This was probably my best contribution to the other board, so I will re-post it here. From June '08.Well it's finally finished. Brewed on it yesterday and was quite pleased. Have to get my process nailed down but I can say for sure that Im going to like the switch to electric. Noise pollution is zero and I can heat strike water in ~30 minutes compared to an hour before. It has a 5500W element in each kettle and I can run them both at the same time. I strike in with water from my BK and can start the HERMS re-circ immediately as it as at temp.If I tried to mention everyone's name for ideas then I would surely miss someone. If you see something that was your original idea then take solace in the fact it has been copied. I can not stress enough the appreciation I have for people posting pics of their system and sharing their ideas.Rig in action yesterday evening. I got the disconnects and silicone tubing that George uses and although pricey, well worth the money.
Here is the control panel. The "auto" on the switch is for the sparge where a float controls the pump and "hand" is manual control of pump. The top LED line on the left controller doesn't work, so a 77 looks like a 11. I contacted the guy who sells the Auberins PID's and he said he would replace it when he returned from vacation. They are past their 30 day warranty but he said he would take care of it. I thought this was a nice gesture.
Inside of disconnect box with SSR's.
Inside of panel. I will say it got busy real quick. If you opt to do something similar and decide on a panel, go ahead and make it a little bigger than what you are planning. You will see the din rail mounted 24VDC supply and relay for the auto pump cycle. Bottom left is power block where everything 120V is fed from and ground bar above that.
Here is the sparge manifold with float. I think I got this idea from Monster Mash. I had to lower the float yesterday for it was above the manifold. When the pump shut off it would suck water back down towards the pump and make it cycle every 20 seconds. Works well now that it is below the manifold.
Shot of the HERMS. I figured it was about 1/2 the price of soft copper tubing, so I decided to make it out of 1/2" hard pipe instead. It's about 15' total length. With 26 lbs of grain I went from 153 to 170 yesterday in about 15 minutes.
Shot of mixer....believe I got this idea from Stangbat's thread.
Side shot of rig. If you notice my welding buddy came up with the idea of mounting the control panel on slides. I believe we went with 16" so I can pull it out when brewing and slide it back under the top shelf when done. Makes it tuck away nicely. A friend in the club welded SS couplings on the kegs for me which was sweet.
If you look at left corner of pic you can see where the gang box is for the element. I purchased some of that Harris Silver Solder #8 and that stuff rocks! Of course that idea came from here also and some pics are posted on Wortomatic.com under Carl's Electric HLT link.Once again I would like to thank everyone who has posted pics of their set ups. I probably have 50 links and a hundred pics saved on my computer for thoughts/ideas. I will try to answer any questions someone might have.Sorry the pics aren't the greatest....I accidentally took them as 2M size so I re-sized them in MS Paint.
j/k palYou have a great setup with the walkout basement and a deck overhead to block the rain. I really like electric but some days I feel stupid brewing inside. And some days I feel stupid anyway........
