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.
Contact/Participation
Events will be posted to the PS:One blog and calendar and the beer church twitter. Anyone is welcome, even non-members of PS:One. Want to brew something? Tell us about it via our twitter or the PS:One mailing lists. You must be 21 to participate in Beer Church.
Events
Semi-biweekly Beer Church gatherings take place some Sundays at noon. They generally follow a format of meet & greet, pot luck beer tasting, brwing, and discussion of beer, life, and everything.
Brewing Station: One
Brewing Station: One is a steel shelving unit converted into a storage unit above for keeping clean brewing gear (pots, carboys, bottles, bottling equipment, corks, wort chillers, kegs, etc) and a temperature controlled fermenting chamber below. We brew in the loading dock.
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 Singer)
- Wine bottles (Evan Singer)
- Wine Carboy (Evan Singer)
- 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)
- Peristaltic pump controller (Ryan Pierce)
- Temperature Control System, Chillmon (built by Eric Stein & Ryan Pierce, raspberry pi + gpio temperature monitoring + relay system for chiller)
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)
- [Blichmann BeerGun]
This list is incomplete. Please update this page!
Equipment Needed
- 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.
- Mead 2012.01 (I didn't mead it that way) - Session mead with raspberry and hop flavors
2013
- Beer 2013.01 (Putting the India back in IPA) - American IPA with cardamom.
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