Control Panel

The control panel is the most important and most complicated part of the brewery.  It will monitor and control temperatures, control pumps, as well as provide timers and alarms for specific events.  Temperatures will be controlled by three  PIDs or proportional-integral-derivative controllers.  The ones I'm using are Auber SYL-2352 PIDs and the timer is a Auber JSL-71.  The control panel is a watertight steel enclosure 16"(400mm)W X 16"(400mm)H X 8"(200mm)D with a back plate. Here is a slightly cutoff picture of it before I started working on it.  I forgot to take a picture of it before I started.

This panel will house all the electrical components and have all the controls and switches for the major brewery operations.  The first thing I did was sand the box to remove the top layer of the textured paint that was on it.  First thing was to decide how everything would be arranged on the panel.  I covered the top with painters tape to protect the face when I would be cutting the panel and marked all the locations where I was going to be adding components.

Laying out components

Holes for power meter and PIDs cut

Switch and LED holes drilled to 3/8"

Holes for switches and LEDs need to be 22mm or about 7/8" in diameter.  Drilling 7/8" holes can be quite a pain but luckily there is a perfect tool to handle this.  A Greenlee 1/2" conduit knockout punch which cuts perfect 7/8" holes easily.  The picture below shows the punch and the bits of scrap that were cutout.

Here is the front of the panel after the holes a punched.

There will be two SSRs (Solid State Relays) used to switch high current on and off to the main heating elements.  These need rather large heatsinks as they generate a lot of heat we don't want trapped in the control panel.  To remedy this we will mount the heatsinks outside the box on the top with the SSRs inside the box through holes cut in the top.  Here are pictures of the SSRs and the heatsinks the holes in the top of the box.

SSRs and Heatsinks

Measuring holes for SSRs

Holes cut for SSRs

The holes for the SSRs don't look that great but it doesn't matter as they will be covered by the heatsinks.

All the wiring into and out of the control panel will be in the bottom of the control panel.  This will be the main power in, two outputs to heating elements, Two outputs to pumps, and three connections for temperature probes.  Here is a picture of the bottom with all the holes cut.

Now it's time to paint this thing.  It will be painted gloss black.  Here is a picture of the unit all ready for paint.

That's as far as I am at this point on the control panel.  I will add more as I progress. Stay tuned!

LED Logo

A lot of my build is based on ideas and work done by brewers on Homebrewtalk.  One of the members there Kal, has also put up a wonderful site documenting his build at The Electric Brewery.  To add a little flare to my control panel I have built a LED lighted version of Kal's logo.  The panel is not finished yet but here is the Logo so far.

  
This will be attached to the back of the control panel face and will show through a hole cut in the panel.  There will also be a small frame around it.  This is how I built it.....

I started by printing out Kal's logo as a mirror image.  It needs to be mirrored because you will be engraving it from the other side and that way it will be the correct way around when you are done.  I cut 2 pieces of 1/8in acrylic to the proper size.  I used a dremmel tool with the flex extension and a 1/32in engraving bit to 'etch' the image.  The flex tool allows you to use the dremmel sort of like a pencil.

I then attached the printed logo using some tape and went over the image with the engraving tool.  It takes a little practice at first because the image is seen though the thickness of the acrylic.  You do not have to go very deep.  Just go over the image slowly and cover everything.  Be careful because the tool wants to 'pull' in the direction of the spin.  It may be useful to practice on a scrap piece first.  I did the lettering on one sheet of acrylic and the hop on a 2nd sheet.  This way I could make them 2 different colors.

Above are 2 pictures after etching.  There is a lot of debris from the engraving in the pictures but that cleans up easy.

Here are the two pieces held together.

On to the LEDs.  To wire the LEDs we need to know a couple of things.  The forward voltage, the current draw and your supply voltage.  Also note LEDs want DC power.  The current and voltages can usually be found on the suppliers spec sheets. 

 In my case I have 3 types of LEDs.

The White LEDs are 3V 20ma
1 Green LED is 3.6V 20ma
1 Green LED (slightly different color) is 2V 30ma

I am using 12V as the supply.  Because 12V is too much for the LEDs we will attach resistors inline with them to control the voltages/current to the proper amount.  This is calculated using Ohms law which states:

Current = Voltage/Resistance or Resistance = Voltage/Current

We have 12V and the 3 LED string uses 9V (3 LEDs x 3V) so we need to dump 3V to keep our current at 20ma.  So 12-9 =3V   3V/.02A = 150.  We need a 150ohm resistor.

You can find many LED calculators on line to figure out the resistors needed for your LED voltages and current.

The letter sheet will have a string of 3 LEDs running across the top and 3 along the bottom.  The hop sheet have 1 above and 1 below.  That's basically 4 circuits.  Two strings of 3 and 2 strings of 1.  These 4 (series) strings are then connected to each together in parallel.  You can see below the resistors used for each string.

The three string runs have the 3 LEDs in series.  In this case the voltages are added and the same current is drawn through the circuit.  In this case, 20ma.  We then attach 4 strings together in parallel which means the entire circuit will draw the sum of the currents or in our case 20ma + 20ma + 30ma + 20ma = 90ma total.  Our power supply will need to provide at least 90ma.  To attach the lines in parallel we attach the 4 12V ends to the power and the 4 ground ends to ground on the power supply.

Ok enough about math and stuff.  I modified the LEDs by grinding down the face and the sides so it was a square shape the thickness of the acrylic and then cut notches in the ends of the acrylic the correct size with a dremmel and glued the LEDs in place with styrene cement.  Remember LEDs must be connected with the correct polarity or they won't work.  See the above crappy picture for a before and after shot.

I used a small Radioshack project board to have a place to connect the power supply to the circuit and also for a place to put the resistors.  It's not a necessity but it can be a pain trying to solder the resistors onto the wires so I did it this way.  There is also terminals to tie everything to the power.  Top and bottom views follow. 

In the top picture the top terminal connects to the power supply and the left one connects all the power lines from the circuit to power.  The right side connects all the grounds to their appropriate resistors and then all tie to the ground back to the power supply.

To hold all this I made a small 'box' out of styrene and painted it black.  The circuit board is held to the back of the board with some nylon standoffs. I started with a sheet of 2mm styrene and some .250 x .100 sticks of styrene (like model plastic).  I made it big enough for the sheets to fit in it with clearance for the wire on top and bottom.

 

The next picture shows the final product.  I drilled small 1/8in holes in the top and the bottom of the sides for the wires to come through.  I also notched the 4 corners of the acrylic sheets so a screw can pass through and attach the unit inside of the control panel.

The power supply I used for this is an old 12V 'wall wart' from an old Linksys router.  I just cut off the connector at the end and attach it to the circuit board with the screw terminals.  As you can see in this picture it is 12V and up to .5A or 500ma. (click the picture)

Well that's about it.  I will follow with some pictures from the build and some more or less 'finished product' pictures.  My panel isn't painted yet nor is the small frame around the logo.  Also note it is very hard to get good pictures of this thing because of the lighting.  Flash tends to wash it out and no flash pictures are dark and tend to be blurry.  click any pictures to see a larger version of them.

 

HAWKS WIN!

Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks 2013 Stanley Cup Champions!  Been a huge Hawks fan for many many years. Awesome season guys!

 

Element Guards

Received my StillDragon element guards the other day.  These will house the electrical connections for the heating elements and protect people from touching the business end of the elements.

 The guard will be attached to the kettle using a tri-clamp to a 2in ferrule welded to the kettle.  You can see the ferrule in the upper right corner of the above picture.  The main element housing is in the upper left.  The element will be screwed into the housing and will protrude into the kettle to heat the liquids.
 

Above is a picture of the assembled housing.  The element wire will come through the hole on the left where a strain relief will hold it in place.  The screw you see on the face will be for a grounding lug attached on the inside.  More pictures will follow when I get it all assembled.  I do not yet have the kettles.

Temperature probes

Temperatures will be controlled by a PID or proportional-integral-derivative controller.  The ones I'm using are Auber SYL-2352 PIDs.  The temperatures are monitored by the PIDs using a RTD or resistance temperature detector.  I am using Auber Liquid tight RTD sensor, 1.5 inch, 1/2 NPT Thread sensors.  I modified them slightly to be a bit more sturdy and to connect to my main control panel with XLR connectors.  Here is what I did....

Temp probe parts

I started with a length of 1/32in wire rope, 2 pieces of 1/8in braided sleeve, a 3 pin XLR connector, the RTD probe and some heatshrink tubing.

I loosened the clamp in the probe end and looped the wire rope through it.  This will help if the probe is ever accidentally tripped over or pulled.

I then pulled the black braided sleeve over the wire and then pulled another colored braided sleeve over that for 2 layers.  Each probe has a layer of black and then another color over that.  Then I tucked the ends of the sleeve under the clamp and tightened it down.

The end was then covered with 3 different sizes of heat shrink tubing.

On the control panel end, I put on a nylon tie wrap and then folded the wire rope over it and applied another tie wrap to secure it.  The wires were then soldered to the XLR connector and connector was then closed up.

Here is a picture of the finished probes.  One probe will go to each vessel and the other end will attach to the main control panel and inside will go to the PIDs.

Some Background

I started homebrewing in 2006.  Like most homebrewers I started with a couple extract batches and eventually built some more equipment and moved to all-grain brewing.  This is done with a couple of coolers for the HLT (Hot liquor Tank) and the MLT (Mash Lauter Tun) and a stainless steel boil kettle with propane burner like a turkey fryer.  You can make great beer this way and it works just fine but there are some issues with it that always annoy me.

My original setup

Original Brew Kettle

There is a fair amount of equipment involved and I needed to store it all in the basement which means that every time I wanted to brew I'd have to lug all this stuff up the stairs from the basement and then lug it all back down again after I was finished.  I am also tied to brewing outside with this setup because you can't use the propane burner in the hose.  That means you are at the mercy of the weather and basically can't brew in most of the winter month unless you are a glutton for punishment.

I started looking for an alternative that would allow me to change some of the ways I do things.  Like most inventions, homebrewing advancement stems from the want to do less work.  I originally was thinking about building a propane rig that would automate a lot of the process but it would still leave to brewing outside.  Then a few years ago a lot of people started converting to electric brewing rigs.  I have spent a long time doing research into this and also saving cash to work towards building an electric setup.  I have decided to go with an EHERMS setup.  That is Electric Heat Exchanged Re-circulating Mash System.  Details on how this works is in an earlier post.  This will allow me to not only brew indoors but will allow most of the equipment to stay in one place at all times and not need to be moved.
 

Main Power Cord

The control panel runs at 240v and will be supplied by a standard 10/4 30A dryer cord.  I do not yet have 220 run at the house and will need to have an electrician out at some point to run it.  I have not decided on a location in my basement yet so it will have to wait.  There will be a dedicated 30A GFCI breaker in the main panel for this circuit.  The connector at the panel is a NEMA L14-30 plug.  Here is what we start with.

NEMA L14-30 connector, Standard 10/4 30A dryer cord, and some 1/2 inch black cable sleeve.

Construction is pretty straight forward.  Cut off the eye terminals on the cable and then I ran the cord through the cable sleeve and secured it with six inches of  3/4 inch heatshrink tubing at each end.  Then attached the plug to the cable.  Here is the finished power cable.

Some people run with 50 or 60 amp circuits.  This will allow them to run 2 5500W elements at the same time.  The jump from 30A to 50 or 60A is quite a bit more money and complicates things a lot also.  The biggest reason I opted for 30A is I can use standard dryer cables and receptacles and I should be able to support it in my 100A service.  Running only 1 element at a time is not really an issue it just may make things take a little bit longer but not by much.

Control Panel Parts

I need to play catchup a little and post up some of the things I have already done.  I started working on this a couple of months ago already.  It took me at least a month to get all the parts sourced for the main control panel.  Here is a picture of all the parts for the main control panel.  

This panel will be powered by 240V using a 4 wire dryer cable.  It will monitor temperatures of all the vessels and control the temperatures of the each of them using PID controllers (proportional-integral-derivative controller).  It will also control the pumps for the system.  It will also have a power meter as well as a timer and alarms that can be set to go off when certain events happen.  There will be a lot more on the panel itself later on.  Here are a couple more close up pictures.

Documenting my brewery build.

So I have decided to document my brewery build for family and friends who are interested in seeing the progress and how it works.

What is HERMS?

First off, my brewery will be what is know as a HERMS setup, or more specifically, an E-HERMS setup.  HERMS stands for Heat Exchanged Re-circulating Mash System. The E means that it is an electric system. I will be using 5500w water heater elements as a heat source.  

One of the most important parts of brewing is the mash.  The mash is when you take your crushed grain and let it sit in hot water for an hour or an hour and a half and the enzymes in the grain convert all the starch to sugar.  This sugar will eventually be consumed by yeast and converted to ethyl alcohol and CO2.  The problem is that it is hard to keep the mash at the right temperature during the hour unless you can apply heat.  Many people use a cooler as a mash tun and cannot directly apply flame heat.  A HERMS setup will allow you to move liquid out of the mash tun to a heat exchanger where it will be pulled up the the proper temperature and then put back into the mash.

Lets start by getting used to some of the basic terminology.  My brewery will be a single tier system.  That means that all the kettles will be on the same level.  Some brewers use 2 or 3 tier setups.  The advantage of this is that you can use gravity to move liquid from one vessel to another.  The downside is that they can be fairly tall and you have to hike the liquid to the top to start with.  A single tier has all the vessels within easy access.  The downside is it is not easy to get liquid from one vessel to the next.... unless you use pumps.

There are 4 main vessels in standard brewery setup but most brewers use one vessel for two purposes (Mashing and Lautering) so that leaves 3.  They are the Boil Kettle or (BK) the Mash/Lauter Tun (MLT) and the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT).

Lets examine how this process will work.

The HLT is filled with water.  There is a stainless steel coil in here that will be used as a heat exchanger later.  We turn on the heater element and the water is heated until the proper temperature is reached. The temperature is calculated so that when the water is mixed with the grain in the mash, it will come out the the right temperature for the mash.  Water is circulated through the vessel via a pump to equalize the temperature.

The MLT is filled with the crushed grain.  The proper amount of water is transferred from the HLT to the MLT by pump.  The water is mixed very will with the grain making sure to break up any grain balls that form.  The process is known as 'Doughing in'.
 

During the mash, water in the HLT is kept at the proper temperature in the HLT by use of a PID.  A proportional-integral-derivative controller (PID controller) is a generic control loop feedback controller.  It will monitor the temperature and apply heat to keep it at a set temperature. The water is circulated in the HLT to keep the temperature constant throughout the vessel.  The liquid in the mash is pumped out of the MLT and through the stainless coil in the hot water in the HLT and then back into the mash.  This will then maintain the temperature of the mash at the temperature of the HLT.

After all the starch has been converted to sugars in the mash we need to rinse all these sugars and collect the sweet liquid known as wort.  This process is know as sparging or lautering.  We pump out water that is about 170 degrees F from the HLT back through the coil to get out all the sweet wort into the MLT.  At the same time we pump sweet wort from the mash to the BK.  We try to do this at a fairly slow rate so the water can filter through the mash and rinse out the sugars.  We also try to match the flow rates between the two vessels so we maintain about a 2 or 3 inch cover on the grain bed.  We do this until we have collected the volume we need for the boil.

Heat is applied by a water heater element in the boil kettle and the wort is boiled for one to one and a half hours.  During this time hops are usually added.  Hop oils are isomerized and proteins are coagulated and 'bad' compounds are driven off during the boil.

After the boil we need to cool the wort as quickly as possible.  We want to get the yeast pitched as soon as we can so they can start converting the sugars and get a hold before any bacteria can.  During the last 15 minutes of the boil we place a copper coil used for cooling into the boiling wort to sanitize it.  After the boil, we run cold water through the coil that is in the wort and it will pull the heat out of the wort with it.  At the same time we circulate the wort through the pump back into the kettle and around the coils to help cool it.

We then drain the cooled wort out of the BK into the fermenter, apply some oxygen via an O2 tank or just mixing and then pitch the yeast.

Damn that was a lot of typing.  Hopefully you got something out of that.  I will be adding posts that have pictures and descriptions of what I have finished as I go.  Stay tuned!