The Great Northwestern Brew Baron

Systems, Gear, & DIY
1

This is the Great Northwestern Brew Baron.  At the heart of this HERMS is the Blichmann Therminator which is used not only for cooling the boil, but heating the mash as necessary by transferring heat from the HLT to the Mash Tun using two 809 March Pumps.  All of the water side is hard piped using 1/2" Copper which use 1/2" Cam Lock fittings to connect to all the hoses.  The kettles also use the same 1/2" Cam Locks.The kettles are all keggles with welded fittings for sanitation.  The Mash Tun and HLT have welded in Thermowells for the Ranco Temp Probes.  The HLT Controller kicks on and off the solenoid valve for the propane, and the Mash Tun Controller kicks on and off the two pumps.  The HLT is equipped with a sight glass and a thru wall thermometer, and the Mash Tun has the same thermometer along with a False Bottom w/ Pick Up tube and a vorlauf with a clip on sparge ring adapter.  Hope you all like it and I hope it gives your guys some ideas for your own system.

Before I built the Control Box everything was manually operated including push button ignition.  Since then the propane system has been upgraded to a pilot light solenoid system and everything can run either on automatic through the ETC’s or manually.

HLT

Mash Tun

Vorlauf Tube w/ Sparge Ring attached

Flase Bottom, Thermowell and Thermometer probe

Diverter Panel during construction back when each burner was push button ignited.

2

I want to do the same setup. Can you reveal your wiring and plumbing diagram?

3

mostly it’s in my head.  i’ll try and copy the plumbing system, though it looks fairly complex, once you realize where you are sending the water by opening which valves it’s pretty easy.