My new bling --- will look familiar to many of you...

[bwarbiany]

JonW suggest I create a thread showing off my "new" brew rig, so here it is!

Brent just upgraded to a fully automated brew system, so I bought his old one and I'm now the third person (including Derrin) to take ownership of and brew on one of the nice shiny Brewers Hardware stands... Feels darn new to me, though!

https://plus.google.com/photos/11521665 ... 2prmopm7Yw

Overall, my first brew session went far more smoothly than I could have expected. A few kinks to work out and lessons learned, but by spending most of Sunday planning how to configure QD's, tri-clovers, and tubing, I was able to make it through a Monday evening brew session without running into any hose configurations I had forgotten to build

I captioned the G+ photos with pretty complete descriptions. Since Brent was keeping his pumps and chiller (and I already had my own), I set it up using what I had existing there. I also decided to keep my 20-gal morebeer BK in use as an HLT on this system rather than his 15-gal pot. I just know that if I had sold that big kettle I'd end up kicking myself for it at some point down the road, and it actually fits on the stand, so I might as well use it...

[lexuschris]

Congrats on the new rig! Nice photos & description too! I especially enjoyed the part on the Convolutus as I have not really seen one in action before.


--LexusChris

[maltbarley]

Very cool. Congrats!

[dhempy]

Nice ... once you go Brutus you never go back!

Dan

[JonW]

That looks great Brad. Have you seen any improvement in brewing time yet? I find that having a rig that you can just pull out and start filling with water without having to do a bunch of setup/teardown makes me brew more often. I've done some brew days in 4.5 hours beginning to end for a 10 gallon batch. Almost every one of my brew days I actually brew two batches because it only adds a couple of hours to the whole process to double the output. Any thoughts of adding some automation?

[bwarbiany]

That looks great Brad. Have you seen any improvement in brewing time yet? I find that having a rig that you can just pull out and start filling with water without having to do a bunch of setup/teardown makes me brew more often. I've done some brew days in 4.5 hours beginning to end for a 10 gallon batch. Almost every one of my brew days I actually brew two batches because it only adds a couple of hours to the whole process to double the output. Any thoughts of adding some automation?

I had a system pretty well worked out to minimize brewing time previously, basically starting by pulling only the mash tun, burner, propane tank and grain mill out until I got doughed in, and starting with hot water in the mash tun instead of room-temp. I'd then set up the HLT, other burners, pumps, etc while the mash was already going. Even with a 90-minute boil (which I do as standard), I was getting ~4.5-5 hour brew days.

With this, I found that my first brew day took a bit longer. Part of this was just taking my time, but the first thing I think I need to iron out is a burner issue, where I'm getting weak, sooty flame. That caused it to take a lot longer to heat up the HLT water and to get the wort up to boil in the BK than I'm used to.

The second is that the tangential return on the BK when I was running the chiller was keeping the cool wort all at the bottom of the BK, and there was much hotter wort above it that wasn't making it to the pickup tube. My plan for that is to keep a long metal spoon in the kettle at the very end of the boil and to manually stir the BK every few minutes during chilling to ensure even temperatures.

At some point I do need to get an inline thermometer on the outflow of the CFC, though, so I can go straight into the fermenter at an earlier time. Today I wait until I'm ~10-15 degrees above pitch temp and then run full-flow from the kettle through the CFC into the fermenter to get it down the rest of the way. If I had an inline thermometer I could go straight into the fermenter and just use flow rate to manage the temp of the wort going in.

[lexuschris]

If I had an inline thermometer I could go straight into the fermenter and just use flow rate to manage the temp of the wort going in.

I have an inline thermometer (ThruMometer from Blichmann) which I have never used. It needs 3/8" diameter tubing, but that doesn't work well with my plate chiller (which is much bigger). You are welcome to try it out, and if you like it you can pay me off in your tasty homebrew!
--LexusChris

[bwarbiany]

If I had an inline thermometer I could go straight into the fermenter and just use flow rate to manage the temp of the wort going in.

I have an inline thermometer (ThruMometer from Blichmann) which I have never used. It needs 3/8" diameter tubing, but that doesn't work well with my plate chiller (which is much bigger). You are welcome to try it out, and if you like it you can pay me off in your tasty homebrew!
--LexusChris

I think I might want to give that a shot... I use 1/2" tubing, but that's close enough to fit.

I'll be headed to JonW's for the brew day if you want to bring it by...

[dhempy]

I have a ThruMometer on my fill-chill-ator and use it _EXACTLY_ as you describe ... I have it in a SS Tee that the wort passes by on exit.

BTW ... Love that CFC on that stand .. how is it working out for you?

Dan

If I had an inline thermometer I could go straight into the fermenter and just use flow rate to manage the temp of the wort going in.

I have an inline thermometer (ThruMometer from Blichmann) which I have never used. It needs 3/8" diameter tubing, but that doesn't work well with my plate chiller (which is much bigger). You are welcome to try it out, and if you like it you can pay me off in your tasty homebrew!
--LexusChris

[bwarbiany]

BTW ... Love that CFC on that stand .. how is it working out for you?

It's great. I've had it a couple years now, replacing a tube-inside-garden-hose version that I bought from Lars back on '07-08 or so. This chills MUCH more quickly than that one did.

This is it at morebeer, but I think I ended up getting it used for ~$75 or so, which was a smokin' deal.

[dhempy]

BTW ... Love that CFC on that stand .. how is it working out for you?

It's great. I've had it a couple years now, replacing a tube-inside-garden-hose version that I bought from Lars back on '07-08 or so. This chills MUCH more quickly than that one did.

This is it at morebeer, but I think I ended up getting it used for ~$75 or so, which was a smokin' deal.

I remember .. you bought it from me!

Dan