Brew Machine 3.0 - Massive Overhaul

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brewpirate

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Well when my brewing partner and I meet we quickly clicked and we started making killer beers. We both improved quickly and we decided to pull our resources together and build a nice 3 vessel single tier system. As the quality of our beers increased we decided it was time to rebuild and add some new toys.

Today we started the rebuild and here is what's planned:

- New burners and propane manifold system as well move to natural gas. We will be using BG-14 burners which are rated at 210,000 BTUs.

- Camlocks, we used plastic quick disconnects but time for more something easier that would not restrict the flow.

- Hard Plumbed with 1/2 copper and all valve controlled. No more jumper hoses!

- RIMs temp control, a 1500w 120v inline electric element will monitor and maintain the mash temp. Initially controlled by a pid but will be arduino controlled.

- custom hop back to pack in that aroma

- prechiller in a 5g igloo with 25ft of copper tube will help with our stubborn ground temp

- temp logging, the arduino will also data log the mash temps and boil temps and duration for future recipe replication.

- inline sight glass so we can monitor the wort color

- hot liquor tank sight glass to better calculate how much water we have and added.

- 2 inline pumps so there is never a problem with flow or priming.

- recirculation bypass so we never put excess pressure on the grain bed and maintain our desired flow

- some awesome things you just have to wait for!



Original Setup - Single tier, 2 pumps with plastic quick disconnects. It works but we want more!
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Camlocks - no more plastic connections
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Rough plumbing setup - all 1/2 copper controlled by ball valves and no hoses. The bypass after the pumps route excess flow back in front of the pumps preventing the pumps from collapsing the grainbed.
qUZ3FG3.jpg


Metal!
3RZSyV8.jpg


End of day 1. New center section is built out and tippy setup is mocked up ready for testing.
nUG2Xbt.jpg


What is a tippy? The mashtun tips back allowing for easy cleaning. Scooping up 35lb of dry grains now soaked are not much fun.
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What are we going to use to boil? BG-14 a 10" 210,000 BTU burner :) This should help expedite heating
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OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! this is gonna be the Dogs conkers guys...
Ya actually doing what I am **** at...wanna see the clip of me n my stick welding setup..:doh:
really looking fwd to updates n pics.
ATB for the New year Guys as i'm gonna be under the radar..or should say under the influence..:drunk:
ATB
Bri
 
We are a couple of nerds but after watching tons of youtube videos were were able to crank out some good welds and those that are terrible we just grind them :)

Will keep adding pics and adding explanations to what we are doing and will take more pictures as we get closer.
 
From some of the piccys I've seen on some of your posts, BrewPirate, you've got some serious bits of kit. Are you simply an extremely enthusiastic home brewer or is it a business for you?
 
When Brew Machine 3.0 becomes self aware and wipes us all out, at least it will do so with some quality beer ;)

You writing custom software for the arduinos for temp control etc or is a lot of this pre-canned? I've got plans to hook up my Raspberry Pis to control some stuff, and log temps etc. into Azure so I can keep an eye on things.
 
From some of the piccys I've seen on some of your posts, BrewPirate, you've got some serious bits of kit. Are you simply an extremely enthusiastic home brewer or is it a business for you?

I am passionate about whatever I do, one day it would be great to make this a living but till then enjoying the hobby and trying to do my part is sharing the knowledge. We are testing a new grain product for a company and have a kit beer on better beer kits but thats about it :)

When Brew Machine 3.0 becomes self aware and wipes us all out, at least it will do so with some quality beer ;)

You writing custom software for the arduinos for temp control etc or is a lot of this pre-canned? I've got plans to hook up my Raspberry Pis to control some stuff, and log temps etc. into Azure so I can keep an eye on things.

I hope it becomes self aware then brews and bottle my beer for me! I hate bottling.

I have been collecting code and comparing it, ultimately our goal is to have the arduino control/log save locally to a CSV data logger then push the numbers to a rasberry pi for a webbased dashboard and dumps on a remote mysql server. One day we would like to parse the recipe xml file and auto set the temps for sparge, mash and alarm for hops.

So sounds like your code is what we need :) I would appreciate any code you could share!
 
I am a developer by trade (hence the name) and happy to help and to open source anything written - reading logs and building graphs etc. is simple, as is parsing the brew recipe, but not sure what integration options there are with your hardware.
 
Sorry I have not been quiet, been very busy offline but here are some updates.


Software
39WlbHr.png

We decided to make the push for StrangeBrew Elsinore which is Rasberrypi based and the developer is really kicking ass. Check out the video for a quick example of the UI and the development thread on Homebrew Talk and GIT site for the code.
HomebrewTalk - GIT

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9F_RP89-7M[/ame]



Stand
8NH8z6C.jpg

Big BG-14 210,000btu burner is installed


Mash tun Support - We use an inverted keg mash tun and this allows room for the output arm and the top rack to set ontop
skYWHsm.jpg


Mash Tun inplace - Mounted to a hinged frame
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Tippy Tun - And there goes the grains!
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Tun fully inverted for easy cleanout
yAT0vO5.jpg
 
A "No Diving" sign? Just how much beer are you planning to make?! :eek:

12.5g batchs, we were welding / fabricating by the pool. Most of the fab work is over on the stand now onto working on the vessels.

Here is a 1/2 stainless coupler that has been grinded down on a bench grinder to created a dimple tool. A hole will be drilled into the keg and this will be pulled through creating a dimple. A coupler will be pulled though and silver soldered in place making a sanitary water tight seal so no more leaks.

pZltnyi.jpg



This is what I hope to accomplish
dimple_outsidein_inside.jpg
 
Using the dimple maker and then silver soldering a coupler in place is what I've done on my little tanks too. Did take a few attempts to perfect the method but I'm glad I persevered.
 
Using the dimple maker and then silver soldering a coupler in place is what I've done on my little tanks too. Did take a few attempts to perfect the method but I'm glad I persevered.

Right on, I am excited to get this all loaded up and and can't wait to get all the plumbing done and Strange Brew online. Any tips for dimpling / soldering?

My raspberry pi's will be here today (adding one to the fermenter, the old computer took a dump so time to replace it)
 
Not really got any tips for the dimpling, just try and keep it straight as you pull the coupler through. You need a few hands for this.
Incidentally I used a Concentric Weld Reducer 316L from here https://www.colglo.co.uk/product.php?product=STSTW31100 to pull through and make the dimple.

With regards to the silver soldering you just have to make sure you have the right flux and solder and practice if you can a bit first.
It was only on the third attempt I figured out how to do it properly, When soldering I didn't think it was doing anything even though the metal was red hot but had to keep putting more heat on the thing to make it melt the solder into the metal easily. Once it hit's the correct heat point it just starts to flow properly. The tiny tank I soldered onto did bend with the heat when doing it, but as soon as it cooled it pulled itself back into shape.

You can see a little like what the inside of the joint I did looks like here.
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=813&stc=1&d=1421396945

Good Luck, It will be great in the end. I'm planning on doing any tank connections like this in future.

Inside-the-Copper-Vessel.jpg
 
Right on thanks @ellams for the tips, here was out weekend:

Dimpled the HLT replacing the weldless ball valve with a dimpled/soldered fitting then drilled and attached a tee for the sightglass and thermowell. The tee was slight larger then the coupler so we decided to dimple inwards, bolt the tee to hold inplace and soldered around the edge locking it in place. We took a hammer to our test and didn't budge so went for it.

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All done!
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Boil Kettle, we had an unsanitary 1/2 threaded nipple welded in place from the previous owner. It has surface rust so we decided to cut/grind/drill out the old fitting and dimple to match. Success! Still need to mount the tee/thermowell but looks awesome.

Outside
DrVcJmn.jpg


Inside (this is just a test fit)
j9CNZXg.jpg



Mashtun:
Cut the top odd, beat out a couple dents, ready to have the sparge arm connected.


iyOyJsW.jpg


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Video of the tippy
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUiFmiF4A7Y[/ame]
 
Thought I would share some screenshots, I started rebuilding Brewpi to use bootstrap and be fully responsive as well adding login abilities. MANY more features planned :)

Desktop
XmsEBcw.png


Mobile
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This software / hardware has turned into a blackhole of time and I haven't slept much coming home from coding all day to coding on this till 1am and getting up at 5am for work. It is worth every second and what is in the works is crazy and don't want to give away too much but every homebrewer will be drooling wanting this setup :)
 
You're a software dev then @brewpirate?

I admire your dedication and I fully intend to put my dev skills into home brewing at some point although I haven't figured out how just yet.
 
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