My Brewery is the 99%

99% done that is!

My brewery has been about 99% done for a few months now. I’ve been brewing on it and until I have time to redo some fairly major things this is how it’s going to stay, so I thought it was finally time I took some pictures of it and showed it off a little.

The brewery has been a work in progress for about 2 years now. I set out to build a fairly simple “Brutus 10” system and just kept adding and adding and adding. Along the way I learned a lot of new skills and worked my ass off, but it really turned out to be all worth it.

Before I can really show off the system, it will make a lot more sense if you know how beer is made. So, in short, this is how beer is made:

  1. Malted barley is mixed with hot water to create the Mash in the Mash Lauter Tun.
  2. The Mash is allowed to steep for about an hour. This causes the starch in the barley to turn into sugar.
  3. The liquid from the Mash, which we now call Mash Liquor, is drained through a filter from the Mash Liquor Tun into the Boil Kettle. This process is called Lautering.
  4. Hot water from the Hot Liquor Tank is rinsed over the remaining barley in the Mash Lauter Tun to capture any remaining sugar. This process is called Sparging. This water is also collected into the Boil Kettle.
  5. The sweet liquid in the Boil Kettle is brought to a boil and hops are added. We now call the boiling liquid Wort. The process of boiling extracts bitterness from the hops to temper the sweetness of the Wort.
  6. The boiled Wort is cooled down, moved into a Fermenter tank and Yeast is added.
  7. The Yeast work their biological miracle and turn the sugar in the Wort into alcohol and CO2. The CO2 goes out the top and the alcohol stays in. We now have Beer!
  8. The Beer is enjoyed.

The system is an E-HERMS with a ton of automation. E-HERMS stands for Electric Heat Exchanger Recirculating Mash System. What that means is that liquids are heated with electricity (instead of gas, which is more common), and the Mash Liquor recirculates through a heat exchanger to change it’s temperature. More on that in a bit.

The automation comes in the way of temperature sensors, a BrewTroller brewing control computer, motorized ball valves and solenoid valves, a very large control panel and lots of wires. There’s also two brewing pumps to move all the liquids around.

The point of all this is that I can brew without ever having to deal with lifting heavy buckets of hot liquids or disconnecting and reconnecting a bunch of hoses as I go. And, of course, to be super geeky while making beer 🙂

So, now for the tour. First is the brewery from afar…

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From right to left is the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT), the Mash Lauter Tun (MLT) and the Boil Kettle (BK). The HLT is basically a glorified water heater with a twist. It’s goal in life is to keep a bunch of water at a set temperature. Usually around 180 °F.

The twist is that inside the kettle is a coil of stainless steel tubing. This tubing is the heat exchanger. I pump Mash Liquor from the MLT through the heat exchanger and back into the MLT to heat it up. This allows me to control the temperature of the Mash without directly heating it, which can be bad for the grain.

The next set of pictures shows the three kettles from the inside.

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The Boil Kettle contains a heating element which is used to heat up and boil the Wort. The Mash Lauter Tun contains a filter called a False Bottom which is used to drain the Mash Liquor without getting grains. The False Bottom has a series of slots cut into that are too small for the grain to pass through. And finally, the Hot Liquor Tank contains a heating element for heating water and the heat exchanger coil for passing Mash Liquor through.

Next we have some pictures showing the pumps and plumbing of the brewery.

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The brewery is plumbed using all 1/2″ OD stainless steel tubing. I custom bent every piece to get it just how I wanted it. There are two March magnetic drive pumps for moving liquids around, 11 motorized ball valves for controlling liquid flow and direction and 2 solenoid valves for controlling fresh water input to the system.

The plumbing system is designed so that I can move liquid from any tank to any other tank by opening the right configuration of valves and turning on the right pumps.

There is also a plate chiller (the thing that looks like a set of stacked metal plates) which is used for quickly cooling the Wort down from boiling to 68 °F, which what the yeast like. The chiller has channels that allow the Wort to pass in one direction and cold water in the other direction. The metal of the channels transmits heat effectively between the hot Wort and cold water without letting the two mix.

Next up are the electrical systems.

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The control panel is responsible for controlling the motorized ball valves, solenoids, heating elements, pumps and temperature sensors. It shows me the temperature of each tank, along with some auxiliary temperatures and lets me control the other components either manually or automatically. The knob in the middle is an iPod style control that lets me scroll through menus on the LCD and select options.

You can also see a breakout box I made which allows me to hook the 5 temperature sensors together to connect to the control panel.

That pretty much covers the brewery itself, but there is more to the process. Next we have fermentation equipment.

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Here we have 2 BrewHemoth 22 gallon Fermenters and their associated bits. Each Fermenter is wrapped with heating tape which allows me to raise the temperature of the Fermenter and each has an integrated chiller inside it which allows me to cool it. Managing the temperature of fermenting beer is very important in determining how it turns out. The Fermenters also each have a temperature sensor which is locked into the top at an angle. This is used to monitor the temperature of the fermenting beer.

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To manage all that stuff, we have a FermTroller. This is a miniature version of the system in the brewery. All this one does is monitor temperatures and either turn on heating or cooling. It is responsible for turning on and off the heating tape and turning on and off the chiller pumps and valves.

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The chilling system is not yet complete. I had intended to use this freezer to recirculate cold glycol solution through the chillers but it turned out that the glycol needed to be much colder than I wanted the freezer to be. I want to also be able to use the freezer to store beer, and beer needs to be around 45 °F. Unfortunately, the glycol needs to be around -20 °F. So, the chiller system is still being worked on.

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And finally, we have some kegs. These kegs are how I store and serve the beer I make. Each one holds 5 gallons and they go into the kegerator in my kitchen. All the kegs with open lids are currently dirty and need to be cleaned. The one that is closed and is hooked up to the CO2 tank contains fresh beer that is carbonating.

Brewery: Finally, a brew!

I finally managed to crank out a brew this weekend. I started on Saturday and ended up aborting due to process problems. Got it all figured out Saturday evening and got back to it Sunday. Ended up being a very, very long day but beer was made!

First, some pictures, and then my notes from the session…

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And now the notes. Beware, madness lie ahead:

Recipe: Basic Pale
Style: 10A-American Ale-American Pale Ale

Recipe Overview

Wort Volume Before Boil: 12.00 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 11.00 US gals
Volume Transferred: 11.00 US gals
Water Added: 0.00 US gals
Volume At Pitching: 11.00 US gals
Final Batch Volume: 11.00 US gals
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.051 SG
Expected OG: 1.056 SG
Expected FG: 1.013 SG
Expected ABV: 5.6 %
Expected ABW: 4.4 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 31.4
Expected Color: 7.1 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 75.0 %
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 60.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF

Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 20.00 lb (89.9 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 20L Malt 2.00 lb (9.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 120L Malt 0.25 lb (1.1 %) In Mash/Steeped

Hops
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (15.5 % alpha) 1.00 oz Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Cascade (4.5 % alpha) 2.00 oz Bagged Pellet Hops used 15 Min From End
US Cascade (4.5 % alpha) 1.00 oz Bagged Pellet Hops used 1 Min From End

Other Ingredients

Yeast: DCL US-05 (formerly US-56) SafAle

Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name:Single Step Infusion (69C-156F)
Step: Rest at 156 degF for 60 mins

Recipe Notes

2:19pm
Started filling BK to do a PBW flush on the chiller
10 gallons to cover temp sensor

2:45pm
BrewTroller problems

5:35pm
Gave the fuck up

The next day…

12:06pm
Filled BK to 10.25 gallons and started heating and recirc

12:11pm
Started to pour some PBW into the water but it made the whole thing sound like a jet engine. Heating element doesn’t like it? Holding off itll the water is up to temp.

12:20pm
Started recirculating PBW through the chiller a few minutes ago
Running the element at 5% @ 4 second cycle to keep the solution around 120F

12:30pm
It has pulled some hop bits and gunk out of the chiller. Temp is holding very well with no additional heat input.

12:40pm
Filled HLT to 16 gallons and started heating to 180F. Should have done this from the start so it would be ready to flush the chiller.

1:10pm
Finished draining PBW, gotta flush with clean water now

1:17pm
Ran clean water through chiller and drain and into BK
PBW was left between 2 and G I guess, pumped back into BK a bit.
Could probably drain that using the prime dump next time

Probably should remove kettle manual valves. Serve no purpose and can store baddies.

1:28pm
Continued heating HLT, had to stop while moving water
Had to cycle clean water through BK 2X before it felt not slippery

1:35pm
Started moving HLT water to BK for chiller sterilization

1:39pm
Moved 10 gallons 130F water to BK, will continue heating and sanitize chiller with it
This represents the start of a normal brew day. Previous work was all stuff that will normally be done at the end of the brew day.

1:51pm
Last minute configuration stuff
Starting the brew!

1:58pm
BT says to fill mash to 7.8, HLT to 10.8. Already have 14 in HLT so keeping it.
7.8 is too low for temp sensor in MLT. Hmm. This wouldn’t matter as much if I had the HEX return sensor.
Going to add 2 gallons and then dump it before mashing in.

2:05pm
Just realized that if I continue the program right now I won’t have a chance to run the chiller sanitize, so going back to that for now.

Seem to be having some BTPD problems. Or possibly power supply. Getting a lot of flicker from LCD in certain modes. Lots of BTPD resets. Did I ever adjust the brownout on my units? Might be time to dump the BTPD v1 units.

2:22pm
Started recirc on chiller at 185F
Also heating HLT to 170 to get ahead of that
Manually adjusting BK heat to keep the temp around 185F

2:38pm
Finished sanitizing chiller, draining BK to sink
HLT at 130F

Chill water out does not have an adjustable valve on it, so it’s gonna be full bore. Maybe replace E with proportional eventually.

2:50pm
Uploaded new code w/out BTPD support. They keep resetting like crazy. Don’t know if they are the problem or not but that’s the first step in finding out. Unplugged BTPDs completely.
2:52pm
Really for real starting the brew
Really need to replace that alarm. It’s terrifying.
LCD still flickering a lot, don’t think the problem is the BTPDs. Maybe power supply. Need to stick a big ass cap on the 12v lines.
HLT 135F, MLT 85F

3:05pm
Just noticed I never turned the HLT heater on. Sweet! Water will heat faster with it on.
HLT 118F, MLT 111F

3:17pm
Crushed one campden tab and added half to MLT and half to HLT
Cleaned scrubby and put it under diptube in BK

MLT is trailing the HLT by almost exactly 10 degrees. Not sure if that is relevant right now.

3:30pm
HLT 149F, MLT 139F

3:53pm
Screwing around with serial logging a bit to get some data out. Almost up to temp on kettles.

4:05pm
Done screwing around, resuming brew
169F, 160F

4:08pm
172F, 163F

4:15pm
MLT now coming up to temp very slowly. Might be seeing the HEX inefficiency here.
171, 166

4:24pm
Fucking BT locked up and I didn’t notice. Everything kept running.
182, 173

4:33pm
Took off lids and stirred to lower temp, 179/170
Doughing in
Strike 156F after dough in and stirring, probably due to the grain being warmer than I programmed @ 69F
4:47pm
Mash running well
Heating seems to overshoot by as much as 5F. Gotta get the PID going on that.
Wort is now beautiful and clear running through the sight glass

5:30pm
Mash almost finished
Overshoot is about 6 degrees. Goes from 154 to 160 and then slowly drops back down.

5:40pm
Started sparge
Need a way to judge flow better

5:54pm
Bug in sparge in valve profile! Wasn’t actually pumping any water in 🙂

Need to pay more attention to volume of sparge water. Going to end up with 4 gallons of liquid in mash that should not be there.

6:08pm
Turned on BK element to start heating up the wort
9 gallons collected so far

6:27
Finished sparge
Got about 12.5G in kettle. Will determine why when grains are scooped out
Starting boil
Lost a taste by leaving dump valve open. Woops.
Original Gravity was 1.038 @ 150F by hydrometer
12.2P
Expected original gravity was 1.051, and we’re looking at 1.048

6:53pm
Wort boil hit

6:58pm
Started boil timer
Dropped first hops
70% @ 4S is giving a nice hard boil

There was a lot of wort trapped in the HEX, probably the missing wort. Flush it next time.

Boil temp is 209F
Refilled HLT to 10G and started heating to 180F

7:54pm
Added Irish Moss, should have done @15 instead of @5
Cleaning water up to temp

8:00pm
Added the last minute hops directly to wort at 7:59pm
Remove hop bags
Started recirc for whirlpool

8:06pm
Stopped whirlpool, starting settle, will allow to settle for 10 mins
Wort is 194F
Kettle lid should go on at 176F
Wort has a really nice spicy note, kinda like cinnamon or nutmeg

8:14pm
Decided to stir the BK a little to check for temp hotspots. I’m retarded. There goes my nice hop pile.

8:17pm
Started chilling
Removed whirlpool return, need to be able to see if beer is flowing
Really need sightglass and flow meter

9:00pm
Sanitized the fermenter by putting 5 gallons of sanitizer in and spraying the heck out of the top part. Hope that does the trick.

9:11pm
Last few degrees taking forever. Wasting a lot of water. Need to rethink this quite a bit. Ice in the MLT might be good.

9:36pm
Transferring to fermenter via bucket 🙁
Think I ended up with about 10.5G, failed to look before moving some
Maybe more like 10.0G
Evaporation rate was too low, I think, and we lost some in the HEX.

9:57pm
SG 13*P 1.054 by hydrometer @ 68F

11:00pm
Finally done, finished cleaning up
Beer is in the fermenter with a hose to a bucket of sanitizer for blow off
Pitched two packets of Safale US-05, direct to fermenter. They stuck on the foam at the top so I shook it up a bit to mix them in.
Oxygenated full open for 60 seconds from bottom

Final notes:
The whole hops I threw in at the last clogged things up a bit. The scrubby actually worked really well, but it definitely slowed down the flow. I pulled the scrubby out during clean up and the whole hops instantly clogged the drain. Those things will probably get fully stuck in ½” tubing, I bet.

The scrubby was FULL of gunk when I rinsed it out. I think it caught every last drop of break.

I think pellet would have flowed fine, but then they would have been stuck in the chiller. Gotta think about filtering more.

Cleanup went pretty smooth. I kept the HLT full of 180F and used it at the very end to flush the chiller. Used fresh water to flush everything else. On reflection, should have used the 180F to flush at least the HEX too.

Shop Vac is the business for cleaning up the hop mess in the BK and the last bits of grain in the MLT. Gotta get one specifically for brewing. A bucket one would be good. Easier to dump.

Brewery: Getting Close

Well, I think I am starting to see the finish line on the brewery. It’s getting very close to done. I’ve been out in the garage bending tube and plumbing every spare hour I have. This past weekend I finally finished the final version of the manifold pieces and I mounted them on the stand. I ended up using some split ring conduit hangers from Lowes. They are galvanized, and I would prefer stainless, but the only source for stainless ones I can find are 10 times the price. I can live with galvanized for now.

Last night I finished the lines that go from the pumps to the manifold and tonight I finished the HLT return, HEX input and MLT return. These three we going to be the most difficult and I had only planned to finish one of them tonight but it actually went pretty quick thanks to some Swagelok 90 degree elbows I bought a few weeks back so I just pushed through and did all three. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Only things left to do are the BK return and the plumbing for the chiller. I am still short a few parts for the chiller, so that will have to wait till Thursday probably, but I hope to do the BK return tomorrow night. With any luck all the major work will be done by this weekend and I can spend the weekend doing wet testing and tuning. Doubt I will be able to fit a brew in, but you never know. Here’s hoping!

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Brewery: Finally Some Progress!

Well, it’s been months and months since I have made any progress on the brewery, but this weekend I finally got out of my funk and got some shit done! I’ve really been struggling with the next step of the build, which has been to convert all the plumbing to hard, stainless steel tubing. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make it all perfect and I finally realized that I just won’t be able to, so I started bending.

So far things are coming along okay. I will probably need to add some Swagelok elbows to get things really set right and I might end up using some short pieces of reinforced nylon tubing as jumpers, but it’s coming along.

This weekend I got the HLT fully plumbed and the MLT half plumbed. I also got the HEX plumbed and pump 1 bolted down. I fully expect that I will end up redoing parts of this, but it feels good to actually make some progress.

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Brewery: Mistakes

Here is a list of things I would do differently if I was starting over on my brewery project. I think this list will be very useful when I inevitably start over on my brewery project 🙂

  • Separate control boxes for low voltage and high voltage. I would build a small box that houses all the high voltage switches, relays, SSRs and plugs and run low voltage, opto-coupled signals to it. Having all the high voltage stuff in the main control panel makes it harder and more dangerous to work on, and makes it much bulkier than it needs to be. I would put the high voltage box down in the rig somewhere. This would have the added benefit of probably not needing expensive twist lock plugs. I think I spent almost $200 just in plugs for high voltage stuff.
  • Have a box on the rig for all the valves, temp controllers and pressure sensors and come up with a way to gang them all into a single cable going to the control panel. Ideally I would like the high voltage box and the sensor/valve box to just be networked to the control panel with RS-485 or something.
  • Kettles with bottom outlets. One of the most annoying things I’ve found so far with my brewery is that there’s no good way to clean the kettles completely. It’s a battle of diminishing returns. The siphon outlet of the keg leaves about .22 gallons along with all the crap that has collected in that liquid. So washing bits of grain, hops, etc. becomes a matter of pumping in water, draining it, pumping in more water, draining it. I’ve taken to using towels to soak up the last .22 gallons and then cleaning it all by hand. If they were bottom dump I could just rinse all the crap right down the drain.
  • Drill holes at 45* angles around the kettles instead of 90* angles. At 90* angles everything wants to bump into the stuff in the kettle next to it.
  • Skip the Blichmann gear. It’s pretty but it’s expensive and once you start drilling and cutting it’s kind of a waste. There’s better options for a DIY system like this.
  • Skip the solenoids. I’ve mentioned this before, but solenoid valves are useless in a brewery. I spent over $400 in solenoids just to find this out. Use motorized ball valves.
  • Use tri-clamp fittings on manifolds. This is expensive, but it will save a huge amount of frustration. Trying to line up dozens of threaded fittings is a massive pain in the ass. I don’t know how pipe fitters keep their sanity.
  • Spend way more time thinking about how things will get cleaned. Cleaning is still a pain in the ass. I still don’t know how to completely drain my system including all the hoses, valves and manifolds. All these spots are wonderful little havens for nasties to build up.
  • Remember how useful pipe clamps are for everything. They kick ass. Use them to mount almost anything to almost anything.

To be continued…

Brewery Work: Ongoing

I can’t bring myself to solder another valve connector, so it’s time to write.

After the initial brew which went poorly I decided to change some things in my design and fix up a few things that I had designed poorly while I was at it. This weekend I got the first batch of the changes done and I’m still working on it.

The main thing that needed to change was the need for a way to filter the wort as it comes out of the boil kettle and before it enters any plumbing, and I needed to change from solenoid valves to motorized ball valves where there is a chance solids will enter the plumbing. I ordered 8 motorized ball valves (MBV) to replace all the solenoids that come in contact with solids. Unfortunately the MBVs require 3 wires to operate and I had designed the control panel with 2 pin valve connectors. So that meant pulling the bottom panel and rewiring that whole thing. While I was at it I decided to change from 2 SSRs controlling a single hot leg each to 4 SSRs controlling all four hot legs. I also added a loud buzzer, moved the BrewTroller and relay board to have more room to work and cleaned up a lot of the wiring. For electronics, left to do is finish wiring the new valve connectors and retest all of the control panel logic. I also need to wire all of the valve status LEDs, which I never got around to doing before.

Since I was making so many changes I decided to make some plumbing changes as well. The biggest change is that I re-routed the HLT output through the HEX so that when I begin my sparge it will flush the HEX with clean, hot water. That will help with cleanup and will save some wort that was otherwise being lost. I also added dump valves right at the kettle exit for all three kettles to make cleaning easier and I am putting a purge valve right at the pump exits to make priming easier. I also have plumbing slated for H2O input, so I can ditch the hose for filling and I am going to move the MLT heat sensor to the output of the MLT instead of inside the kettle. I got some really weird heat readings last time and I think it was due to uneven heating in the mash.

Finally, for filtering, I ordered a Hop Stopper which is a giant mesh pancake with a dip tube in the middle. I have the Hop Blocker from Blichmann, but it just plain doesn’t work very well. Part of that is due to my lack of whirlpool at the end of my brew, but it’s also just too coarse for pellet hops.

Additionally, the guy who is doing The Electric Brewery posted his info on how to make Blichmann style weldless fittings and I promptly ordered the parts from McMaster to do that. I wanted to do it myself but it probably would have taken some experimentation and he did it for me. So far I have installed one set and they are way, way more solid than what I was using. Haven’t tested for leaks yet but it looks great and I bet it will be leak free.

As for the first brew, I kegged the beer last week and have been drinking it. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. According to my hydrometer and refractometer it’s only about 3.2% ABV. I think that the temperature readings I was getting were way off and I ended up cooking the mash way too cold. I also failed to take good reading during the mash so I didn’t catch the error. Brewing is apparently not like riding a bike. I have forgotten quite a bit.

So, that’s the update. I am hoping to brew again next weekend with all the upgrades in place and hopefully things will go much more smoothly!

Brewery Work: Lots!

Last weekend, the weekend before it and tonight have been very productive on the brewery build front. It’s getting very close to done. At this point the only thing I really have outstanding is valve wiring and final plumbing hookups. All the kettles have all their bulkheads installed and tonight I finished installing the heating element in the boil kettle and tested it.

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!

Brewery Work: Not Much

Well, the long weekend and most of this week have been kind of a bust. I floundered around with getting the control panel painted and was never happy with the results. I finally decided to throw in the towel and get some professional help so now it’s in the queue at Seattle Powder Coating. I should have it back in 4-5 days. Unfortunately that is kind of holding everything up. The main things I still have left to do are:

  • 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 🙂

Brewery Work: Front Panel

Just a little bit of (perceived) progress tonight but it took quite a while. I got the four main rectangular holes done on the front panel. There are two more than I have not decided if I am going to use so I am hesitating on cutting them. I was able to do the three BTPD holes on my mill which worked really great. 1/8″ flat endmill, 12 IPM, 6700 RPM and .010″ DOC went through the .080″ steel just fine. Unfortunately the hole for the LCD was too far in the Y direction for the mill to get so I had to cut it by hand using my Dremel. That kinda sucked but it only really took about 20 minutes and it didn’t come out half bad.

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!

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Brewery Work: Front Panel and Bottom Panel

Got a lot of work done on the brewery tonight. I picked up some paint stripper from Lowes and set into the bottom panel with it to see if this ugly coating would come off. It came off nooooo problem. I’m intending to paint the whole control box gloss black. The paint stripper is nasty stuff. Ate right through my nitrile safety gloves and by time I realized all the fingertips on my left hand were burning and tingly. That sucked.

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.

[slickr-flickr tag=”brewery20100630″]