Finished Brew Stand!

I finally finished my brewstand so I thought I'd add this post to summarize the build and also to update the previous posts that describe my overall system.  I've brewed one batch so far, a clone of Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale.  I'm very happy with the way everything turned out.  The only problem, if you can call it that, is the burner was a lot more powerful than my old propane one and I had a couple of minor boil-overs on the maiden voyage.

The only thing I can think of that I would do differently if I were to start over again is I'd probably position the casters a bit wider for added stability and I'd probably use swivel casters on all four corners so that the stand is more maneuverable.

Just a couple of disclaimers, I'm brand new to welding so I doubt that my welds would pass x-ray tests.  Some of my welds are a bit ugly...as luck would have it, it seems like the ugliest tend to be in highly visible areas.  Regardless, they seem to be plenty strong and the stand seems very sturdy.  My stand is a gas/electric hybrid and there are dangers involved in working with each.  Do not attempt something like this without doing some research and make sure you fully understand the risks involved.

This version is essentially version 4.0 of my brewery.  1.0 was my extract setup, 2.0 was my gravity fed all-grain system, 3.0 was the initial incarnation of the BCS-controlled HERMS, and 4.0 with the custom stand and integrated burner is the current version.

Below are some pics of the finished product.  The shelves are all diamond plate aluminum.  The black portion of the stand is painted with Rust-Oleum® High Heat spray paint and the silver portion is painted with Rust-Oleum® Hammered spray paint.  Primary features of my custom stand include:

• BCS-460-Controlled HERMS
• Control Panel
• March 809 Pump
• 40 Plate Counter Flow Plate Chiller
• Natural Gas Burner
• Dual Carbon Water Filters

Brewstand Done!

BCS-460-controlled HERMS
My brew stand is an electric HERMS (Heat Exchanged Recirculating Infusion Mash System) with a natural gas burner for the boil kettle.  The electric portion is controlled by a BCS-460 from Embedded Control Concepts.  Mine isn't quite as fancy as some BCS-based systems out there.  A lot of them are fully automated but mine is targeted more for just controlling the mash process.  I currently use two temp probes to control two 1500 watt 110 volt heating elements.  One element is used in the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) and one is used in a standalone Heat Exchanger (HEX).  A lot of HERMS systems use a combination HLT and HEX but a standalone HEX gives you a little more flexibility.  This is because the reaction time of my HEX is much quicker than when you're trying to heat the entire volume of a combo HLT/HEX.  The mash is circulated from Mash Tun (MT) through the HEX then returned to the MT by the pump.  The BCS-460 triggers three relays to control the elements and the pump.  The result is consistent mash temperatures that allow me to brew with repeatable results.  Long story short, it removes some potential variables.  If I make the same recipe three different times I should get nearly identical end products each time (assuming I have consistent fermentation control as well).

Control Panel
The Control Panel enclosure is a Hoffman C12C12 Consolet Steel Junction Box ordered from DougDeals.  The control panel includes three switches, (2) two-way switches (off-on) for the HEX and HLT elements and (1) three-way switch (auto-off-manual) for the pump.  I also have a momentary switch that can be used to advance to the next state on my BCS (e.g. advance from a pause for hose swaps to start mash recirculation).

The temperature probes are connected to the back of the control panel via 1/8" mono headphone jacks and plugs from Radio Shack.  The three solid state relays that control the elements and pump are mounted to a large heatsink from HeatsinkUSA and the heatsink is mounted to the back of the control panel.  The panel tags and legend plates are from Precision Engraving & Graphics (the owner's husband is also a homebrewer!).

Control Panel

Control Panel Innards

Back of Control Panel

March 809 Pump
This is your standard homebrew pump and I used it on my old setup.  On the old setup, it was mounted very low, tended to cause a lot of vibration because of poor mounting, and was difficult to lubricate.  For my stand, I fabricated a mount below the burner for the pump and it includes a 1/8" thick piece of neoprene rubber on the mounting surface.  This helps cut down on rattles and vibration.  It also includes a splash guard made from diamond plate aluminum to protect the pump motor from boil-overs and accidental spills.  The splash guard is attached with thumb screws so it can be easily removed when the motor needs lubricating.  As I mentioned above, the pump can be automatically controlled by the BCS-460 or manually controlled.

Pump and Mount

40 Plate Counter Flow Plate Chiller
This is a brand new piece of equipment.  After building a CFC out of copper tubing and not being too happy with the results, I decided to bite the bullet and order a plate chiller from Duda Diesel.  The chiller seems to work great and it's very compact compared to the DIY CFC I built.  I fabricated an L-shaped mount for it below the burner but above the pump.  It rests on a 1/8" neoprene rubber pad as well and is attached to the stand with stainless steel thumb screws so it can be easily removed for cleaning.  All connections use quick disconnects (cam locks for wort in/out and brass disconnects for the water in/out).

Counter Flow Chiller Front

CFC Back with Thumb Screws

Natural Gas Burner
The natural gas burner is a 6 inch low pressure burner from agrisupply.com.  It's intended for propane, but I converted it to NG using the natural gas conversion valve from Williams Brewing.  To do this I had to drill out the threads on the burner and tap threads for the conversion valve.  The burner is supplied by a 25' ½" hose from G4Burner.com.  The burner was rated for 70K BTU's using propane.  I'm not sure how many BTU's result from the NG conversion (NG has less potential energy than propane) and the long length of ½" hose, but it seems to do the job very well.  I reached boil about 10-15 minutes sooner than with my previous setup and now I don't have to worry about running out of fuel mid-boil.

Dual Carbon Water Filters
These are your basic water filter housings available from Lowes or Home Depot.  They're mounted on the back upper rail of the stand and feature a quick-disconnect so my water line can be easily attached.  I decided to go with dual filters to increase the contact time with the carbon and thus reduce the chance of chlorine making its way into my brewing water.

Water Filters

I just want to say thanks to everyone that posts info online in various blogs and forums for inspiring me and contributing ideas for this project.  I've always wanted to give welding a try and this was a really fun project that's going to make my homebrewing hobby so much more enjoyable.  I also want to thank my very loving and understanding wife for supporting my brewing hobby.  She says I always tell her "as soon as I have xyz on my brewing setup, I'll be done..."  I think we've both learned that there are always improvements to be made and I'm glad my honey allows me to experiment without giving me too much grief.

Another pic

Back side

Update 1/19/2014
I know the title of this post is "Finished Brew Stand!" and I posted it in October of 2011, but brewers are always looking to make minor tweaks to their setups. I've been using the trub/hop filter from BrewersHardware.com since I finished my stand. This piece of equipment is used to filter debris (mostly hop particles) so that my plate chiller doesn't clog. It works great and I've only clogged the filter once when I tried recirculating. I used a camlock to attach the filter to the in port on my plate chiller and it did fine but it always worried me because the weight of the filter was totally supported by the plate chiller. I finally decided to order a bracket for the filter and got around to mounting it this weekend. The mount for the bracket is simple, just a piece of 2x2x1/8 angle iron welded to the stand. It has a hole drilled in it for a 12mm bolt which is used to attach the bracket to the stand. It really holds the filter securely, so there's no chance of bumping the filter and accidentally damaging my plate chiller. I've added a couple pictures below.

Mount for trub filter bracket

TF bracket mounted

TF mounted in TF bracket

Read more...

BCS-460 Brew Session

Today I’m documenting a full BCS-460 brew session. I’m brewing a Toasted Coconut Porter based on the recipe by Fujiura, the 1998 Homebrewer of the Year. I found the recipe on the Internet so hopefully it’s true to the original.

My disclaimer, I don't work for Embedded Control Concepts nor am I associated with them in any way. But I do think this is a great product and I'm excited about it so I thought it might be helpful to others by documenting a brew session from start to boil.


Grain Bill
9 lbs Maris Otter Pale Malt (2 Row)
1 lbs 9.6 oz Hugh Baird Chocolate Malt
9.6 oz Briess Crystal Malt - 80L
1.25 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (60 min) Hops 35.9 IBU
0.60 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min) Hops 3.7 IBU
1 Pkgs London Ale III (Wyeast Labs #1318) Yeast-Ale

Mash Profile
Mash at 153 for 90 minutes

Recipe Notes
14.2 ounces toasted coconut. Use dried unsweetened coconut and toast on cookie sheet 15 min at 350 in oven or carefully toast in a fry pan. Rack beer onto coconut in secondary for 7 days.


My BCS-460-based HERMS
My HERMS consists of a Hot Liquor Tun, a Heat Exchanger, a Mash Tun, a March brew pump, and a BCS-460 equipped with two temperature probes. The BCS-460 is mounted remotely in the utility room in my basement. I ran some CAT 6 cable to the back patio and this is used to control the heating elements and also for connecting the temp probes. I also have two separate 20 amp GFCI circuits on the back patio. The HLT is connected to one of these circuits and the HEX is connected to the other. The heating elements are 1500 watt, 120 volt elements drawing approx 12.5 amps each. The solid state relays for controlling the heating elements and pump are mounted in the small electrical box mounted on the brew stand. The benefit of the BCS-460 controller is that it allows you to precisely control things like mash temp which helps the home brewer have more easily repeatable results. Check out my other blog posts for more info and pics of my HERMS. Check out http://www.embeddedcontrolconcepts.com/ for more info on the BCS-460.

















Brewing Process
I programmed my BCS-460 for a single infusion mash. At the very bottom of this post you'll find the text from the configuration file for my system. The process consists of 7 states.


System Startup
The first state is System Startup where the Heat Exchanger (HEX) is preheated and the strike water is heated in the Hot Liquor Tun (HLT). I’m using 1.5 quarts of strike water per pound of grain for this recipe and my brewing software calculated an initial strikewater temp of 165.3 was needed. Here you can see a screen shot of the BCS-460 at work during startup. One note, my laptop doesn’t have the greatest graphics card so I zoomed out in the browser to be able to capture as much of the screen as possible. As a result it cuts part of the bottom off of temp probe graphics. It took 44 minutes to heat 16.8 quarts to 165.3. Also, the HEX has two different positions for the HEX temp probe. During Startup, the Temp probe is inserted into the top of the HEX and is measuring the temp of the water in the HEX. At Dough-in, the HEX temp probe is switched to position 2 where it’s measuring the temp of the mash exiting the HEX. This state is exited by clicking on the Web Input 0 button.




Start Mash
The next State is Start Mash. This state is essentially a pause that allows for stirring the grain and strikewater into the mash tun. The heating elements in the HEX and HLT are turned off at this time. This state is exited by clicking on the Web Input 0 button.




Dough-In
The next state is Dough-in. This is simply a count-down timer for 6 minutes. When the timer reaches 0:00, the Dough-In state is exited and the Mash state begins. 6 minutes may seem a little short for dough in, but keep in mind before I kicked off this state I refilled the HLT, checked hoses, and swapped the HEX temp probe from position 1 to position 2. So the total dough-in time is probably closer to 15 minutes. Also, since the HEX temp has been switched to position 2 but the mash isn’t being circulated yet, the temp reading on the HEX isn’t accurate at this time.




Mash
During the Mash state, the mash is being recirculated through the HEX and the water in the HLT is heated for the sparge. The heating element in the HEX is cycled on as needed in order to maintain the mash temp. You can see in the pic below the temp of the mash exiting the HEX is at 153.1, the HLT is heating the sparge water, and the pump is active. Also, Timer 0 is used to countdown the 90 minute mash. When the timer reaches 0:00, the Mash state is exited to the Mash Out state.










Mash Out
During this state the temp of the mash is raised to 168. Once the mash out temp is reached, the state is exited to Start Sparge. The HLT is maintained at 165. As you can see it took a little under 7 minutes to raise the mash temp to 168.







Start Sparge
Similar to Start Mash, this state is essentially a pause that allows for swapping hoses and such. This is exited by clicking on the Web Input 0 button. Essentially everything is turned off.

Sparge
During this state the heating element in the HLT is turned off. The HEX is powered on when the sparge water drops below the setpoint of 170. This state is exited by clicking on the Web Input 0 button. At some point I’d like to add some float switches to control the end of this state.




The rest of the brewing process (boil and chilling) is manual, so that's about it as far as the BCS-460 controlled portion. Hopefully that was helpful to those that are considering purchasing a BCS-460 or have purchased one and were a little confused as to where to start.

Single Infusion Mash Configuration

BCS-460 v1.2 ,Single Inf Mash ,Process 1 ,Process 2 ,Process 3 ,System Start ,Start Mash ,Dough-in ,Mash ,Mash Out ,Start Sparge ,Sparge ,State 7 ,State 0 ,State 1 ,State 2 ,State 3 ,State 4 ,State 5 ,State 6 ,State 7 ,State 0 ,State 1 ,State 2 ,State 3 ,State 4 ,State 5 ,State 6 ,State 7 ,State 0 ,State 1 ,State 2 ,State 3 ,State 4 ,State 5 ,State 6 ,State 7 ,Hot Liquor Tank ,Heat Exchanger ,Pump ,Output 3 ,Output 4 ,Output 5 ,Discrete Input 0,Discrete Input 1,Discrete Input 2,Discrete Input 3,Web Input 0 ,Web Input 1 ,Web Input 2 ,Kill ,Web Input 0 ,Web Input 1 ,Web Input 2 ,Web Input 3 ,Web Input 0 ,Web Input 1 ,Web Input 2 ,Web Input 3 ,Web Input 0 ,Web Input 1 ,Web Input 2 ,Web Input 3 ,HLT Temp ,HEX Temp ,Temp Probe 2 ,Temp Probe 3 ,Timer 0 ,Timer 1 ,Timer 2 ,Timer 3 ,Timer 0 ,Timer 1 ,Timer 2 ,Timer 3 ,Timer 0 ,Timer 1 ,Timer 2 ,Timer 3 ,Timer 0 ,Timer 1 ,Timer 2 ,Timer 3 , 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BCS-460 First Trial

My BCS-460 HERMS is fully functional. I brewed my first batch on it on 4/25 and everything went fairly well. The only problem I had was for mash out I'm raising the temp from the mash temperature (in this case 158 F) to 168 F. I was able to raise the temp over a period of about 10 minutes. Then I swapped hoses and routed the sparge water through the HEX. The problem was the temp of the HEX was actually higher than the 168 from heating the mash, so my sparge water was getting heated to approx 172. No problem, I just removed the copper coil from the HEX and the temp dropped to 168. I think next time I'll either reduce the temp of the HEX during mashout or I'll reduce the temp of the sparge water in the HLT.

Anyway, here are some pics I took during the inaugural brew session and also a few I took during construction. The quality isn't all that great in some. For the brew session I brewed indoors due to bad weather so the lighting isn't all that great.

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Programming the BCS-460

For those not familiar with the BCS-460, it's a web-based process controller available from Embedded Control Concepts. The BCS-460 allows brewers to automate certain processes and closely control things like mash temperature. The goal is to brew more consistently with more easily repeatable results. So if I brew "Recipe A" on three separate occasions, the end product should be very similar each time.

I've setup the initial programming on my BCS-460. I'm sure I'll tweak the programming slightly after a few trials, but here is the logic as it exists right now. I've named Process 0 Single Inf Mash and it consists of the following states:

• System start
  
• Start Mash
  
• Dough-in
  
• Mash
  
• Mash Out
  
• Start Sparge
  
• Sparge
  

System Start

This state controls the heating elements in the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) and Heat Exchanger (HEX). The water in the HLT will be heated for the strike water. The BCS-460 will heat the water to the desired temperature. This process is exited by clicking on one of the user input buttons.

Start Mash

During this state, only the HEX is on. This allows for transferring the strike water from the HLT to the mash tun, hose swaps, etc. This process is also exited by clicking on an input button. After the strike water is transferred to the mash tun, I refill the HLT with water to be used for the sparge.

Dough-In

This state powers on the HEX and HLT. The exit condition is based on a timer initialized at 12 minutes. When the timer gets to 0:00, the state is exited to the Mash.

Mash

During this state, the HLT, HEX, and pump are powered on. The mash liquid is circulated through the HEX in order to maintain temperature. The HLT's sparge water is heated to 170. This state is also controlled by a timer initialized to 60 minutes.

Mash Out

This state raises the mash temperature for mash out. The HLT, HEX, and pump are being controlled. Once the desired mash out temperature is reached, the state is exited.

Start Sparge

During this state the HLT and HEX are maintained at 170 degrees while the pump is turned off. This allows time for swapping hoses. This state is exited by clicking on a button.

Sparge

During this state the HLT is off, the HEX is on, and the pump is on and the sparge water is pumped into the mash tun. This state is exited by clicking on a button.

I still have a few plumbing fittings to buy as well as some electrical components. I hope to have these items pieced together within a couple weeks so that I can run the BCS-460 through some trials before my first brewing attempt.

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