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Keith Royster's RIMS

PAWS - The 3 Dog Brewery Phase III

(UPDATE May 26th, 2009) The system worked almost perfectly. I had some trouble getting the number 1 pump to prime and had to fiddle with the valves to get the hot water into the Mash Tun (the orange container). I had to adjust the RTD sensor by 5 degrees F, it was reading a little low compared to the mash. This was easily accomplished through an offeset setting in the PID computer. I am thinking I could put a valve at the top of the system to bleed of the air to assist with the pump priming. Overall, I am very satisfied with the results and can't wait to brew again.

Update: May 20^th, 2009:

P.A.W.S., which stands for Portable Automatic Wort System, is a single tier brewing system that has been a 2 year project. A year in concept and design and now at least a year of construction. Contrary to popular belief, I have made note of the several comments on my bravery or stupidity of mixing water, 120V electricity, and propane all on a wooden cart. While I agree that not handled with care, this could be a recipe for disaster, I feel I have taken every precaution.

The system nears completion, as you can see. The first batch to be brewed on the P.A.W.S. is scheduled for Saturday, May 23rd. The first batch will be a simple English Bitter I call 3 Dog Pub Ale.

The control panel has been completed and test run. The purge selection of the pump switches was abandoned after noting that the system did not have enough pressure to seal the solenoid valves. I didn't realize that pressure on the fitting actually helped to seal them and they leaked all over the place. I have since replaced the solenoid valves with mechanical ball valves, but they are hidden underneath the table. The other shortcoming I noted when doing the trial runs is that the kettle and HLT sat too close to the propane burners. To remedy this I had small stands built for the two burners visible in the image above. These stands lift the kettles only 2 inches off the burner, but should improve my heating efficiency by allowing the flame to fully develop before running into the bottom of the kettle.

The system was first wired and test fired in October '08 only to end up failing catastrophically. Several of the many unions in the system leaked. Two of which leaked directly above the 120V circuitry. Unions were used to facilitate cleaning as well as assembly without worrying about a propane torch and a wood substrate. I tightened two of the unions to point of failure without being able to stop the leaks. If this had been a submarine, I would have been in big trouble. As it was, the leaks into the electronics were a major concern and I couldn't believe I had never considered this potential failure point in the design. One of the unions was tightened so far as to twist the copper pipe like a candy cane. As it turns out, I did find the reason behind the two unstoppable leaks. Leak number one was caused by a very small amount of silver solder that migrated to the mating surface of the union. I didn't think it was big deal at the time, but turned out to be the reason the union never sealed. The other leak was caused by a fracture (crack) perpendicular to the threads of the union. I don’t know if this was a casting flaw, caused by the heat of joining the union to the copper or the severe compression of applying two 24” wrenches to it and twisting the accompanying pipe. These unions had to be replaced, which meant that some major disassembly had to be accomplished. More delays...

One of the reasons for not including the wort heating method (infusion or exchange) into the name is that I have left my options open by allowing for either direct heating through the infusion chamber and water heater element (shown) or by using an exchanger in the hot liquor tank. I have not built an exchanger yet, but the inlet is there on the HLT where I used to have my thermometer. I moved the thermometer to the front of the tank and the spot left open was in just the right place for an exchanger inlet.

RTD Sensor One more thing fixed is the heat infusion chamber. The thermocouple for the PID computer was not liquid tight. I didn’t discover this until it started dripping cleaning solution everywhere. Both of the PID computers and the sensors were purchased from Auber Instruments which has recently released a liquid tight RTD sensor for the production of methanol or beer brewing. Shown in this image, leading from the gate valve to the mash tun. Seems they know who their customers are. I just purchased one at $29.95/ea, knowing I eventually need two. The second RTD sensor will be used in the wort chiller. The intent is to use the old counter-flow chiller as a cooling water pre-chiller for the Blichmann Therminator. The second PID controller will control the flow of an immersible pump in an ice-chest of icy water. From May until November, the tap water in Houston is about 80 degrees F, so to get my wort down to a pitchable 70-75 degrees, I need to pre-chill the tap water I use for cooling. More work...

Therminator Even John Palmer is getting in on the single tier brewing system and now I’m annoyed that I haven’t submitted my design and photos to BYO magazine yet. If you are reading this, you are one of the chosen few who will have seen PAWS before the home brewing masses do.

I still have some work to do. Underneath the control panel and on the opposite side of the cart I intend to build drawers to contain my supplies so I can get the rest of the stuff out of the kitchen. Watch this space, I will be making updates more frequently now that I have a digital camera that works, thanks to the wife! Brewmometer

The PAWS systems uses two pumps and two separate "lines". Each line has an independent March pump. Both lines connect to the HLT to facilitate cleaning as well as recirculation/mash out while fly sparging.

Here are some of the details:

Plumbing:

Line A is the dough-in recirculation pump. There are two ball valves that choose the source for the pump. Source #1 would be the HLT for dough-in. Source #2 is the MLT for recirculation and mash-out. There are also two choices for the output of line A.

Output #1 is the MLT. To get there the line goes through the heat-infusion chamber (details elsewhere), through the sight-glass to the gate-valve. Out of the gate valve to a ½” T that has the liquid-tight PID sensor screwed into a ½” NPT adapter. From there the line goes into the MLT (via a plastic bulkhead fitting) and out of the sparge arm which is really a 4” length of capped copper tubing with random 3/32” holes drilled along the length.

Output #2 is the Boil Kettle. To get there the line goes through a gate valve and a SS weldless bulkhead fitting.

The only control of the output is the gate valves which can both be open simultaneously. Thus you can still recirculate while mashing out (if you wished to do that)

Line B is the wort chiller/fly sparge pump. There are two ball valves that choose the source for the pump, just like Line A. Source #1 is the HLT for fly sparging (and cleaning), source #2 is the brew kettle for wort chilling. Just like Line A, the output of the second pump is controlled by two gate valves (these are on the front panel of the “cart”). Output #1 is to the MLT for fly sparging. After the gate valve, the hot liquor goes through a plastic bulkhead to the circular sparge arm which runs around the inside circumference of the MLT. Output #2 goes to the Blichmann Therminator plate chiller. I have some additional plumbing to do here.

The original plumbing designs are in the jpgs (click for full-sized image) shown here. There is an overall plumbing diagram and a separate front panel diagram. All lines are color-coded. I have deviated from these slightly as I ran into physical limitations and design constraints. I have not put the fresh water system in yet either (the purple line).

Currently the cooled wort comes out of the Therminator via an NPT adapter soldered to short piece of ½” copper tubing which I can attach and silicone hose to. I wanted to add in in-line oxygenation system ala Justin Bruett’s CHEM system (see link top left), but with the temperature of the tap water here being 80+ F in the summer, I don’t think the wort can get cool enough to absorb the oxygen.

Infuser:

The Heat-Infuser, one of the more complicated pieces of the system, is constructed of 1.5” diameter copper tubing with a ½” inlet T fitting and a 1.5” to ½” funnel reducer. This whole thing started as a literally a bar-napkin sketch. The images linked here is of an older version of the design. The top of the tube has a 1.5” NPT fitting with a bronze 1.5” to 1” reducer bushing. A 3800 Watt water heater element threads into the 1” bushing and is wired to a Solid State Relay (SSR) that is controlled by the PID. I got the SSR fro Auber Instruments along with the other PID related equipment. I did start with a 4500 Watt element, but chickened out since it would run near 20 Amps at full tilt. As I stated elsewhere, I'm running these elements on 120V. The 3800-4500 Watt rating is assuming a source of 240V, so while the current 15-18.75 Amps respectively stays the same, the actual wattage is reduced to 1900-2250. Good old Ohm's law states that 4500W/240V = 18.75A, therefore 18.75A * 120V = 2250W. Most of the oversized copper pieces were sourced from Plumbing Supply (www.plumbingsupply.com ). This is not stuff you are going to find at Lowes or Home Depot, although I did find most of my ½” fittings at these two stores.

Burners:

Following the example of Justin Bruett (see CHEM) I purchased a pair of Kings Kooker TL280's. The company I purchased from is no longer on the web, but if you search for "Music City Metals Kings Kooker 280" (click to search using bing or here to use Google) you will find several places that sell these burners. I tried setting the kegs directly on top of the burners as did Justin and many others that I have seen use these. I used a mirror to examine the flame and found that there was not enough space for the flame to fully develop before hitting the bottom of the keg and much of the heat was actually going up and around the sides of the kegs. I built the stands for the kegs which lift the kegs off of the burners by 1.5 inches and the efficiency was improved. I can now get three full brew sessions out a single 15 lb propane tank. My old three-tier system would use about 15 lbs for one brew, maybe one and a half. So nearly double the efficiency of the old flame thrower burners that sounded like rocket motors.

What's Next?

Now that I've used the system once I've realized that the ball valves are on upside-down. The ball valves that are just above the control panel (see picture above), happen to be "closed" during most of the brew session. As assembled, the valves when closed have the handles pointing down, block the view of the control panel. D'oh! Fortunately, there are three unions that should allow easy disassembly to rework this section on the bench. Unfortunately, it is very painful and cumbersome to get to these unions. :-(

See all that empty space under each of the kegs? I want to add cabinet drawers to facilitate some additional storage so I can get my stuff out of the kitchen. The plan is to build one deep drawer under the control panel for funnels and my plate filter and my all important 4 quart graduated pitcher, and to build three drawers on the other side of varying sizes to accomodate the other stuff.

Current Brews

Here are the 7 recipes I have decided to use as my standard fare. I want to focus on these until I feel they are perfected before trying to brew any "specialty" beers. I have formulated several other recipes like my Pumpkin Ale and Belgian Golden as well as a Strong Belgian, but I want to save those for later, after these recipes are as good as I can get them. PAWS should make brewing more consistant from batch to batch allowing me to focus on the formulation rather than the process.

I usually use ProMash to formulate and tweak my recipes. However, I have recently started using BeerSmith and I like it a lot. I find the user interface to be more intuitive, which in non software developer terms means "easier to use" than ProMash.

NEW: I've added BeerSmith html output to these links below. Clicking the link will open the recipe in a new window. There is 1 bonus recipe that I use for the hops I harvest from my hop garden. The 2008 crop yielded over 8oz (dry) of Cascade hops and I use them all in this one batch! I call this recipe Atomic Dog since it is a mega hop monster.

Clicking the name will allow you to download the ProMash recipe file.

Click here to see the old Phase II brewery.