I’ll do a full writeup once I stop weeping but the gist of it is that the hop and break crud from the boiler ended up clogging my chiller and about half of my valves. The chiller was clogged so bad it ended up taking me 3 hours to chill the batch down to pitching temperature. I didn’t find out about the valves problems till tonight when I tried to clean the whole mess up. One of my solenoid valves was stuck open by three tiny pieces of hop leaf.

So, tonight  I cleaned the whole mess up, stripped it almost completely down and I’m now planning how to fix things. One of the things I’ll definitely need to do is replace any valves that might end up with crud passing through them with ball valves or motorized ball valves. I’m also going to need a filter system in place for the wort before it hits the chiller.

All in all, I am really happy with the brewery. Even though I had big problems for the most part it went really, really smooth. I have a few bugs to work out and then it’s going to kick major ass.

I had to chase down some noise and interference throughout the control panel which was causing the LCD to scramble now and then. The pumps needed snubbers which I build from a 47 Ohm resistor + .1uF capacitor wired in series placed parallel to the hot and neutral on the plug of the pump. The solenoids all needed suppression diodes which I have been working on installing right into the coil head of each solenoid as I wire them up. 4 of 11 done so far.

Tonight after the final kettle work I spent some time heating water in various kettles and testing my heat exchanger. It seems to work pretty well although I am either having some pump priming issues or the heat exchanger is too restrictive. The flow is not very good through it. I am pretty sure it’s a pump prime issue. Tomorrow I am going to rotate the head of the pump to a configuration a lot of brewers are having success with and see if it helps. The result will have the inlet of the pump facing down and the outlet facing up. The idea is to have any air trapped in the head go to the top and be evacuated so the entire pump head can fill with liquid.

I am really hoping to be able to brew this weekend but it’s probably not going to happen. I need some final pipe fittings to get everything finished and the eBay seller I want to get them from is being slow to respond. We’ll see!

Lots of pictures to come – I’ve been too busy working on it to take any!

• Build the second valve manifold.
• Build the kettle input manifolds.
• Drill the MLT and BK.
• Wire all the valves.
• Wire the temperature sensors.

Unfortunately I am kind of hesitant to do any of that until I know where the control panel is going to live, whether it works and how long cables will need to be.

So, I’m stuck.

I do have some parts showing up tomorrow I should be able to work on. I have some tri-clamp fittings coming that I am going to build into the HERMS coil so it’s easily removable and I have cable grips coming that will go on the valve side of the valve cabling. With that I will at least be able to wire the valves on one side and leave them long on the other. Once I have the control panel and decide where it’s going to live I can cut the cables to length and terminate them.

So, probably not too much going on for the next few days, but as soon as the control panel is back I expect to wrap the whole project up very quickly.

In better news, I did finish getting the stand put together and got the casters installed. So, it sort of looks like a brewery at least. And it rolls around the garage very easily

Next up, I have to make a decision about the two remaining holes (probably yes), get those cut and then strip and finish the panel. Then it’s finally time to button this thing up. Can’t wait!

While the stripper was working I started laying out and drilling the front panel. I drilled all the major round holes and pilot holes for all the rectangular holes except two that I am not sure about yet. I’m hoping I can cut the rectangles on my mill but I am  not sure if the whole thing will fit in there. That’s tomorrow experiment.

Finally, because  I couldn’t stand it any more, I installed some of the major components into the front panel. It’s looking really great. I am super excited to get it finished up. Tomorrow I am going to get the rectangular holes started on the mill (hopefully), set to stripping the main box and get the bottom panel primed and painted.

The control box is turning out to be a lot more work than I expected, but it’s turning out really nice so I don’t mind. It’s bugging me that I still have not put power to a kettle but I think it will be worth it in the end. I want the system to look as good as it runs and I’m getting there.

Let’s just revisit that… “pocket out a few large holes”.

Something seems wrong there.

Pocket… out…

Pocket.

Courtney and I were just sitting on the couch when I realized that I spent hours watching the mill grind a bunch of metal into dust instead of having it run a few simple contours which would have taken like 20 minutes. I have no idea how I missed it. At some point in the day I decided, “Hey, I’ll just use the circular pocket wizard and let the mill do the work!”

So stupid.

Anyway, here’s some pictures. Here’s to hoping tomorrow will be far more productive.

I also finished wiring up the HLT and got it all waterproofed.  I believe I now have a pretty safe vessel for electric heating. The whole thing is well grounded and electrical connections are all secured in a weatherproof junction box. The HLT has a 10 foot, 10 gauge, 3 wire power cord terminated in a NEMA L6-30 plug which will go to a matching receptacle in the control panel. Eventually.

I also did some pump testing and tested my HERMS coil for watertightness. All looks good there. The March pumps are a pain in the ass to prime but I think that when I have my solenoids all wired up I can nearly automate it. The first solenoid off the pump will be for draining (by design) and now I think I will also use it for priming. Opening that solenoid will let the head of the pump fill without having to push any pressure.

I also spent a bunch of time this weekend modeling all of the components that will be used in the control panel in 3D using SketchUp. I did this so I can build a full model of the control panel before I start cutting into the box. I don’t want to make any mistakes here. So far it’s looking good. My SSR heat sinks will have to live under a few shallow components but they should have plenty of breathing room.

So, all in all, very productive weekend! I am waiting for some replacement parts for the control panel and a whole batch of stainless steel nipples to plumb all my manifolds. Those will all be here this week and then things will move fast. I am really hoping to be able to fire the whole thing up this weekend!

Here’s some pictures from the work this weekend. I’m using a new (to me) WordPress plugin called Slickr-Flickr and it seems cool so far.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about the extension cord. After I wired the plug and put it all together I tested each wire with my volt meter as I always do. Except this time I found a short between a hot leg and neutral! Turns out the little metal pressure plate in one of the terminals had  a sharp edge and when I closed the plug it cut into the wire next to it. Lucky I tested it. Most likely it would have just flipped the breaker, but it’s a 50 amp breaker and I don’t like the idea of a 50 amp short!

For the large heating element hole I used a “chassis punch”, which is a new tool to me. It’s basically a heavy metal punch and die that the punch slips in to with a bolt through the whole thing. You drill a pilot hole, put the bolt through, put the punch on one side and the die on the other and tighten the bolt till you have a perfect hole. It worked well, but I am not sure it was any easier than the step drill I’ve been using for the 7/16″ holes. I also think the threads on the bolt stripped a little. My understanding is that Greenlee makes the best chassis punches, but they are kinda expensive. I picked up a knockoff from Radio Daze.

I also finally took some pictures. Here is the kettle with the 2 HERMS coil holes, the liquid return hole and the heater element hole and a picture of what I refer to as “The Loot Table”. This is all the stuff I’ve currently collected for the brewery. It’s going to overflow in the next week as the last of the orders all come in. I can’t wait!

So now all the modifications for the HLT are finally done and with any luck tomorrow I will be able to put it all together and start doing wet testing. Gotta make sure there are no leaks before I give it the juice!

First, progress: I picked up a tubing bender from Harbor Freight and it made quick work of bending the other 90 degree bend in my HERMS coil. I measured everything out and chopped off a few inches of each end of the coil so everything lined up and the coil is now ready to be mounted. I’ve decided to hold off on mounting it till I finish drilling holes in that kettle. It will be way easier to clean out the swarf, cutting oil and nasties without a giant coil mounted in there. I still need to cut a 1.25″ heater element hole, a hole for the temperature probe and a hole for liquid return near the top. It’s getting late tonight so this will probably happen tomorrow.

Next, kits: I ordered and received all the parts to make 10 BrewTroller PID Display kits so tonight Courtney and I made up the kits and printed some nice labels for them. Now they are in a box just ready and waiting for you to buy them!

Finally, parts: I ordered the last of the expensive parts for the brewery. I ordered a bunch of control panel components along with the enclosure that will actually be the control panel. It’s a 14x14x8″ steel, hinged and locking enclosure. I’ll post of a picture of the control panel design soon but basically it holds:

• 1 key operated switch for main power with a large power light.
• 2 3 position selectors along with lights for setting heaters to On/Off/Auto.
• 2 3 position selectors along with lights for setting pumps to On/Off/Auto.
• 3 BrewTroller PID Displays.
• 1 BrewTroller LCD.
• 1 Giant aluminum encoder knob for controlling the BrewTroller.
• 11 (or more) small 3 position toggle switches + LEDs for setting valves to On/Off/Auto and for showing their status.
• 1 large PANIC switch that cuts all power.

Inside the control panel will be the BrewTroller, 16 port relay board, 2 very large contactors for controlling power to the heaters, 2 SSRs for controlling heat, a compact computer power supply for lots of 12v current and lots of other little odds and ends.

Anyway, I also ordered the last of the valves I will need. 10 more of the little bastards. That was expensive but it’s gonna be awesome. Unfortunately I decided at the last minute I needed 11 valves (which I now have coming) but I only planned my control panel for 10 so I need to move a few things around and I will be short one damn LED.

I think that’s it for tonight! Looking forward to the weekend when I hope to make some serious, serious progress. Hopefully by then the rest of my kettles will be here, too!

My batch size is going to be 10 gallons. I am planning on using a 4500 watt element for my HLT and a 5500 watt element for my BK. These numbers are based purely on random guesses. But… I’ve been wanting to know too. So let’s figure it out.

I just found this info on Wikipedia:

–
A BTU is the energy required to raise one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. A U.S. gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds. So, to raise a 40-gallon tank of 55 °F (13 °C) water up to 105 °F (41 °C) would require (40 × 8.3 × (105 − 55) / 100,000) BTU, or approximately 0.17 CCF, at 100% efficiency. A 40,000 BTU/h heater would take 25 minutes to do this, at 100% efficiency.

In comparison, a typical electric water heater has a 4500 watt heating element, which if 100% efficient results in a heating time of about 1.1 hours.
–

Okay, so based on that info and the Wiki entry for BTU we find that the formula for calculating power required to heat water is: BTUs = (GALLONS * 8.3 * (FINISH_TEMP – START_TEMP))

And from http://www.mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm we find out that 1000 watts is 3414 BTUs.

And based on random crap I found around the Internet we know that heating elements (and heat sources in general) are measured in BTUs per hour or Watt hours. i.e. how many BTUs they put out in an hour or how many watts they put out in an hour.

So now we just have to figure out the two formulas based on time.

So, using my case of a HERMS system let’s say I want to know how long it will take to raise 15 gallons of 55 degree water to my 170 strike temperature. That’s:

(15 * 8.3 * (170 – 55)) = 14317 BTUs

If I use a 4.5kW element I am creating (4.5 kW * 3414 BTUs per kW) = 15363 BTUs per hour

So my time to heat my water is 60 minutes / 15363 BTUs * 14317 BTUs = 55 minutes!

That was actually much less difficult than I expected 

Based on that info, I think that I will put a 5500 in my HLT and the 4500 in my BK. The big difference here is the temperature difference. To go from tap water to sparge water it’s a 115 degree difference but to go from mashed wort at 156 to boiling it’s only 56 degrees – so it will make more sense to have the bigger heater in the MLT. It will save me about 10 minutes in heating my mash and sparge water.

Now, getting back to your original question – RIMS seems more difficult to calculate because the water is moving past the heating element. I’d need to think about it more but maybe that doesn’t matter. If water is always in contact with the element and water is constantly being moved through the tube maybe that’s the same as being in contact with all the water at once. You end up applying more BTUs to less water, so maybe it averages out. Let’s assume it does.

If you wanted to ramp 20 gallons 1 degree in one minute it’s:
(20 * 8.3 * 1) = 166 BTU hours * 60 minutes = 9960 BTU minutes / 3414 BTUs per kW = 2.9 kW. So, it seems like with a 100% efficient system you could use a 3kW element to get your steps. I think the real problems will be trying to get 20 gallons of wort past the element in 1 minute. It looks like my March 809 pumps are a max of 6 gallons per minute, so you’d need at least 3.3 minutes to get all the wort past the element.

I guess another option would be to oversize the element to decrease the amount of wort that needs to flow past it. If it will take 3.3 minutes to move your wort past the element, what if instead you use 3x the heat? If you use 3x the heat you would only heat 1/3 of your kettle but the wort would come out of the RIMS much hotter and would increase the total temperature of the wort.

So, there’s my attempt  I am sure someone who knew anything about thermodynamics would just read this, laugh and walk away, but it’s probably better than guessing!