Automated Brewing

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Permalink Reply by Reuben Rowntree on April 4, 2011 at 5:24pm

How's your system going Dale? I just had a successful test run of my system on the weekend. I have an electric HLT and Kettle as well as pumps all working, but no automated valves or volume sensing yet. Did you finish the volume sensors? I'm thinking about using the "bubbler" system. I might simply use a pipe down the outside.

here is how she looks so far :)

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Permalink Reply by Dale on April 21, 2011 at 6:00pm

Hey Reuben, Sorry mate for being a slack arse really busy time of year for me work wise. I have had no time to get my setup any further so still have the volume sensors in the parcel they turned up in. Your setup looks like it's coming along well when you recon you'll get your first brew done on it?

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Permalink Reply by Reuben Rowntree on April 24, 2011 at 3:26pm

Hey no worries Dale, we all get busy :) I have pretty much finished the project for the moment, I just need to label the control box and I have one motorised ball valve that I will use for my water in, and then I'll be done. I went with the bubbler system for my pressure sensors. I wasn't sure the bubbler was the right thing, but now that it's finished it is working really well. The real advantage is you don't have to worry about leaks, or disconnecting a tube. I bought all the parts from a local pet store for quite cheap. You need to add a 1M ohm resistor in line with the pressure sensor to stop it from going haywire (from the bubbles). It is discussed in the Brewtroller forums.

I've done two brews with it now, and it was heaps of fun. The first was a bit slow but the second brew I did this weekend and it came out really nice. The program function is great, you just enter how much grain you use and it calculates all the water needed etc at each step.

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Permalink Reply by martin w on April 24, 2011 at 5:55pm

what size of pipe did you use in the vessels with the bubbler dip tubes? and where did you get it?

Permalink Reply by Reuben Rowntree on April 25, 2011 at 1:13pm

Hi Martin, I bought the tube from Steel and Tube. It was 7.9mm OD, but a little smaller would be ideal. You can see from the picture I have just used a rubber grommet to attach the hose at the top, it actuallt works quite well, because I can remove it easily. It is mounted to the wall with a little SS clamp I bought from Anzor for a couple of bucks. I'll type up a blog about it sometime soon with some pics.

You can also buy the tube from Mico Metals, but you have to buy a whole 6m length for about $50.

Steel and Tube sell it buy the metre but have a minimum $50 sale rule :( I bought some extra stainless fitting to make up the $50.

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Permalink Reply by Nick on April 13, 2011 at 11:30pm

I 'm looking at building a Flash boiler like this FWIW:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/flash-boiler-153116/

 

The reason is that it produces hot water and steam on demand without pressure issues. This means that mash-in and mash temperature control is much more efficient.

 

You feed the hot water directly into the mash tun from the boiler for mash-in and a steam injection / mash recirculation setup for mash temperature control.

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Permalink Reply by Reuben Rowntree on April 14, 2011 at 11:17am

Yeah that looks interesting Nick, I haven't actually researched this idea much at all, but it seems like it would be a quick and efficient way of heating water. I briefly looked at an electric option but the amount of power needed is insane.

Upon a little research I found this to be a pretty good website for anybody else interested in the concept of steam.

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.4/jones....

 

Pretty cool stuff...

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