The aim was to design and build a system that can be packed away (no room for an established set up) yet still have good functionality. I wanted the capacity to fill 3 cornies from one mash, so roughly 63 litres of wort into the FVs, to make brewdays worthwhile.
First, we ran a new water feed to the garage. On Chris-x1's counsel (just one of the many sound pieces of advice he gave - thank you Chris), we ran a cold feed rather than the warm as my hot water system is tank-based. It's a shame because with a combi boiler set up we could have run a warm water feed thereby cutting down time/energy on heating up the liquor. The water feed runs straight to a water filter. One side is hard plumbed (with a shut off tap for changing the filter cartridge) and the other has a quick disconnect (QD) insert fitted via a 3/4" BSPM to 1/2" BSPF adapter. The QD inserts, as well as the coupling bodies that click on to them, have an in-built shut off valve; nice and clean (thanks Garth for the photos in another post that showed how the CPC QDs work - made it easier to source the right ones).
Clean, filtered water goes into the HLT (Burco 30 litre) and the Boiler (Nordic Optical 100 litre stock pot; more of which later). I figured I could use the Boiler for liquor heating up to the point of draining the first sparge (batch sparging): i.e. for the liquor required for mashing and the first sparge top up. Once those steps are done, the Boiler is free for receiving the wort. The HLT is then used for the second sparge liquor (though admittedly, I have to adjust the correct sparge liquor volumes as the HLT has a 30 litre maximum capacity and, technically, I need more for getting 77.6 litres of wort into the Boiler). It's not a massive adjustment though.
I toyed with the idea of fitting sight gauges to vessels but in the end I reckoned that a flow meter with a totaliser function was the way forward. I think I am right in saying turbine flow meters need a straight run of around 15cm before and after water goes through to ensure an accurate reading. So we cobbled together a run out of some adapters (the flow meter is US made and has 1/2" FPT fittings) some copper pipe and compression fittings. Water is measured via the flow meter into the Boiler and HLT. The flow meter's accuracy has been tested and despite the manufacturer's disclaimer of within +/- 3%, we have yet to see it out by more than .5%.
I read some posts on pumps and the name that kept cropping up was March May 809 (I think Aleman recently posted a recommendation), so I opted for one of those. This model is the 809-PL-HS, which comes with 1/2" MPT threaded connections. That necessitated fitting a 1/2" FPT to 1/2" BSPM adapter followed by a 1/2" to 1/2" BSPF socket so that the QD insert, which has a 1/2" BSPM thread, could be connected.
Eventually, we had QD facility for both the inlet and outlet. Plug and play.
As mentioned, the HLT is a 30 litre Burco. We changed the standard tap for a stainless steel ball valve so that a QD could be fitted for ease of transferring liquid. We also fitted a temperature gauge. Here's the HLT with the Boiler in background.
For the MT, I chose a Coleman 70 quart (66 litres in proper vernacular, I think). I can't think why I didn't take a single photo of the MT and, particularly, the grain strainer as this was the most problematic part of the kit on the inaugural brewday. The Boiler doubles as water heater and wort boiler. So many brewers have adapted the Nordic Optical pots, it was easy for us to get the pointers we needed. Like we did on the HLT, it was a case of fitting a temperature gauge and ball valve. Drilling stainless was not too bad; here's a shot of how we did it using a shank step drill bit and a modicum of patience.
I opted for gas because it worked out cheaper, components wise, than running a new 30 amp power supply to the garage for the 2 x 3kws electric elements required to heat 77+ litres of wort. Here it is, burning away. Later I was to discover that it didn't seem up to the job; heating the liquor and boiling the wort took an age.
For the hop strainer, I toyed with getting the one adm has from Australia (and if I start using pellets, I may have to) but with quite a lot of leftovers, we rigged up another run of copper piping with 2mm slits at 10mm intervals housed inside stainless steel mesh.
On the outside, between the Boiler's ball valve and the QD there is a stainless steel Y strainer with 1/2" BSP F fittings for ensuring no hoppy debris get to the pump. Without it, I am sure the transfer from Boiler to FVs would be quicker but if it saves me from stripping the pump down, just once, then I'd prefer it - I can just envisage some vital O ring ending up stuck to the bottom of a pint glass that's been put in the dishwasher.
Having read about the benefits of quick crash cooling, we came up with the concept of a pre-IC that could be filled with water and placed in the freezer before brewday. The idea is the same as a normal IC, coils with connectors to fit pipes to are submerged in a vessel and then surrounded by an ice block. As water travels through, it cools rapidly before going on to the main IC submerged in the wort. Of course as the water freezes it expands and can crack anything in its path (including the submerged pipes) but we got round that by employing an open vessel and filling it with a volume of water that allowed the ice to travel in the path of least resistance (i.e. upwards) without spilling out. There's a photo on my brewdays thread.
Hose wise, because most outlets sell only bulk coils, it was a hard job to find a good product at a reasonable cost. Eventually I tracked down this stuff at Arco. It slots on to the hose barbs of the QDs nice and snug (a little soak in boiling water helped), it is temperature rated to 100c, fit for food and is OK to handle even when transferring 80c liquor. Because certain transfer functions are fundamentally the same, we concluded that we actually only needed 4 hoses to be made up: 3 lengths with QD couplings at either end and 1 length with a QD at one end and open at the other. The QDs aren't cheap so needing just 7 helped keep the cost down. Here's a general shot showing ball valves, QDs, hosing, the Y strainer on the boiler and the pump mounted on to an off-cut for stability.
In theory it all looked OK but, in practice, as I expected there were a few teething problems. Under the stress of brewing 63 litres on my first AG outing, I put together a haphazard collection of photos that are posted in the brewdays section under the heading 'First AG: Twisted Knotted Stout'.
Apart from those members mentioned above, it's been my good fortune to benefit directly from advice from scooby, flything, jaz_allen, parva, worts n ale, opentoideas and, indirectly, from many others who take the time and trouble to contribute their experiences/photos/expertise to Jim's.
Next up, equipment-wise, is temperature controlled fermentation. Fridges, freezers, Kingspan, TC-10s; still getting my head round it. Right now I'm reckoning on using the free ride on temperatures to get some lagers made. Off to try Horden Hillbilly's recipe. Cheers for reading and happy brewing.
