Los Angeles Brewers

We ordered three lids for our brewery.  12 inch stainless.   We got them somewhat cheap here:
http://www.csnstores.com/Nordicware-11112-NWR1038.html

We probably will not need three.

We chose to go simplistic on our switching for now.  We have decided to run the two pumps through a single box with manual switches.  The leads from the pumps are only 2 feet long, so we need to keep the box close to the pumps.  This location requires the electrical to be waterproof (or at least splash resistant).  We plan on removing the pumps from the rig when we clean, so we will pull the whole electrical off at that time too.

We started with a 50 foot, 16 gauge extension cord.  We cut the female end off and put the cut end into the box.  The two switches are hooked to the black wire to one terminal of both switches.  We put a 2.0 amp, slow blow fuse (inline housing from Radio Shack) on each of the other ends of the switches.   We will hook the fuse ends to the black on the pump wires.

We hooked the green ground to both green grounding screws on the switches and left a bit on the end to hook to the pump ground wire.

We will hook the white wire from the extension cord to both of the pumps’ white wires.  We are using weather proof wire nuts to secure all the wire to wire connections.

This should give us the ability to manually switch on or off each pump independently.  This should also be pretty safe as we have GFCI and fuse protection.

At some point in the future, we plan on implementing some kind of automation.  Maybe we can automate the pumps, fluid valves, gas valves to keep temps and efficiency in the near future.   Until then, we can get the thing going manually.

We hooked up the propane to the burners (one at a time) and cooked off the paint.  This is normal and should be done the first time you use one of these type of burners.  We put a keg 1/3 full of water on top to see if the flame hight was optimal. It looked good and got pretty hot after just 20 minutes of burn.

As warned in the instructions, if the solution turns green you have contamination.  This happened to our fittings.  We did as we were told, and prepared a new batch of solution.  All is well.

We used a solution of 2 parts white vinegar and one part hydrogen peroxide.  This is to remove surface lead from the brass (based on this: http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixB.html).  Not sure if it really matters as many feel the amount of lead in these fittings (meant for potable water) contain very little lead and the odds of any transfering into the beer is minimal.

welded base, originally uploaded by seanoj.

We are using 1 inch x 2 inch bar stock. I am not sure the thickness, but they are pretty beefy. This is the basic frame, gusseted with some triangles.