Electronics and Beer: A beginners guide

Many years ago, lack of funds prompted some friends and I to make a foray into the world of home brew. Many litres of beer were produced for not very much money, which worked out great for us as poor students. I can’t make any great claims about the quality, but it was real beer. Needless to say, I have a passing familiarity with home-brew.

Some time ago, a friend of mine decided to start brewing. His batches were good, using just basic methods and kits from the supermarket. But apparently it wasn’t good enough. He eventually decided to build his own electric brewery for all grain beer by following the instructions from http://www.theelectricbrewery.com.

I’ve helped him out a little from time to time over the last couple of months, with some welding (for the table and various mounting brackets), some electronics advice and a bit of troubleshooting. It also happens that the first test brew will be something for me. So, YAY!

Now, I’m definitely not an expert on the process, but I figured that a layman’s explanation for it all might be of interest to people.

 The completed electric brewery

The control panel (the big box on the far right) contains various power relays, thermometers, timers and the like that allow fairly precise control over the temperatures in the kettles by switching the electric elements on and off as needed. Only the left and right kettles have elements in them. The control box also has the pump controllers to control the transfer of liquids through various cooling/heating coils and between the different kettles.

 Inside the control box

The boil kettle is on the left of the bench. It is used for boiling the wort (the filtered liquid taken from the centre kettle) to get the hops flavours, and for cooling the wort at the end of the process prior to pumping it into the fermenter.

The centre kettle is known as the mash tun, and is used for converting the starches in the crushed grains into sugars. The mix of crushed grains and water is known as the mash. The wort is the liquid that has been filtered by the false bottom in the base of the centre kettle (the mash tun). The wort is pumped out of the kettle from underneath the false bottom, through a heat exchange pipe inside the right kettle, and re-circulated back into the top of the mash tun.

The kettle on the right is known as the hot liquor tank, and is used for providing the heated water initially, to flood the grains in the centre kettle (to create the mash), and to maintaining the temperature of the wort as it is pumped through the heat exchange pipe. The hot liquor tank is filled with temperature controlled water.

The coil underneath the bench is a counter flow wort chiller. The wort from the boil kettle is pumped through it to be rapidly cooled down by cold water that is pumped through the outer sleeve.

So the process goes a little something like this (as far as I can figure out).

1. Heat up water in the hot liquor tank.

2. Add your crushed grain mix to the mash tun.

3. Pump the hot water from the hot liquor tank into the mash tun (where the crushed grains are).

4. Circulate the wort (the filtered mash) through the hot liquor tank heat exchange coil to maintain a steady temperature for the desired amount of time.

5. Pump the wort into the boil kettle.

6. Add whatever hops you want for flavour.

7. Boil the crap out of it for a while.

8. Cycle the wort through the cooling coil to cool it right down.

9. Pump the wort into a fermenter (a plastic barrel with an airlock), add the yeast and leave it for a couple of weeks.

10. Put your tasty beer into a keg and pressurize it, or into bottles.

11. Drink it and tell everyone how awesome you are.