re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

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My heating element is 4500W. It's really quick on five gallon batch volumes. Like stupid quick.

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I guess so, with 4500W. That's a lot of power.

This is a bit long, but it's friday and getting new homebrew equipment is fun.

Rehashing my planned system: So since my last post on new brew equipment i've done some further research to figure out just what i need, and how i can piece together my system and still utilize it currently, and when i go full electric.

So my first item is at the house. The hot rod heat stick. It's a 1650W, 15A heating element with a triclover attachment that you rest on the pot. CarRamrod, you may want to look into one of these. However, i have been told these are not advised to use in the Mash.





My next purchase is going to be the infussion mash tun. I can use this for immediate purposes and upgrade along the way with many attachments. Due to it being insulated, the only time i'll need to upgrade it to electric will be for recirculation, and it is designed to accept a RIMS tube for this process, and they sell a recirculation manifold as an accessory.





While i mash, i'll be able to heat up my sparge water with my heat stick.

The next purchase will be the vorlauf attachment for the InfuSSion and a pump. Run the pump for about 5-7 minutes and it should produce a very clear wort.



The next attachement buy will be the sparge arm for the Infussion. Mounts to the handle of the Tun. For a gravity sparge (which i will be doing initially) they advise 2-3' height above the mash tun.





Additionally, i'll want to be able to control whirlpool temps (and strike water) with the heat stick. So my next purchase would be a temp controller with a waterproof sensor that can handle the load. These are about $100. There is a $60 one, but i'm unsure of the reliability of that brand.

LINK



Eventually, i'm going to get tired of having to lift my 10 gallon sparge cooler to a place to set, to sparge, so i'll turn my current kettle into a sparge tank. That way, i will remove the need to heat sparge water then transfer to another vessel. I could just put the heat stick in the old kettle and heat up from there. With this, comes the need for a new kettle, and to get rid of gravity feeding. So i have some options at this point. I could get another pump, to pump from the sparge tank to the sparge arm on the mash tun, and hold off on a new kettle, or i can get a new kettle and continue on with my plan for being fully electric.

I've looked at the SS brewtech kettles and ss brewtech BME kettles and they are both nice, but at this juncture, unless i want to fully go with the ss brewtech ebrewing system, any kettle would work. For now, i'll stick with the ss brewtech kettles for consideration, seeing as the ekettles for the ebrewing system are very similar.

Typical kettle from SS brewtech. I am thinking of getting a 15 gallon kettle so i can brew 9 gallon batches (for my split batch sours) if needed.



So at this point, i'll have the heat stick, infussion mash tun, pump, vorlauf attachment, sparge attachment, new kettle. I'd still be direct fire boiling my wort. Next would be the final step to full electric.

This would be further down the line, but if i wanted to spend a bunch of money, i could get the 2V controller or find another less expensive controller. For simplicity sake, i'll assume the 2V (below).




Now with this, and all of the equipment purchased above, i'd need to do some conversions assuming a few things.

1) I assume this is just a controller, so any heating element could be controlled by this assuming adequate power needs. That being said, the cheap route would be using the heat stick for one element, and purchase another element for the boil kettle and converting that to electric. There are plenty of elements out there, so i'm sure it wouldn't hard to find one.

ETA: After further research, the SS Brewtech electric control panels, i believe, are intended for use with the ekettle elements. I think there is a temperature controller built into the elements, that is programmed with the panel.

2) Or, i could convert the boil kettle to their ekettles. Ekettles are new right now, but i'm sure there will be a conversion somewhere for this. I also like the design of the ekettle elements as opposed to the straight forward design of most elements (ekettle below). Only problem, is right now, they are only designed for 10 or 20 gallon kettles. So this is not likely at this point, but would be nice to have.





If I decide to go with using just 1 of the ekettles (and not reusing my old kettle as a sparge tank) I could go with the 1V controller/system.




This may be the route to go. My only question, now looking at both the ekettle and standard kettles, is if they will eventually sell retrofit kits for their standard kettles to make these compatible.

The only draw back if i go with the V1 and the heat stick/temp controller option, is i'll have a lot of wires and will need to up my power needs in my garage.

Anyway, the heat stick has already arrived, and i may be purchasing the mash tun, pump, and vorlauf right after christmas. The full electric system won't be for quite a while, at least a year off. But it's fun to scheme up an electric homebrewery. Cheers!

ETA: I think the final buy list will be as follows.

Hot Rod Heat Stick (owned) - $130
Infussion Mash Tun - $400
Vorlauf Attachment - $30
Sparge Arm Attachment - $55
Inkbird IPB-16 Temp Controller - $100
(2) Pumps - $300 total
TOTAL = $885

10 or 15 gallon kettle - $190 - $240
Parts to upgrade to be compatible with 1V - ?
1V controller on it's own - $599
Total to convert kettle to ekettle and 1V (at a minimum) = $800
or 1V ebrewing system with ekettle - $949

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The 40 qt is going to be too small.

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thats what i was thinking. i just dont want have one so big that a 5gal batch would be spread too thin in the pot.

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There are tons of schematics on simple controllers with the Auber EZ Boil. My pre-made controller is built around the Auber, and it's great. It switches between mash and boil settings, the dial works smoothly, and it has settings to add timers.

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yep i know about those and was planning my enclosure around it for the other project so i will use it on this. What prebuilt one fo you have? BrewBoss? What features does your have and what doesnt it. What do you wish you could do with it that you cant.

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My heating element is 4500W. It's really quick on five gallon batch volumes. Like stupid quic

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im planning on a 5500 watt unit or 2 for big batches. triclovered in the pot where i can just cap one of them for small batches.

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Figure out a way to utilize a pulley. Lifting the bag/basket sucks. I lift mine with a pulley and hang it over the kettle to drain as I come up to a boil.

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oohh im already ahead of you with a design for a rolling car that i can move to the winch and pull it up and drain then move to the fermentors to fill.






This also means i could either keep my keggles if i want to do a full flysparge batch, or i would sell them and not get much back from them.

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I'm going to get one of the Utah Biodiesel baskets at some point.

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well after only a day thinking about this i want one already. have you seen this? i think i could build it bu just drilling a SS pipe and adding fitings.

Stainless Steel Welded COFI Center Infusion Tube

So. I think I do have an old 10 gallon pot.i could desgin the system to be used in either. Man I think I'm really gonna go down this route.

Have you seen any prices of those custom baskets?

How are you cooling? As I have said before, I want to get away from an immersion cooler.

The Hydra almost cools it too fast

Fking nice setup, BD. We’ll have to throw in some homebrews in a trade sometime.

Bug were you at LA homebrew last week?

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Bug were you at LA homebrew last week

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I don’t think so. 2 weeks ago I may have been there picking up stuff though.