Beer Church
Beer Church is a group of beer (and a bit of wine) aficionados at Pumping Station: One. Originally a beer tasting and science discussion group, lately Beer Church has been focusing more and more on brewing. Brewing Station: One is the small work area and storage facility in the shop devoted to brewing.
Events
Semi-biweekly Beer Church gatherings take place some Sundays at noon. They generally follow a format of meet & greet, pot luck beer tasting, and discussion of beer, life, and everything.
Brewing Station: One
Brewing Station: One is a steel shelving unit converted (well, being converted) into a storage unit for keeping clean brewing gear (pots, carboys, bottles, bottling equipment, corks, wort chillers, kegs, etc) and a temperature controlled fermenting chamber. We expect to boil in the alley or by the rear entry.
Equipment
Brewing
- 5 gal boiling kettle (Eric Stein)
- 10 gal boiling kettle (Ryan Pierce)
- 5 gal Gott mash tun (Ryan Pierce)
- Hydrometer (Eric Stein)
- Corker (Evan)
- Wine bottles (Evan)
- Wine Carboy (Evan)
- 2 5 gal glass carboys (Ryan Pierce)
- 3 Keggles (Pumping Station: One equipment)
- Wort Chiller Coil (Ryan Pierce)
- Box of Stuff, inc. metal bottle filler, hydrometer, conditioning chemicals, thermometers (Ryan Pierce)
- Metal racking cane (Ryan Pierce)
- pH meter, calibration and storage solutions (Ryan Pierce)
- Mini Fridge for temperature control (Anthony Barker)
- Air conditioner for temperature control (Ryan Pierce)
Dispensing
- 3 Cornelius kegs, 5 gal, ball lock (Ryan Pierce)
- 5 lbs CO2 tank, regulator, w/ 3 port manifold, 2 gas hoses (Ryan Pierce)
- 2 beverage hoses w/ picnic faucets (Ryan Pierce)
This list is incomplete. Please update this page!
Equipment Needed
- Autosiphon?
- Temperature Control System (to be built by Eric Stein, raspberry pi + gpio temperature monitoring + relay system for chiller)
- Siphon hosing
- Electronically sample-able continuous hydrometry system (Steve has an idea, dun dun dun)
- http://ipb.trainerfamily.net/pagesmith/2 beer sculpture - maybe.
- http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-4-Electric-Solenoid-Valve-12-volt-DC-VITON-SEAL-B21V-/300600605047?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45fd313977#ht_2101wt_728 propane burner control for mash tun control
- Honeywell Glowfly: http://www.forwardthinking.honeywell.com/related_links/combustion/glowfly/install/69_2334_glowfly_installation.pdf
Pending Equipment
Brewing Projects
2012
- Beer 2012.01 (Locktoberfrest) - Irish Stout, extract recipe beer.
- Beer 2012.02 (Hoary Hedgehog) - Irish oatmeal draft stout, all-grain.
- Beer 2012.03 (???) - Pumpkin Spiced Ale, all-grain.
Potential
Hardware and Software Projects
Chillmon
Chillmon has its own wiki page, but suffice it to say that it makes sure the temperature is right for fermenting.
- Rebuild Chillmon on Occidentalis
- Configure Chillmon application to use shared account
- Replace temp sensors with DS18B20 for more accuracy
- EPICS integration:
- Expose Chillmon control variables to EPICS
- Create EPICS control screens
- Investigate EPICS web interface
- Display screen for Chillmon
Brewing Station: One
- Electrical insulation of contactor terminals
- Experiment: When the chiller turns off, does it blow hot air into the fermenting space?
- Experiment: In the winter, will the shop drop below our fermentation temperatures, and will we need a heater?
- Real time monitoring of temperature, specific gravity
Brewing
- Need way to make sterile priming sugar mixture
- Modify Keggles for brewing:
- Boil kettle
- Mash tun
- Hot liquor tun (inaccurately named; this is for sparge water)
- Build RIMS or HERMS
- Propane solenoid, thermocouple, and igniter under PID control (Arduino)
- Pump, flow meter run by microcontroller (Arduino)
- Multiple temperature probes (Arduino)
- Safety gear:
- Alarm system (stuck flow, propane flame blew out) (Arduino)
- Emergency shut off switch
- Raspberry Pi controlling the above via EPICS
Dispensing
- We have a donated refrigerator; convert to kegerator
- Determine location of critical components so we can safely make cutouts for beverage lines without destroying anything
- Build internal structure to hold Cornelius kegs
- Modify thermostat to keep beer at cellar temperature. (A second Chillmon?)
- Consider plumbing water line for water dispenser / ice maker.
- Add draft tower to the PS:One bar
- Build draft tower and faucet system
- Engineer beverage line and faucet chilling
- Make tap handles (lathe project?)
- Drip tray
Resources
- http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Complete_Handbook_of_Home_Brewing.html?id=rbQ4NAAACAAJ - An excellent technical handbook on the subject. Contains quite a bit of detail on mash and fermenting biochemistry, as well as a computational model for sugar extraction. When "Don't worry, relax...." isn't enough.
- http://byo.com/stories/projects-and-equipment/article/indices/29-equipment/84-abcs-of-recirculated-brewing-systems - Excellent article on RIMS and HERMS mashing
- http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/metalworking/4323694 - Some more elaborate brewing setups.
- http://www.winning-homebrew.com/diy.html - Detailed plans on constructing a single tier RIMS system, including burner control, pumps, and automatic sparging.
- http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/ - EPICS, an Experimental Physics Industrial Control System used by the APS at Argonne, as well as numerous other labs. If it can control a particle accelerator, it can control beer!
- Formula for ABV from specific gravity: ( ( 1.05 x ( OG – FG ) ) / FG ) / 0.79 x 100 = % ABV
Links
- Photos - http://cons.truct.org/album/beerchurch
- Code for brewing monitoring that's installed - https://github.com/eastein/chillmon
- Chillmon Fermenting Status - http://spacemon.pumpingstationone.org:8008