German Brewing

Hey, its been awhile since I have posted or done much of anything brewing related. I am rebuilding my brewing system right now for convenience and for the sake of a challenge, all while trying to maintain lodo considerations in the back of my mind.

The current plan is to get a stainless steel kitchen work table and chop two giant holes in it to fit my 10 gallon kettles (one mash tun, one BK). Probably will use a plasma cutter for this, but I am open to playing with a few different tools.

The system will be direct fire propane for ease of use and so I don't have to pay someone to put in a 220 volt. The kettles will sit on propane burners and the tops will pop out an inch or so above the work table, allowing me to use it as a staging table also. I saw this i on google a long time ago and have been wanting to do something similar for a long time.

I guess the point of this post is to encourage people to show pictures of their brewing systems. I want to see how you guys have solved problems in their designs.

Im Building this right now (WIP)

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The pump is stainless throughout. Speed is controlled via a VFD (frequency inverter).

The system supports no-sparge, sparge, maltase mash, step mash and the good old British reverse infusion.

Water can be boiled and re-circulated through HE and thus made available at the right temperature for dough in or extra water for the maltase mash. It would also support step infusions no problem.

Vessels are direct heated with 3.5kw commercial induction plates. Temperature is controlled via PID controllers (1/4 DIN) sporting 32 programmable segments. Thermoprobes are j-type and pt100z

With one (bi-directional flow) pump it is possible to transfer liquids from any vessel to any vessel (except from whirlpool to mash tun - makes no sense).

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I don't recirculate. Instead I agitate the grain via a 30W DC motor on a variable speed controller (not a potentiometer).

From the whirlpool the wort is re-circulated via the HE until the probe shows that the temperature is equal to the temperature of the water used for the HE. At this stage a flick on the 3-way valve redirects the flow via the Maxi310 - which has an ice bank large enough to bring the wort to 5-6C immediately. This goes straight into a conical fermenter from thereon.

Hope you find it interesting.

That was far more than interesting. I am interested in that bi-directional pump and the mash stirrer.

Mind going into more detail about those? I am thinking about trying to set up some sort of mash rake, not totally sure how I should go about it with LODO in mind.

Here is the pump.

https://www.pumpen-peters.de/products/W ... /407/1451/

http://www.roverpompe.com/en/prodotti/a ... i-max-95-c

i don't understand what your problem re agitator setup and oxygen control is, What is it that troubles you?

How do you manage temp control with the induction burners? From what I understand they are difficult to wire a controller into for safety measures (resets the on switch when power is disconnected).

I think I am going to go the induction way, it seems easier and cheaper than electric elements.

Temp control? Industrial PID controller and SSR.

Pretty straight forward. I had to tune them manually though. It'll be something like 0.5, 2800, 3 (PID) because the plates lag a bit.

Mine a are simply connected to the mains. I use the commercial 3.5kw plates from Hendi (manual plates)

For years I did the temperature manually though. I'm just getting lazy nowadays.

A recirculation system is also a nice option.

Mashing doesn't matter as much as people think. 80% is fixed by the maltster, all we do is finish what he started. Pick your malt carefully.

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So the plates are able to be controlled by a PID?

I was under the impression that they have an auto-off function where when the PID or temp controller stops power to the plate, the plate will turn back on without the plate emitting heat.

How did you bypass this function, or what should i look for in a plate to not have to deal with that?

I just plug them in. Like a radio or a lamp. No modification necessary.

Keep it simple.

I have successfully used an induction plate with a PID in my MDU( mobile decoction unit).