The Brewing Continues

Thank you for being patient with me, I know it's been way too long since I've posted anything here.  Since my last post I've converted the entire brewery to all electric (no more propane burners) and replaced all the liquid vessels and lines.  I did take some photos of the process at the time with the intent of posting them here.

In the next few posts I would like to upload those old photos and describe the process I went through to convert the brewery to all electric.  Of course, I never would have thought his possible is it wasn't for Kal of The Electric Brewery.  I used this design as a template and over a very long period of time acquired and built a very similar product.  As you can see, I started with smaller project box and added onto it.  My first experimental exposure to electric brewing was in building the lauter tun.  Mashing and lautering are the most temperature critical steps in the production of wort, so I built the first control box to regulate the temperatures of these steps.  Boiling is just that, and doesn't require specific temperatures and control.  I used the left side of the box for over a year while still using a propane burner for the boiling step.

There were some things specified in The Electric Brewery that I either couldn't find, or couldn't justify the expense for like the timer that Kal used.  I bought a process timer, but I find it difficult to use and the design utilized the same buzzer for the time events as other alarms.  This makes it impossible to tell the difference between an alarm for mash temp too low/high and mash time completed.  Some require immediate attention and others, not so much.  I think the idea is that all events require you to pay attention to the rig for something, but it made brew-day stressful for no reason.  I use the small magnetic kitchen timer for timed events.  This also allows me to carry the timer with me in case I find a reason to wander away from baby-sitting the brewery, like grabbing some lunch or just seeking a few minutes of air conditioning in the house :-).  Before building the monster welding cable that powers the 30 Amp/ 240 Volts supplied by the box to the heating elements, I used a 120 Volt extension cord to bench test all the functions including safety lockout/interlock which ensures that if a power failure occurs and is then restored that the system doesn't start back up on it's own.  This is for the safety of both the equipment and the operator.

The 30 Amp dryer outlet that feeds the rig now is sent through a GFI breaker installed in the main breaker panel to protect me from any stray current.  Kal used a 240 Volt GFI cable that I was unable to find.  The breaker is simpler, but more expensive and required me to shut off the main power to the house to install.  I don't recommend doing this in the middle of summer if you live anywhere (like Houston) that is somewhat dependent on Air Conditioning.  Until the day where I have a huge vent hood, I still need to move the rig outside to brew, so the entire operation needs to be on wheels and movable.  Having this power setup allows me to shut down all power before attempting to move it.  It's still very heavy which I hope to solve in the next few months by reducing the size of the table or replacing it completely.