Doors cut in. Should be plenty room under the bench to store the kettle, buckets, and maybe even the dragon.
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- Thread starter DanC
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Oh very nice Roadie any varnish going on that wood?
With all the water involved?
The top of the bench already has 3 coats, but need to sand it and make it a little smoother with a few more coats of urethane. I got rather aggressive on it with a belt sander while removing the old urethane. I originally built the bench for a portable work surface in the shed, so wasn't too particular with the finish. All it did was collect stuff and was always covered up. So, I de-cluttered and reassigned it's purpose. Definitely plan to varnish the fermenting piggyback with something that will make it a little more water resistant.
One other thing; I'm gonna have to close up the storage space under the bench pretty good. I've been known to make some pretty serious dust clouds in the shop, and don't want that settling all over my brewing hardware. Will have to make sure that ANYTHING that comes into contact with the brewing is enclosed because sometimes, the dust is from grinding on rusty metal. Not sure that would do much for the beer making processes. I've got some more old 3/4" plywood for the bottom but will likely get something a bit lighter to close in the front. Doesn't have to be airtight, just baffled enough to keep dust out. Sorta thinking sliding doors, so they don't come open and hang on stuff when I'm moving it around. I can just throw an old blanket over the equipment for the now until I finalize something for the front.
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Boy have I got you fooled!Barbi Knows best!
I acidentily dropped a rusty bulldog clip into my boil a brew or two back and it didn't seem to have any detrimental impact on that beer
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Hmmm, healthy iron fortified beer?I acidentily dropped a rusty bulldog clip into my boil a brew or two back and it didn't seem to have any detrimental impact on that beer
Get ya trace minerals whilst drinking win win!
Ordered an Inkbird controller, 2 fans,200w ceramic heater, and a pump today from Amazon. Got all of it for just under $150. The pump was nearly half the total.
Put the bottom shelf in the bench and added some blocking so I can enclose it. Going with sliding doors, so gonna have to see what kinda hardware is available in the local big box stores.
Put the bottom shelf in the bench and added some blocking so I can enclose it. Going with sliding doors, so gonna have to see what kinda hardware is available in the local big box stores.
Pump is for?
You trying out recirculating you mash Roadie?
Yeah, that's the original thought, but the primary purpose is for transferring unfermented wort, hot side work, so to speak. Handling full fermenters and kettles full of hot wort is not the best activity for someone that has a bad back (L3-L5 and C4-C6) and has had both rotator cuffs done. I don't have nearly the upper body strength I did 10 years ago. Still gotta get hoses and fittings before I'm moving wort with it.
I'm taking baby steps to learn more as I go, too. I'm very interested in any improvement in the utilization of grain (which is not a factor with LME or DME extract batches) to see if my consistency on all-grain brewing improves. Expecting some higher OG's if I can recirc. I'll probably still keep an easy recipe or two for a quick extract batch just for the pipeline, but I'm beginning to see that all grain tends to be a better malt flavor, and less 'scorched' tasting than LME. I've got some copper I can use to make a spray head with. Leftovers from the 50 foot coil I bought for the immersion chiller.
The beauty of only using a pump on the hot side is the ability to quickly sanitize everything with boiling water from the kettle. The dragon will make short work of that.
Controller and fans should be here today, heater and pump tomorrow. Gotta get the chamber doors finished (sanded and patched where my jigsaw blade decided to wander) and sealed up soon, because I want to try it out on my next batch, in about 2 weeks. Not sure what I'll do for ice at the moment, though. Might have to come up with a plan B for the cooling. Will have to get the missus to buy me some OJ in half-gallon jugs. Still gotta build the racks for that, too.
I'm not building a freezer, just a place to hide from 35-40C+ temperatures. I'll have to check it daily to determine ice melt rate, etc, until I get it figured out. That'll tell me how many ice jugs I'm going to have to keep. I'm going to use the wort temperature for the control feedback, not the chamber air temperature, so I can see the actual wort temperature on the display. The conical already has a thermowell in it for a temperature gauge. I just hope the probe fits in the thermowell well enough to work. If not, I'll have to find one that does. Doesn't need to be fast, just reasonably accurate and compatible with the InkBird ITC-1000F. I may try a batch of just plain water on the first run to see how well my concept works in summer heat. It may force me to come back inside, but I can put it in the garage to solve that problem. Doesn't get nearly as hot in the garage as it does in the shed. We also have pretty crazy winter weather here, where one day it's -10C because our Canadian friends left the back door open, the next it may be 22C and picnic weather. THAT is what I have to level out to move the fermenting out to the shed.
Got a batch to bottle today that I cold-crashed in the fridge last night. A bit of a lift (freezer is on the bottom of my beer fridge), but buckets aren't nearly as tall or awkward as the conical. Let's see what that does to the clarity and settling of the trub. Last batch had a LOT of solids that didn't settle and left me with a pretty thick layer in the bottom of the bottles. I probably rushed it, but I also did it in a bucket (as I did this batch too) simply because I was trying to make quick batches and also get an all-grain batch (Summer Blonde) in the conical. Maybe the repitch in the Rapier was a bad idea? It has worked before. Overpitched? Probably. Very aggressive fermentation, very quickly. Lots of things went sideways on the batch I'm drinking now. It still tastes good, just not a very pretty beer. It's absolutely clear in the bottles above the sediment and gets a little cloudy when poured to a glass while avoiding the sediment. I'm thinking that's the wheat beer characteristic. Dunno.
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Wow, that is s novel.
I would suggest ball valve on the output side of the pump, if you don't already have that in the plan. Being able to slow it down for recirc or pump out is important. Centrifugal pumps don't work when they start to suck air. I always slow the pump to a crawl the last 2"or so. If it pulls a whirlpool of air it will stop pumping
I built and serviced swimming pools nearly 6 years to put myself through engineering school at the University of Alabama. I'm fairly well versed in moving liquids with centrifugal pumps as one of my talents was rebuilding the pumps when the seals let go, or digging dog hair out of the impeller where folks let their dog in the pool. rried about the water in the pump getting hot. I left one running over night to show them they had no worries. By the time I left to start my engineering career, I did all their plumbing and electrical work on new and old installations. Took me a few years to graduate from Redneck Backhoe (shovel) operator and move up to construction and service. Service in the spring was my favorite. Lotsa eye candy around pools that time of year here. If I knew then what I know now ......
Yeah, I'm gonna do all stainless fittings and silicone tubing. Vinyl tubing is contrary to handle to say the least, and even with a clamp is still subject to coming off. Just had it happen bottling a batch. Made a bit of a mess because I had just purged the bottling wand and the spigot was wide open. Probably lost about a half bottle thanks to quick reaction. What I like about vinyl though is that it's very clear and easy to see if there's any goozies left in it.
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I'll have to toss out the BS flag on swimming pool pumps not getting hot. On a planet far far away a long time ago...
We had a new pool dug in our back yard that included a jacozzi . When we tried it the first time it was a lot of fun and the beer was good. Apparently I switched the filter valve the wrong way when we go out and dead headed the pump. It got hot enough over night to warp the filter switch valve and start pumping the water out. The pool was about half empty when we found it the next day.
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Fair enough, sounds like you got a good handle on it.
I agree on the vinyl hoses. Total garbage
I’ll point out that your valve failed, not your pump. Yeah it’ll get warm. Even water has friction. Jacuzzis normally have heated water to start with, too. I’d probably question the quality of the valve before I blamed the pump.
I used to dead head them all the time for initial and final plumbing checks, for hours. Motor testing was part of our new construction. It was all aimed at TRYING to make the pump fail, as well as test worst case scenario for the plumbing. We didn’t put stuff in and run away. We made sure the customer knew we were there for the long haul.
Bench tested the wiring for the temperature control and fans. Did all the wiring design in my head, so still gotta get it on paper. I like the little ITC-1000F, but definitely gonna need a different sensor to fit in the thermowell on the conical fermenter. Definitely not what was pictured on the web page. Should be able to get one designed for thermowell installation. Will draw up the circuit tonight. I used interposing relays to run the fans so I can also control the heater without cramming too many wires in the tiny connectors, as well as to make absolutely sure I don’t have the heat and cooling trying to run at the same time.
Tomorrow’s task will be to mount the fan for the cooling and figure out how and where to mount the heater.
Tomorrow’s task will be to mount the fan for the cooling and figure out how and where to mount the heater.
Single relevant data point: in a full-size fridge, I used a 50 watt heating pad (The kind used for a bad back) on its lowest setting and got plenty of heat from it.
Was that wrapped around the fermenter or the fermenter sitting on it or were you just warming the air in the fridge? As cheap as they are, I’m considering a second one to prevent getting the chamber too hot. I doubt it’ll be any where near the efficiency of the insulation of a fridge, and I don’t know how quickly it will melt the ice in the cooling box. I’m basically building it similar to a control cabinet I built for outdoor installation on the roof of Coor’s brewing in Colorado. There was some temperature sensitive electronics in that which wouldn’t stand a chance against the temperature excursions on that roof. I don’t anticipate much need for heat either, but the efficiency of warming air around a storage tank leaves a little to be desired. I’m hoping that the liquid temperature will help buffer any heat cycles.
Wrapped around a stainless Spike Flex fermenter and held on with a bungee cord.
