Kettle Update

After brewing with the new electric system for a few beers, I thought some changes were in order.  Some problems arose, as I knew they would, with the way the system was set up.  The most obvious problem I discovered only after the air conditioner was put on in my house.  It turns out that steam traveling across a cool HVAC duct condenses, pools, and turns into a downpour.  Who knew?  I solved this problem by moving the kettle so it was directly under the basement window and added a large box fan.  The steam now goes directly out the window.

The next problem I found was something I had suspected since the initial setup of the kettle.  The efficiency of the system kept coming out very low, even for a batch sparge system.  Average estimates for a batch sparge system are normally about 65%.  We had been hitting somewhere around 60 to 63 percent efficient.  It wasn't until I was able to finally obtain a proper thermometer that I discovered that the thermocouple was incorrectly calibrated.  Now, this was my own fault, but it had a little bit to do with physics that I had overlooked.  When I originally setup and tested the PID and thermocouple, I filled the kettle and brought the water up to boiling.  I thought this meant that the thermocouple should be reading 212 degrees Fahrenheit.  I ended up adding about 6 degrees to offset what the thermocouple was reading.  Well, it turns out that the temperature of the water when its boiling is not really 212 degrees; its actually a bit lower.  I learned this the hard way when I measured the mash temp after mashing in for my latest brew.  It read 148, which was about 6 degrees cooler than I wanted it (and almost outside the scope of enzymatic action).  This could have been contributing to efficiency loss (as well as producing a different beer than I had intended to make).

In the midst of all this temperature confusion, I thought I'd try to get a little higher resolution on the temperatures I was measuring.  After reading the manual to determine how to activate the proper function to change the resolution, I discovered that the particular mode I wanted was only available in when reading the thermocouple in Celsius.  So, I have gone to the dark side.  Its a slippery slope.  Next thing you know, I'll be measure weights in kilograms and talking about how many kilometers it is to the brew shop.  Ugh.  I feel so European.  Anyway, I'll give it a try for a while, see if it really gets me any more resolution.  It really might not be worth it since the resolution of the Celsius scale is lower than Fahrenheit, but I'll give it a try anyway.

The Electric Brewery: Phase 1

So, in an effort to assist Brewmaster Jay with his move and advance our brewing system, I have decided to move the brewery to my house.  Unfortunately, the only permanent location for the brewery is in my basement.  I say unfortunately because using a gas burning turkey fryer appliance in an enclosed area can be particularly dangerous due to the toxic chemicals (CO) and exhaust fumes.  Fortunately, this gives us the perfect opportunity to advance our brewing methods and system.  The design is fairly simple: replace the gas heat with electric heat.  However, the equipment though safer during normal use, can be a bit more dangerous and complicated to install.  The plan is to use the output of a proportional-integral-derivative controller (PID controller) to drive a solid-state-relay (SSR) connected to a hot water heater heating element (5500 Watt, extra low density (ELD)).  The pulse width modulated (PWM) wave coming from the PID controller will turn on and off the SSR a number of times per second.  The ratio of low voltage to high voltage (off/on) will depend on the feedback from the thermocouple connected to the kettle.  The end goal is to be able to set a temperature on the PID and have the element reflect that temperature in the kettle.  This, hopefully, will be a more efficient, safer way to brew.  According to our calculations, the only difference in this system may be the time it takes to heat liquids as the gas burner can, most likely, put out many more than 5500 Watts of power.  We will only really know the answer to this once the equipment is installed.

So far, the PID and element have been ordered.  I believe it will only take some low gage electrical wire and a dryer wall plug to finish the job, electrically.  Physically, I will need to have the ports welded into the kettle, which I will do as soon as all of the parts have arrived and I have figured out how they will all fit together.  I should have the element today and the PID should arrive in the next few weeks as it's on its way from China.

Electrical Heat Calculations: Electric Heat

The Brewery

As I was preparing a post that I will later put up, I realized that I have not yet explained our brewery.  That is, the equipment we use to brew.  Every homebrewer has a different, most likely, unique set of equipment that he or she uses to craft his or her precious recipes.  Ours is not terribly complex, but in order to get an idea of our brewing process, one must read on to gain an understanding.

The brewery consists of three main peices: the hot liquor tank(HLT)/brew kettle(keggle, if you will), the pump, and the mash lauter tun(MLT).  Due to monetary/situational forces, we have opted for a dual purpose water heating vessel.  Our HLT/brew kettle consists of an old, and when I say "old," I mean really old, 15.5 gallon half barrel keg.  Old refers to more than its age, but also the style of the keg.  It is an almost antique, "on the side" style more akin to a stainless steel barrel than traditional keg.  The keg has had one end plasma cut open and a fitting welded to what is now the "bottom" as a port for draining.  This vessel, as the name suggests, has many uses which mainly involve heating some kind of liquid.  The HLT use of the keg is for heating water for mashing in and sparging.  The kettle use is, well, for boiling the wort.  The pump is used, as the name suggests, for moving liquids from one vessel to another.  More on that later...  The final major piece of our brewery is the MLT, yet another vessel with multiple uses.  Those are, if you can't tell by the name, mashing and lautering.  The MLT is a marine sized cooler fitted with a custom copper manifold lining the bottom.  The manifold was manufactured by our own resident "equipment engineer," Jason.  He used 1 inch copper pipes to create a frame, roughly the size of the bottom of the cooler with multiple pipes running the length of the cooler.  These pipes have small cuts at intervals allowing the liquids to drain through them.  Connecting these pieces of the brewery are quick connect hoses which allow us to service each of the pieces without wasting valuable time.

These pieces come together on brew day in a delicately balanced and carefully choreographed symphony of brewing madness.  Generally our brew days start with simultaneous grinding of grain and heating of mash water.  Once proper volumes have been heated and grains appropriately ground, the two are combined in the MLT for approximately 60 minutes.  Towards the end (25 to 30 minutes remaining) of that 60 minutes, we start preparing the volume of water needed for sparging.  When time is up, we commence the vorlauf and begin mashing out into a spare cooler.  Since we don't have a dedicated kettle, we have to store the first runnings before the kettle has finished its turn as an HLT.  The discontinuation of liquid exiting the tun means we can start sparging.  Water is pumped from the HLT to the MLT and remains there until the grainbed has settled.  We vorlauf again and pump the remaining water into the kettle for boiling (along with the first runnings from the spare cooler).  The wort is then boiled for 60 to 90 minutes and hops are added.  At the end of the boil, fermenters, hoses, chillers, and the pump are all sanitized for the new beer.  We connect our pump to the kettle and pump the beer cooling it as it flows through our counterflow chiller directly into our fermenters.  Add yeast, and we're done!

The sequence hopefully yields beer at the end.  We have had a few mishaps; namely, stuck mash, 80 minute boil (instead of 120 minutes, sorry Mike), and missed vorlaufs.  Fortunately we have been doing this long enough to live the realization of our favorite saying: "Its easy to make good beer; its difficult to make great beer."  This keeps us sane during the hectic brewing process, knowing that our worst case scenario is that we will have beer.