heat the water in the herms right up, and then cool it right down again. Could you ditch the hot water after it's done its business and then refill with cooler tap water?

 

[mesa]

Craftbrewer lists the specs for a March 809 as 3.25gal/min with a head of 6 foot. So yeah, should move that wort easily.

 

[crozdog]

FWIW here is my $0.02 worth of commentry:

1. i'd change your process. Instead of using the kettle as a mash tun/kettle, this is what i'd do:
- insulate what you've marked as the HLT & the 60l hot liquid storage.
- use the HLT as a mash tun (fit a manifold or use braid).
- use the 60l hot liquid storage as an insulated storage vessle.
- Heat your strike water in the kettle, pump into the Mash tun.
- recirc mash through Heat exchanger as normal
- While mashing proceeds, heat sparge water then pump into the 60l hot liquid storage.
- mash out by pumping/carefully pouring from heat exchanger to mash tun (old HLT)
- drain 1st runnings to kettle (note it didn't have to be emptied!)
- pump sparge water from 60l hot liquid storage to mash tun (old HLT)
- drain 2nd runnings to kettle
- boil
- cool heat exchanger with tap water & fill with coolant
- cool your wort (or no chill h34r: )

2. if your worried about condensation rotting the shelf, paint it.

3. i wouldn't bother with making the vent, brew without the lid (you need to do that anyway for removal of nasties like DMS pre-cursors). use the 2' pipe to make a water purifier....

4. Whirlpooling - removing the shelf each time you brew will be a PITA. can you get rid of the top shelf & move the middle shelf higher? OR, why not fit 2 bulkhead fittings & use your pump to whirlpool in the kettle?

5. re cooling. there is a lot of heat you need to remove from the just boiled wort. i don't believe you will extract that amount of heat through a heat exchanger & radiator setup (this is based on my experience with a water purifier doing a similar thing)

Start simple, learn from your mistakes and grow when you can afford to / know what you want to do next.

 

[Bakes]

As above, use the HLT as your Mash tun. Go to Kmart buy a $10 1800W/2400W kettle, rip the element out install into the fermenter, there is your HLT.

You already have the 3 vessels you need...

 

[seravitae]

Thanks crozdog for your suggestions
I got a little lost with your order of operations, could you please clarify:

1. Are you basically just suggesting I swap my 25L HLT and 45L mash/kettle? This makese sense in terms of, I only need to do one "cycle" of heating, as 45L of hot water could supply strike and sparge water. I do actually plan to ditch the 25L SS boiler for a 45L boiler when i can get my hands on another SS or ali stockpot (i dont mind ali if its just heating water).
Sorry ill have to sit down and think about what you said, that process seems to confuse me a bit.

2.Yeah, I'm going to replace them with some metal at some stage instead of painting them.

3. Good point about brewing without a lid. Ok, i'll stick to brewing with the lid off.

4. Removing the shelf really won't be a PITA - at the stage when whirlpooling is required, both the "current" HLT and storage tun will be empty and need cleaning/drying anyways - there's no heavy weight to lift or anything. I am a fairly lazy ******* when it comes to these things however when I allocate a day to do a brew, I do it properly, and taking the shelving out doesnt involve dismantling the shelving - the wood plate just pops out in like 1 second with an upwards push. I think i'd have to make a movie for you to see how easy it is On that note however, I was under the impression that whirlpooling wasnt very good with march pumps and that's why I didn't bother attempting a fitting on the kettle for it... I think i will ask others on the forum to see if they got enough of a whirlpool to make it worth it? Good idea though, cheers

5. Yes, there is a lot of heat to remove, the water cooling setup i have has a very large radiator with 4x 120mm fans on it, i believe the radiator is capable of 1300W of heat load continuously. I also have a 500W peltier that I am sort-of planning to integrate inbetween the two to get active pumping - peltiers are very efficient when pumping from above room temp to room temp (not the most commonly associated way of using a peltier - this way the COP is greater than 1, that is, I will see at least 500W of active heat being pumped).
Basically with the radiator plumbed into HERMS directly, the wort cooling effect will be somewhere between no-chill and plate chilled(room temp water). With the peltier inline it wil be close to plate chilled (ice water).


Bakes:

I see you're suggesting using the 25L pot as the mash tun as well.. why's this?


Hmm. I should point out that I actually have 2 of the 60L fermentors here. I would like the 45L SS to remain as the tun in case of double batches and because that's what I bought it for. The 25L SS is actually an old stillspirits 3-in-1 mashing unit someone gave me, which can't readily be converted to accomodate a braid/manifold due to element placing and other issues.

What about:



*Scrap the 25L SS drum
* 1x60L fermentor + element --> HLT
* 1x45L SS mash tun/kettle combo
* 1x60L fermentor (temp storage)

fill HLT, heat to strike, empty half into mash tun. mash. pump liquid to temp storage. sparge, add to temp storage. empty mash tun. drain temp storage to mash tun/kettle. boil away

does that sound better guys?

edit: picture, 1000 words, etc

here's the radiator setup I have for cooling the wort:

Im happy at this stage to no-chill. However seeing as I already have the radiator inlet/outlet soldered onto the herms, might as well use it.

Bakes, I'm planning on using your cheap kettle trick - how hard is it to mount the element from a kettle? I'm gonna search the forums but any advice would be appreciated. Nothing says "oops" like 40 liters of hot water bucketing out a hole.

 

[Bakes]

Bakes:

I see you're suggesting using the 25L pot as the mash tun as well.. why's this?


Bakes, I'm planning on using your cheap kettle trick - how hard is it to mount the element from a kettle? I'm gonna search the forums but any advice would be appreciated. Nothing says "oops" like 40 liters of hot water bucketing out a hole.

That was the suggestion because you soon get over having to transfer liquid to a temporary vessel. I had a 24 litre kettle, so when i did full size brews i would transfer all runnings from the MT to a fermenter, then boil half at at time (half for 30 mins to achieve hot break and the other half for hop additions.) What I didn't say was that the 25 litre pot is your smallest vessel so will be the limiting size of your brewing. You should still be able to get up to 30 litre wort size using it as a MT. Maybe a bit more if you mash at 2L/kg.

Putting the element in is very easy. Takes a whole 2 mins to get it out of the kettle. Trace out the hole size onto the fermenter. Cut it with a sharp knife or something, slightly undersize at first, that way if you accidentally slip you shouldn't cut too large a hole, then I finished mine to size with a dremel, but a round file or half round file or even taking a little bit off at a time with the knife should suffice. Take your time so you dont make it too big. That should take anywhere from 5 - 20 mins depending on your tools. Now you'll notice that the kettle side walls are probably thicker than your fermenter's and so won't clamp together tight enough when you put the screws is, so get some old plastic food containers (ice cream, tupperware etc.) and use the lids to cut out some spacers.

Now because all kettles these days have their bases with the power supplies, you need to do one of the following for power.
- Use the current power lead from the kettle, cut off the end and install a jug lead fitting;
- Use the current power lead from the kettle, cut off the end, solder the three wires permanently to the three electodes on the element and cover them in heat shrink;
- Buy a jug lead. These are used on heaps of appliances so dont spend $20 or whatever they are from a homebrew shop. I had one lying around from an old guitar amp, but are also commonly used on old kettles (suprise suprise) and desktop pc's so you should be able to find one or pick one up cheap from someone you know.

Just a note, I always unplug the jug lead when filling my HLT and before connecting again make sure its dry. Once you've installed it do a test run with a few litres of water in the bottom. If there are no leaks, heat it up to boiling and continually check for leaks, if you have any, add more of the tupperware spacers 'til you're done.

If you want a photo of mine I can get you one.

 

[crozdog]

response below inline in red

Thanks crozdog for your suggestions
I got a little lost with your order of operations, could you please clarify:

1. Are you basically just suggesting I swap my 25L HLT and 45L mash/kettle? This makese sense in terms of, I only need to do one "cycle" of heating, as 45L of hot water could supply strike and sparge water. I do actually plan to ditch the 25L SS boiler for a 45L boiler when i can get my hands on another SS or ali stockpot (i dont mind ali if its just heating water).
Sorry ill have to sit down and think about what you said, that process seems to confuse me a bit.Sorry for any confusion. I'm suggesting you use your 45l pot as a dedicated kettle instead of combuned kettle/mash tun. i was also suggesting you use the 25L HLT as a mash tun, but read in your response below it is a 3 in 1 & can't be easily modified.

2.Yeah, I'm going to replace them with some metal at some stage instead of painting them.

3. Good point about brewing without a lid. Ok, i'll stick to brewing with the lid off.

4. Removing the shelf really won't be a PITA - at the stage when whirlpooling is required, both the "current" HLT and storage tun will be empty and need cleaning/drying anyways - there's no heavy weight to lift or anything. I am a fairly lazy ******* when it comes to these things however when I allocate a day to do a brew, I do it properly, and taking the shelving out doesnt involve dismantling the shelving - the wood plate just pops out in like 1 second with an upwards push. I think i'd have to make a movie for you to see how easy it is On that note however, I was under the impression that whirlpooling wasnt very good with march pumps and that's why I didn't bother attempting a fitting on the kettle for it... I think i will ask others on the forum to see if they got enough of a whirlpool to make it worth it? Good idea though, cheers St Peters brewery pump hot wort from & to their 700l kettle to whirlpool. I don't see why a marsh pump wouldn't cope with that, but I've never tried.

5. Yes, there is a lot of heat to remove, the water cooling setup i have has a very large radiator with 4x 120mm fans on it, i believe the radiator is capable of 1300W of heat load continuously. I also have a 500W peltier that I am sort-of planning to integrate inbetween the two to get active pumping - peltiers are very efficient when pumping from above room temp to room temp (not the most commonly associated way of using a peltier - this way the COP is greater than 1, that is, I will see at least 500W of active heat being pumped).
Basically with the radiator plumbed into HERMS directly, the wort cooling effect will be somewhere between no-chill and plate chilled(room temp water). With the peltier inline it wil be close to plate chilled (ice water). let me know how this goes with the peltier. I use a fan driven radiator on the output of another device & find that after a while the reservoir temp creeps up cause the radiator doesn't remove all of the heat. I've been thinking of adding my cold plate in an ice slurry to drop the temp further


Bakes:

I see you're suggesting using the 25L pot as the mash tun as well.. why's this? simplifies your brew day


Hmm. I should point out that I actually have 2 of the 60L fermentors here. I would like the 45L SS to remain as the tun in case of double batches and because that's what I bought it for. The 25L SS is actually an old stillspirits 3-in-1 mashing unit someone gave me, which can't readily be converted to accomodate a braid/manifold due to element placing and other issues.

What about:



*Scrap the 25L SS drum
* 1x60L fermentor + element --> HLT
* 1x45L SS mash tun/kettle combo
* 1x60L fermentor (temp storage)

if it was me, I'd:
- convert 1 of the 60l fermenters to a mash tun ie insert a manifold/braid/false bottom + tap & insulate well
- Insulate the other 60l fermenter for use as a temporary hot liquor storage tank.
- use the 45l as a dedicated kettle ie use it to heat all water required for mash/sparge then for boiling the wort.

basically it is a 3 vessel system without a heating element in the HLT (you could add 1 later if you experienced a large temp drop).

fill HLT, heat to strike, empty half into mash tun. mash. pump liquid to temp storage. sparge, add to temp storage. empty mash tun. drain temp storage to mash tun/kettle. boil away

using the system i describe, you'd be able to runoff directly from the mash tun to the kettle (no emptying) & sparge (batch or fly) directly from the temp storage. As the 60l containers for mash and temp storage have more capacity than your kettle, you could do a partygyle & make 2 different brews off the 1 mash - using the 3 in 1 as a 2nd kettle! But that is another conversation

does that sound better guys?

edit: picture, 1000 words, etc

here's the radiator setup I have for cooling the wort:

Im happy at this stage to no-chill. However seeing as I already have the radiator inlet/outlet soldered onto the herms, might as well use it.

Bakes, I'm planning on using your cheap kettle trick - how hard is it to mount the element from a kettle? I'm gonna search the forums but any advice would be appreciated. Nothing says "oops" like 40 liters of hot water bucketing out a hole.

 

[yardy]

gday sera,

without knowing what comes in the kit (braces etc), if it were me mate i would brace the frame up a little once you've got it all configured.

cheers
Yard

looks good btw

 

[Fents]

those shelves are rated at either 100KG or 150KG per shelf.

 

[tdh]

You can varnish those shelves too. At least 2 coats all over.
Then they won't soak up any liquids and swell and are easy to wipe clean.

tdh

 

[yardy]

those shelves are rated at either 100KG or 150KG per shelf.

wasn't on about the load, more the movement of the frame over time, after all it is slotted.

 

[seravitae]

Thanks again crozdog for taking the time to reply..
1. Okay I understand now about the setup you suggest. I guess my only "paranoia issue" is that I don't mind the plastic drums being used for heating only hot water or temp storage (5-10 mins of wort) but I dont yet feel comfortable to mash for 1+ hour in a plastic drum. Same with no-chill, kind of doesn't sit right with me. Naturally I am not going to cut any holes until I decide not only what is fairly convenient but also mentally/emotionally sound but I am definately taking your consideration on board.

4. I'll search on the forums to see if anyone's whirlpooled with a march but it seems reasonable as there won't be much head pressure so probably lots of flow rate.

5. Will keep you updated (about the peltier chiller).


Fents: Regarding the strength of the shelf, i trust the bracing more than the actual shelving. Hence I will replace the 9mm mdf sheets with metal at some stage to prevent bowing/snapping. With regards to movement of the frame over time, it is slotted but the way the slots are arranged, any weight pushing them down strengthens the unit. At most in my current model (60L HLT, 60L temp storage, 45L SS mash/kettle) there would be only ~45kg on one shelf at any one time.