My Brutus 10e build

[Hoptimus Prime]

Hey John nice setup, you get a chance to brew on that?

[John G]

Well, I've finally finished this build and did my first brew last night. I went the low tech ventilation route by having the kettle outdoors with the electrical cord passing in through the window to the brew stand inside. I did a 5gal batch of Oatmeal Stout that is standard recipe in my collection so I thought would make for good comparisons with my old system setup. Everything went without a hitch until I got to the chilling stage and realised that with a 20L batch size and the heating element in my keggle my immersion chiller does not get immersed enough, so I had to drain the wort into a bucket and use the chiller there. I don't think this will be a problem when I do 40L batches since the chiller will be sufficiently submerged.

Everytime I went outside to check on the boiling wort I had a brief moment of panic when I didn't hear the propane howling - it's eerily quiet. I also noted that the boil did not have any foaming issues like I usually have to try and control. I wonder if this is due to the continuously recirculating mash and therefore super clear runnings at the end of the mash.

I have to calibrate my PID temperature, it was off by 10ºF, but was easy to adjust for prior to mash in. I must say, it sure is much easier to brew with pumps. My back is thanking me today. It took 18 minutes to bring 20L of 156ºF wort to a full rolling boil. That will be faster once I insulate the keggle. It's nice to not have to deal with crazy hot keggles due to propane as well. I'm no longer fearful of my chiller inlet/outlet hoses touching the side of my hot keggle and melting it off.

My efficiency was 70%. I was expecting higher with this system, but it may be lower due to the small amount of grains in a 20L batch spread over the bottom of my 50L mashtun, and (more likely) due to sparging way faster than I usually do because I was using a pump instead of gravity. Whatever, 70% is fine with me.

What I know now that I would change in this build if I did it again:
1. I probably wouldn't do it if I knew how much work I really had to put into it :LOL:
2. One PID is all I need. To me, 3 PIDs like you see in many builds is overkill (one is just to read temperature of the HLT water which to me is a pricy way to do this). I decided on 2 for mine because I already had 2 available to use and will only really use 1. My boil kettle is controlled by a cheap Pulse Width Modulator and my PID controls my mash temperature.
3. I only need one pump. As long as my mash PID temperature sensor is on the outlet of the HERMS coil, I don't need to continuously recirculate the HLT water with a 2nd pump to keep the temperature evenly distributed around the immersed coil. It just doesn't matter if you are reading your recirculating mash temperature on the outlet of the HLT HERMs coil. My mash temp was super stable and easy to dial in.
4. Don't rob stuff from your existing setup to use in your new build. I did and I was out of production for way too long while waiting for parts and time to finish this build and ended up with no beer left to drink! I should have kept enough of my old system to continue to brew while working on the new setup.

I'll post some pics in a bit. It's not pretty, but it finally works!

[RubberToe]

Right on.

[bluenose]

[mr x]

Great tips.

[LeafMan66_67]

[chalmers]

Excellent! How much to build me one?

[John G]

Excellent! How much to build me one?

$1,000,000 - but I'll give you a Brewnoser's discount

[LiverDance]

Glad to hear you're up and brewing with that thing John, i'm hoping to get going sometime in January.

[RubberToe]

John, I remembering you telling me that the stout you do can be grain to glass in a week. Are you drinking it yet? I might make that one, Papazian, right?

[GillettBreweryCnslt]

What I know now that I would change in this build if I did it again:
1. I probably wouldn't do it if I knew how much work I really had to put into it :LOL:
4. Don't rob stuff from your existing setup to use in your new build.

Congrats John! This gives me hope that someday I'll finish mine. As far as your tips go:

1. Tell me about it, I'm stalled with wiring the control box, I just don't have time to sit down and finish it!
4. I'm not there yet, but I'm afraid that I'll have to rob my setup when it comes times for the keggle build. I hope to get the stand/control box/electrical/pumps installed and finished before moving the hardware to my keggles, then perhaps I won't experience too much down time.

Looking forward to pics!

[John G]

by RubberToe » Thu Dec 20, 2012 9:40 pm
John, I remembering you telling me that the stout you do can be grain to glass in a week. Are you drinking it yet? I might make that one, Papazian, right?

Yep, kegged off and drinking it now. It's the Barrel of Monkey's Oatmeal Stout by Charlie. It's a quick one for sure. I didn't account for the lower efficiency with my hop additions (and didn't have any dme to bump up the OG during the boil to compensate either) so my IBUs are too high for this style. It's drinkable. I thought it best to do my first run on a recipe I know well.

[John G]

by Fishdisease » Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:42 am

Congrats John! This gives me hope that someday I'll finish mine. As far as your tips go:

1. Tell me about it, I'm stalled with wiring the control box, I just don't have time to sit down and finish it!
4. I'm not there yet, but I'm afraid that I'll have to rob my setup when it comes times for the keggle build. I hope to get the stand/control box/electrical/pumps installed and finished before moving the hardware to my keggles, then perhaps I won't experience too much down time.

Looking forward to pics!

Thanks! Good luck with your build. Will send pics this weekend.

[RubberToe]

Need more pics!