Failures
Sweet Failure
Even though I mainly brew beer to try to salvage what's left of my engineering mind, I also just like beer. I worked hard for the last batch I brewed, but I wasn't too hopeful it would turn out well. It's nice when things
Latest
Brewday
Crash Landing
I've been neglectful. Only a few of my friends are into brewing, and fewer still are into coding and electronics, but this is all that's been discussed in this blog. Most of the people who know me are more appreciative of the ludicrous messes I get
Electronics
Work with your hands
When cooling wort with my countercurrent exchanger, it's important to know the temperature as it comes out. The goal is to bring the wort to the optimal temperature for pitching yeast as quickly as possible. Many commercially available chillers have a thermometer at the wort outlet for this
Brewday
Brewery 2.0, Brew #1
Today is my first day brewing with the latest iteration of my brewery. That includes a Chugger pump, my countercurrent heat exchanger for wort chilling, and my conical fermenter with upgraded cabinet controller software. Thank goodness the friends I invited had other plans. The day started stressful when I snapped
Engineering
Heat Exchange Snobbery
The recipe for beer is pretty simple. One important step is boiling the wort, the sweet mixture that yeast will ferment into beer. Boiling sanitizes the beer so that yeast can work its magic, but not before the wort is cooled back down or the yeast meets the same quick,
Software
In Tune
The recent modifications to the cabinet warranted a small software upgrade. The power and heat transfer of the two modes are drastically different. The heating side, a SSR-throttled in-line water heater element, can increase the temperature of the fluid much faster than the thermoelectric chips I was using previously. The
Brewing Hardware
Splish Splash
It's ready for a test drive. The conical fermenter is assembled and in place, ready to make some delicious beer with the convenience of a commercial brewery. The last part needed was a clean-in-place system. Since my fermenter is so challenging to get in and out of its
Brewing Hardware
Cabinet 2.0
Trang and My Lan were out of town over the weekend. While I've mostly forgotten what it's like to have the place to myself, I did manage to keep busy working on an academic manuscript and, of course, the brewery. Between the broken cabinet fan, the
Brewing Hardware
Under Pressure!
I finally pressure tested my fermentor! Several brewers have made conical fermenters using plastic tanks. These tanks have the benefit of a valve at the very bottom. This allows the removal of trub (dead yeast) without transferring to a whole new vessel. The disadvantage is setting up a conical fermenter
Electronics
Circuit Board Woes
My guru told me long ago that I'd find myself cutting traces on printed circuit boards to problem solve. I thought I must have been lucky to go two-for-two without any hardware problems, but I found that the FTDI problem with my valve board was electronic, not software.
Brewday
Brew Day: What a Cluster
My cabinet isn't all together, but this is my last opportunity to brew for four or five weeks because of call. I'm really itching to go all grain, but I'm sure I'll make many more extract batches before I've got
Electronics
OneWire Header
Measurement of temperature is important to many stages of brewing. There are lots of options out there, but I decided on the DS18B20. What's different about this device is that it's not just a thermocouple or thermistor but a self contained chip with which you communicate