My other hobby.....Making beer!!!

i've never filled a bottle,but i've emptied a lot of home brew bottles.
i had a good friend that used to brew some pretty top notch stuff.
he had a brew that tasted like Labatts...man that stuff was good.
i'm remembering 5 gallon batches he used to make.
man those were the days .....:beerdrinkers:

Finished my Keezer temp controller today. It controls the temp in the freezer at whatever digital temp I set it to. It has two stages one for cooling and one for heat. It is capable of 1/10 degree cebtigrade resolution and maintains the temp within 2 degrees of the set point temp. It also has a programmable timer to delay constant on off cycling of the compressor to reduce wear and tear on it too. I plug the upright chest freezer directly into the controller and place a reptile habitat heater mat on one of the shelves and plug it into the other outlet on the controller, tape the temp sensor to the side of the vessel set the temp and cycle times and walk away. It does the rest and uses fuzzy logic to set up the on and off times to avoid under or overshooting the set points. I dumped out the starter batch that I made because the specific gravity was unchanged and it was beginning to smell and taste sour. I have a Dr appt in town Thursday so I will stop at the home brew shop and get a couple of vials of White Labs liquid, ready to use yeast in a vial. This weekend I am going to put on my lab coat and investigate the underlying cause of the abrupt failure of the starter batch too. If you don't know why it failed, then you are destined to make that mistake again. Fortunately I waited to brew the main batch till the starter had finished growing so I didnt waste a bunch of expensive ingredients in the course of this little episode too. Also got the keezer moved out onto the enclosed back patio so I can install the kegs and the CO2 cylinder and drill a hole in the door for a tap. I paln on having two 5 five gallon kegs, one 5 Lb CO2 cylinder and a couple of cases of bottled brews ageing in there all at the same time. When I have a batch fermenting I can remove the empty keg and place the fermentor into there and reset the temp to brewing temps and proceed. If anyone would like a copy of the build list and schematic for the controller let me know and I will be glad to post it up too. Killed 3 birds with just one big rock!!!!! Have a great weekend!!!


Bob

I've never made a starter batch for anything. I rehydraye a packet of dry yeast in a cup of lukewarm sugar water 10 min before pitching. Works every time (has worked every time for ne).

Well, The Keezer is working outstandingly. Temp control is with 1/2 degree C and total variance has been 2 degrees C max. I had planned to do a batch of hefe today, but have been out of gas the last couple of days, so I will shoot for Saturday after I go to the Dr again Tommorrow. All of the rotary switches have finally arrived so the control panel build is taking priority right now. Once I install the last switch then it is time to start wiring it all together. Everything will be 12 volt on the panel so no dangerous voltages will be anywhere near the operator, and all of it is GFCI protected too. Pics will follow soon.
Bob

I'm with you. Nothing like tipping your own home brewed beer. I have knocked out over 100 gallons of various recipes. My favorite (being a Florida boy) is a mild orange ale featuring orange peels from the neighborhood grove.
I especially like the mini-automated brewery idea you have. Fun machining opportunities in making such a Brew Goldberg.

I got pics!!!!! I got all of the vessels, pumps, and keezer pics downloaded onto my system finally. So here ya go!!!! If any one needs dimensions, or schematics just gimme a shout.
Bob

Hey Bob,

Did you ever get any hops to grow down there in Florida? Mine are literally leaping out of the ground and by the looks of them it's going to be a very good year. I didn't harvest them last season because I still had five pounds in the freezer, but I blew a couple pounds on some rocket fuel IPA so this year they'll get picked. I'm going to see if I can mechanize it a bit this year since picking them by hand is so labor intensive.

Tom

The Hop garden was a dissappointment last year. Of the nearly 20 rhizomes I planted only three broke ground and were spindly and weak. I had planned to do some intensive composting and soil building during the off season and replant new rhizomes this year. I think the failure was mostly, like 99% gardener failure and the rest was probably my fault. I didn't get the load of compost turned this winter that I expected either. My health kept getting in my way. So I didnt get the amendments done to beef up the soil so I will hold off on the rhizomes till next deason and work on the dirt through the summer. I did manage to get the Keezer, controller and most of the control panel done. The tower is nearly complete, just some minor sheeting and finish mounting hardware. Slowly but surely it is coming together even when I have to work around my kidneys and my lungs. I still havent decided how I want to plumb it. I have everything set up with SS QD camlocks now, but I was thinking of hard piping the tower and running a short SS covered flex line to each vessel. It would create a lot of bacterial opportunities though so I am kind of still working that out to minimize the connections and smoothe all of the bends so Bacteria wont have all the nooks and crannies to hide in inside the plumbing. Still a work in progress, but I have had a ton and a half of fun designing and building it and working with the soil too. Keeps me grounded, even when I am having a bad day I am reminded how insignifigant it all really is in the grand scheme of things...

Bob
P.S. You can send any spare hops you get my way anytime....

Got a little pic update. The chinaman finally sent the paddle type rotary switches I ordered last month so I got the hole drilled out and installed them today. The small holes will be for the RGB multicolored LED Pilot lites. Now I am moving into the box to install several SSR's (Solid State Relays), Two pancake cooling fans, a 12 VDC 5A power supply, and several bus bars for all the wiring connections from the panel to the various outputs in the side of the box. I have 2 and 3 prong screw type cannon plugs for all of the connections into the box, as well as a computer power-in connector for the line voltage feed from the wall. All of the circuits will be operated on 12VDC and 115 VAC will be isolated completely from the box and all controls and switches. That along with a GFCI extension cord will prevent any possibility of getting a shock no matter how wet or well grounded I or the panel become. I originally wanted all water proof controls, but they are wayyyy too expensive, so I just reduced the panel voltage to a much safer level and use SSR's to switch the high line voltage and currents.

I just built a controller for a homebrew anodizing set-up and used some of the same parts. The PID's came from Light Object and the SSR's and cheezy little switches that look like they came from the same Chinaman on Ebay. The relays work well, but the switches have to go. I'm controlling bath temperatures (140º and 180º) in five gallon tanks using 220V immersion heaters.

Tom