Home Brewery build.

Posts: 5

PeeBee, Sun May 22, 2016 11:26 am

After many years of home brewing (that's a scary number of years, so I'm not telling) I decided it was time for a new "brewery". I was moving home (six years ago) and this was the drive behind a new build. I actually got to choose a house with suitable room to adapt into the "brewery" (or a utility room for folk not sharing the brewing passion).

Criteria for the build:

It was in the house, so it had to look the part.
It had to have a larger capacity than I had previously! I.e. 40-70 litres rather than 25 litres.
It was to be an "installation". No more buckets in a cupboard for me.
I always suspected plastic buckets were "stealing" aroma from my brew. Never proved, but this was to be a stainless steel assembly.
I'd come across the "Electric Brewery". Good starting point for a construction.
HERMS or RIMS? Ah, why not decide later and have both!
I'd got a room (ex downstairs loo!), but it created a very confined space to cram everything into.

So, come up with basic designs and start collecting bits and pieces. Then three/four years ago all stop! Developed rather suddenly (the way with these things) a severe "TBI" (look it up). Several months later and the possibility of resurrecting the brewery project became a possibility again, although it was now a "rehabilitation" project! Did mean I could put a lot more time into it.

After much searching I found Paul at Angel Home Brew to make my brew vessels; wish I had learnt about him earlier as I could source a hell of a lot of hard to find bits from him.

I'd got the basic layout (click on pickie to open if the bottom has been truncated):
Basic Layout.jpg.jpg
Basic Layout - Basic Layout.jpg.jpg (36.44 KiB) Viewed 38605 times
From that developed a decent schematic. Note one space saving development was pushing the HLT under the worktop so only the working vessels (mashtun and boiler) were on he worktop: Because the HLT was relatively inaccessible it needed a good bit of "automation", like pumps, level sensors, motorised valve, temperature sensor, etc. Drainage is a bit of a problem with it on the floor too, solved with a, err... bilge pump.
Vessel Schematic.jpg
Vessel Schematic - Vessel Schematic.jpg (115.02 KiB) Viewed 38605 times
After two years building (and another tweaking) I end up with:
2016-05-22 09.07.23 WEB.jpg
Completed Brewery - 2016-05-22 09.07.23 WEB.jpg (203.4 KiB) Viewed 38605 times
I'll post my "Brewery Manual" shortly which should help anyone embarking on a similar project.
Last edited by PeeBee on Tue May 24, 2016 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Posts: 5

PeeBee, Mon May 23, 2016 12:00 pm

Forgot to mention in the criteria:

The heat exchanger for HERMS doubles as the cooler (the HLT is filled from the mains via the heat exchanger jacket). Couldn't see the point of building two heat exchanger coils (cooler and HERMS) when one could do both jobs. As the HERMS coil is external to the HLT (not a coil within the HLT as usual) it was simple to make the HERMS coil dual purpose, and tag a RIMS heater to it too.

And as it turned out I don't use HERMS or RIMS, I use both, a HERMS/RIMS hybrid. And doing so eliminates the arguments for having a HERMS coil in a separate small volume tank (to make it respond quicker); the RIMS heater can provide the rapid response if thought necessary.

Posts: 5

PeeBee, Tue May 24, 2016 7:19 pm

As promised, my "Brewery Manual":

http://www.angelhomebrew.co.uk/upload/b ... edures.pdf

It contains plenty of information for an enthusiast to build, adapt or crib from, but it's hardly a beginners “how-to” guide (sorry, may come later but for now I just wanted to get the information out there). You can download it (I suggest you use "save as" rather then let your browser render it) and perhaps print it (it is laid out to be printed double-sided). Although the document is really only relevant to my brewery (it's a guide for others using the brewery) it can be mined for all sorts of useful snippets, like an example of "Bru'n Water" use, of "Beersmith" use, what to do when faced with certain brewing problems, examples of configuring PID controllers, and, of course, an example of building such a brewery.

EDIT: The first half is all procedures, the second half "appendices". Most folk will probably be most interested in the "appendices" which contains the build drawings and circuit diagrams.

Its for anyone to extract useful stuff if they have the patience to go through it.

My thanks go to Ann Edwards for allowing me to use one of her illustrations on the manual's cover (you may have already seen it in the Waitrose Kitchen Magazine):

Image

Rather apt don't you think?

Which brings me on to (and it should go without saying): Don't republish or use commercially any of the manual here without gaining permissions first.
Last edited by PeeBee on Tue May 31, 2016 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Posts: 78

angelhomebrew, Wed May 25, 2016 11:18 am

Thanks for posting this, really appreciate it and is an awesome job on the home brewery and the write up

Think I still haven't drilled so many holes in one pot before, or worked to a closer tolerance on hole position :D

Really enjoyed being involved in this one and good meeting you

Cheers
Paul

Posts: 5

PeeBee, Wed Aug 03, 2016 7:12 am

There is an error in the posted "operations manual" that has a switch in one of the relays (RELAY12) drawn back-to-front. Not a problem unless you are attempting to build the control box in the document. I'll have the document updated shortly ("version II", dated July 27, 2016). EDIT(Sept 16): FIXED!

Also if you are attempting to build the control box I suggest using a bigger box - things are very tight in the drawn one.

Posts: 5

PeeBee, Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:19 pm

The linked document got its promised update. It also includes an alternative "manual" method of using the RIMS heater which is a whole lot easier when heating to strike temperature or doing temperature stepped mashes (you can easily judge when up to temperature). (EDIT: I'm getting ahead of myself! I haven't finished all the manual RIMS edits yet but I have been practicing them and they certainly make things easier. Other improvements being trailed include using a "plaster mixer" for mixing the mash and a beer "shelf cooler" to assist the built-in cooler when the weather warms up as well as control fermentation temperatures below 20C - the built-in cooler is very quick to get down to 30-40C but struggles thereafter).

There is also the spreadsheet I use to work out water volumes and salt additions (an intermediary between "Brun Water" and "Beersmith 2"). It is of course tuned for my brewery, but it might be useful to pick over for tips:

http://www.angelhomebrew.co.uk/upload/w ... line2.xlsx


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