Pump Stand finished

Finished this a while ago and just haven't gotten around to posing the pictures for it.  The pumps are two Chugger pumps.  I basically copied what Kal and others on The Electric Brewery have done.  I started with a piece of 3/4" MDF for the base and added an additional piece on each side for a 'foot'.  Then I added 3 rails to it for the pumps to go inside.  Like this....

I measured and drilled holes for the pump mounting and the handles and then painted it a metallic Silver with a clear gloss over it.

I added some non slip rubber feet to the bottom to help keep it steady and reduce vibration.

I added the fittings to the pump and extended the cord a bit and added some cable sleeve and the plug ends.

I also added grommets to the mounting holes to reduce vibration.

I then added the handles and mounted the pumps.

 

I secured the power cables to the pump stand and added some 24ga stainless steel plates to cover the pumps and protect them from possible spills.

 Above is the finished pump stand.  Let me know if you have a questions!
 

Brewing Kettles Done

Things have been slow lately but I have had some time to finish the kettles.  There are three kettles in this setup, a boil kettle (BK), a mash kettle (mash), and a hot liquor tank (HLT).  They are all 20 gallon Blichmann Boilermaker kettles.

Boil Kettle

The boil kettle has a 2" Tri-clamp ferrule welded on the right side about 2" from the bottom.  A 5500w Camco water heater element is mounted to it through the side using Still Dragon element guard kits. There is a 1/2" half coupler welded near the bottom about 135 degrees around the right side that has a temperature probe in it.  It also has a quick hose disconnect mounted in the front ball valve.

Boil Kettle

Element inside kettle

Element housing and temp probe

 MASH Tun

The Mash tun has a Blichmann False bottom in it.  This lets the grain bed rest above the dip tube so you can drain and recirculate the wort during the mash.  There is also a ball valve and a hose connected to it near the top on the right hand side of the handle to return the wort to the mash during recirculation.  The drain ball valve has a stainless tee connected with a temperature probe in it to measure the temp of outgoing wort during recirculation and a quick hose disconnect.

MASH Tun

False Bottom and wort return hose

Closeup of connection and hose

 Hot Liquor Tank

The HLT is used to heat strike and sparge water and regulate the temperature of the MASH using a HEX (heat exchanging) coil inside it. It has a 2" tri-clamp ferrule welded on the left hand side about 2" from the bottom.  Another camco element is mounted in it using another Still dragon element kit.  There is a coil made out of 50' of stainless 1/2" tubing mounted about an inch above the element.  The coil has 2 ball valves connected to the ends mounted through the side of the kettle about 45 degrees around the left side.  There is another ball valve mounted near the top to the right of the handle to return water to the HLT during recirculation of the water.  This maintains the temperature through the entire volume of water.  Another stainless tee with a temperature probe and quick disconnect are mounted to the drain ball valve.

Hot Liquor Tank

Inside HLT (HEX coil, water return, and Element)

Tee with probe and quick disconnect

Element guard and Hex coil ball valves

 

Control Panel Wiring Done

Finished all the control panel wiring.  Some of this was a real pain in the rear.  Even though the case seems huge there is not a lot of room to get the wires all set.  I tried to do the wiring as clean as possible but it was not easy to do all the time.  I just need to trace things through and double check everything before I try to test it out.  I do not yet have my 220v run from the main box so I have some time to fiddle some before the first test.  I am a bit excited about trying it all out!  Here are some pictures of the internal wiring.

As always, click the picture to see a larger version.  Stay tuned for more!
 

Control Panel Wiring

I have been doing lots of work on the main control panel.  I put a coat of wax on it first to help protect the paint then I added all the components to it.  The lettering on the panel is water slide decals I printed with a laser printer and then placed on the panel.  It was then covered with four coats of clear coat to protect the labels.  The panel now has a deep mirror finish.  It was hard to get decent pictures of the panel because it gets a lot of glare and every minute speck of dust shows up like a snowball in the photos.  Also the black areas of the labels seem to show up lighter in the pictures then they seem in real life as well for some reason.  I think the flash is causing it.  Here are some pictures of the panel as I added components and started wiring.

 

 

 

Here are some pictures of the inside components and the beginning of the wiring.  I have quite a bit more wiring done then these pictures and I will add more pictures as I progress.  I'm trying to keep the wiring as clean as I can but it isn't easy.

More pictures to come as I get farther with the wiring.  Stay tuned!
 

Elements

I Finished wiring up the elements.  Started with 10' of 10/3 insulated wire with a 30 Amp, 250 Volt, NEMA L6-30P plug. The other end attaches to the element guards.  The elements are Camco 02963 5500W 240V Screw in Water Heater Lime Life Ripple Elements.  Here is a picture of all the parts for one element.

I used some braided sleeve and a aluminum 90 degree cable glad to secure the wire to the element guard.  Here is the element in the guard.  Not much room inside there.

Here is the cable before it's hooked up to the element.  The ground wire is attached the the element guard with a screw in lug.

Some pictures of the finished wired element.  It was not easy to get all the wiring inside the guard as there in not much room in there.  If fact, the element wrench will not even fit in the guard to tighten the element and I had to do it by hand by twisting the element itself.  I didn't really like doing that but it was the only choice.

There is a weep hole in the end of the guard in case it ever leaks the water isn't trapped inside the guard.  The silicon gasket is cut there to allow the water to drain and I lined up the clamp to allow it to drain as well.  Hopefully I won't have to ever try it out.

And finally a picture of the element inside the kettle.

On to the rest of the kettle plumbing!

More Painting

Finally almost done with painting.  Well actually I have been done with painting for a while but have been working on the finish.  After a few coats of base and about 4 coats of clear coat, I wet sanded the panel and then went through the rubbing compound -> machine polish -> hand glaze -> wax process.  This was a very time consuming process.  I also had to wait a while for the clear coat to finish curing.  This can take up to a month.  The other issue I had was to work on one side of the panel I would have to stand the panel on the opposite finished side which would tend to mar the finish and smear debris on that side.  To combat that issue I ended up building a sort of 'jig' to hold the panel while I worked on it.  This would let me work on one side while the opposite side hung suspended in the air and would not have to lay against the table.  Here are a few pictures of the 'jig' and how I worked on it.

I should be able to start assembling the panel within a week.  Then the real fun begins.  I'm tired of working on painting, it has taken way too long.  Pretty happy with how it looks though.

Welding

Still waiting on the clear to cure fully on the control panel but in the meantime I got back my BK and HLT from having some fittings welded on.  I had a 2" ferrule and a 1/2" half coupler welded on the BK and a 2" ferrule welded on the HLT.  The 2" ferrules will attach to the element guards and connect the heater elements to the kettles.  I had the welding done by a local guy who is on one of the Homebrew forums I'm on named Colebeer78.  If you are in the Chicago area and need welding look him up.

Here is a picture of the BK.

Here are a couple shots of the fittings after I got them back.

Here are a couple pictures after about 10 minutes of scrubbing with some Bar keepers Friend.

They turned out great.  Now I just have to wire up the elements and guards.  More when that's finished.