The Test Run

Setting Up

Setting up is the easy part about this brewery. It's already set up. It only requires some standard procedures in order to operate. Another reason everything is stainless steel is for easy sanitizing. Sanitation is 70% of brewing, so it's a crucial element. I use 2 sanitizers - Iodopher and Powder Brewery Wash (PBW). I can take my lids, hoses, quick disconnects, ball valves, and miscellaneous fittings and put them all in a bucket filled with Iodopher. The kegs themselves will be sanitized with PBW. During today's test run I didn't sanitize at all because I wasn't making beer, I was simply testing the brewery for any malfunctions.

Watching It Go Down

First, I ran to Home Depot and purchased a second propane tank in the event I ever run out of propane in the midst of a brew session. Then, I found a recipe for an American Wheat and mocked the recipe instructions. The recipe was an 11 gallon batch of American Wheat, which required 9.4 gallons of water for the HLT and 8.725 gallons of water for the MLT. I simply used garden hose water and filled up the two vessels. The recipe called for HLT temps of 184 F and MLT temps of 145 F.

I then powered up the control panel and turned on my temperature controllers. The water was reading 50 F in both vessels. I wonder if my tap water will be 50 F in the middle of a heat wave. Being that this was the first time I fired up my brewery, I was careful to take notes on just about all changes that occured. Moving along, I created set points as per the recipes instructions, setting the HLT to 184 F and the MLT to 145 F.

The following temps-over-time occurred, yielding some interesting evidence:

The above chart tells me a few things. Both kegs had the same starting values of 50 F. In just 22 minutes there was a 7 degree difference between the MLT and the HLT. In 30 minutes, there was a 10 degree differnce which pretty much held that way until the MLT hit 145 and turned off. This tells me that the MLT burner is putting out more btu's than the HLT. I'm not worried about it though. The above data also tells me to be careful about my set point temperatures because after the burner turns off the temps continue to increase. The MLT increased 8 degrees between 2:56 and 3:22 and the burner wasn't even on. I also recorded some other interesting data. Don't forget that I also have analog temperature gauges on each keg. I was reading the analog gauge on the MLT both while the burner was on and after. The digital temperature probe sits at the bottom of the keg and the analog is in the middle. I need to take into account the differences in distance to the flame. At 3:22, the MLT burner was off and the digital temperature controller was reading 153. However, the analog was reading 148. My original set point was 145, so i exceeded that on both regards. It shouldn't come to any surprise that the top of the keg water is cooler than the bottom. I do realize that when i dump room temperature grains into the MLT this will take about 2 degrees off the temps, giving me 151 and 146. I will probably set my differential to 2 degrees less than recommended. -2 degrees minus 2 degrees when taking into account room temperature grains would give me about 149 and 144. That's good enough for beer man!!!!

I was a little disappointed in how long it took to heat up 9.4 gallons to 184 F from 50 F (1:02 to be exact), but I can deal with it. I was running the burners at about 50%. For the HLT I could run it at 100% and cut out some time, but with the MLT I can't risk scorching the grains. I'll keep it as-is. I had the valves open 100%, but had the PSI regulator at about 50%. I burned through about 1/8 off the propane tank. That's good news.

After I succeeded in hitting my temps I moved along to the chilling faze. I tested the BK burner just to make sure it properly operated, but didn't want to sit there and watch it boil water for 60 minutes. If i was boiling beer, it would have been different :)

Chilling the Beer

The chilling faze is important in the beer making process. Simply put, the idea is to get the beer from boiling temperatures to about 68 F as fast as possible in order to pitch the yeast. The old school way is to fill a bath tub with ice water and put the keg in there to chill. That can take an hour or two, sometimes more. Some people use wort chillers, which consist of copper or stainless tubing that sits in the keg, where cold water is circulated through it. I myself purcased the Therminator, which has got to be the coolest device in homebrewing, just very expensive.

The therminator has 2 inlets, and 2 outlets. There is a wort inlet/outlet and a water inlet/outlet. There are 2 chambers in the therminator, one for the beer and one for water. theyt do not mix. I use Pump 1 to recirculate the beer through the therminator and attached a garden hose to run 50 F water through the therminator as well. At 5 gallons per minute, I was able to reduce 140 F beer (water today) to 68 F in 10 minutes. I'll take that any day.

That was it for today. A quick clean up and blog post will call it quits. I will be brewing the first batch in about 2 weeks. More updates to come.

cheers!

4 Months of Building!

After i joined http://www.homebrewtalk.com/ I knew it was time to upgrade my beer brewing from partial mash to all grain (AG). It's a big leap for most homebrewers, but one that is very rewarding. Going AG with the right equipment allows any homebrewer to more actively control various factors; making a personal favorite over and over again, with consistency. Partial Mash brewing in buckets is less controllable, essentially making it harder to produce the same beer time and time again.

So in November I decided to take the leap and began looking at various designs. There are gravity fed systems which rely on gravity for the flow of wort from one kettle to the next, or single tier systems that rely on pumps and/or siphons to get the wort from one kettle to another. I didn't like the gravity fed systems as they tend to sit up pretty high. I didn't want something in my garage that was towering the ceiling, so I went with the single tier system. It is 52" wide and holds 3 kegs. From left to right, the Boil Kettle (BK), Mash Lauter Tun (MLT), and the Hot Liquor Tun (HLT). The system I went with is known in the homebrew community as H.E.R.M.S. This is an acronym which reads Heat Exchanging Recirculating Mash System.

THE STAND

The brewery, which is yet to be named, consists of a stainless steel structure composed of 40 feet of 2" x 2" x 1/8" square tubing. Stainless doesn't rust, which was an appealing factor when choosing my metal. It sits on wheels for easy transport to the driveway (where I will brew). 40 feet of stainless steel tubing weighs roughgly 200 pounds, so you can see the need for wheels on the stand. As you can see from this picture, there is just the right amount of space for the BK, MLT, and HLT.

Thanks to Joe the Welder, we were able to weld this together over one weekend. It took a lot longer than originally anticipated, but turned out good enough for government work, and good enough for beer. Some welds turned out great, some were adequate, and others were a complete embarrasment. It must have been the hex chrome getting to us because i think the welds got worse as we progressed.


THE KETTLES


Billy D was kind enough to supply me with 3 kegs, which serve as the BK, MLT, and HLT. It took some preparation to get them to serve as a kettle, but with stainless steel kettles in the 15 gallon range, I just saved myself about $900. Kegs are stainless steel FYI. This is why they increased deposits on kegs a few years back. The kegs are simply worth more than a $10 deposit. In fact, they are worth more than $30, but commercial breweries can only implement a deposit so high before they scare off customers. Anyway, I spent some time polishing up the kegs, making them look pretty - cutting out the tops of the kegs, and welding in 2 couplings per keg. The lower coupling on each keg serves as the drain outlet and the upper coupling houses an analog temperature gauge.


PLUMBING

After working on the stand and the kegs, came the fun part - the Gas Plumbing and the Control Panel. It was time to make this system operational. I ordered up some 10-tip low pressure jet burners with a self-standing pilot. The actual plumbing was bought at Home Depot and was no more than $50. I'm no professional plumber, and I'd rather keep it that way, but I think I am actually at code with this thing. The burners operate from an adjustable PSI regulator hooked up to a propane tank. The plumbing runs across the stand horizontally and then has vertical shoots which house the burners. Each burner has a ball valve for the pilot (to regulate gas flow) and a ball valve to the burner (again, to regulate gas flow). The middle burner (MLT), and the right burner (HLT) have an asco valve associated with the plumbing. These asco valves are electrical, and are normally closed in position by default. The valve sends signals to the control panel, which operates my temperature controllers, telling the valve when to open and when to close, allowing or disallowing a flame to come out of the burner. This regulated, automated burner allows me to set a temperature point and hold steady. For example, If i wanted to set my HLT to hold at 185 F, the digital temperature controller signals the asco valve to open, allowing a flame to heat up the keg. When the temperature of the water in the HLT hits 185 F, the asco valve shuts, turning off the burner until the temp drops to 184 F, where it then fires back on until it his 185 F again, process repeating.

Take a look at the temperature controllers on the control panel and the burner set up. The temperature controllers have electrical probes that sit in the kegs, taking constant temperature readings of the HLT and MLT. The Asco valves are the green valves which has the wiring.













After I wired up the valves to the control panel I was able to test out the burner.......and wow!!! These burners put out some serious juice. It literally sounds like a mini jet engine. I was very skeptical about being to close at first. The sound was somewhat frightening. I had a few gas leaks at first, but pipe dope on every connection sealed everything up very well.

The control panel has a few components to it. It has a main power supply which runs to the wall outlet of my house, or any house for that matter. It has 7 switches in total: Main Power switch, Left Digital Temperature Controller, Right Digital Temperature Controller, Left Asco Valve, Right Asco Valve, Pump 1 and Pump 2. The wiring was color coded, Green being ground, White being Neutral and Black being Hot. It was messy, but it worked.













Next came the final stages of this build, the pumps and hoses.

PUMPS

The pumps and hoses assist in the transfer of wort, water, and mash from one keg to the other. These kegs get extremely hot in just a few moments of operation and also get extremely heavy when filled with liquid and grains. I could have saved some money and just used a siphon, but that would be no fun. The pumps do all the work. There are two pumps which operate simultaneously and independently depending on the current task. The hoses themselves all have quick disconnects for interchangeability. I also put a safety cover over the pumps to prevent them from any spillage.

Finished Product

Take a look. See for yourself. Judge for yourself when you drink some of the delicious product that comes from it. I have a twin tap kegerator so i will have two beers on tap at any given point. I intend to brew in just a few weeks, so it will be about 6 weeks from today that we can enjoy this beer together. If you can't make this round, there will be plenty more to come.