Where to Start

[waterkc]

Hello Lad's, I am a noobie here so please be gentle. In short I am wondering where to start with things?

Little back ground. I have a "Brutus X" style rig made up with the following items.

• Three Blichmann 15 Gallon Kettles
  Two march pumps
  Three 6" 75k BTU Jet Burners
  Two Assco Gas Solenoid controlled by two LOVE controllers
  Blichmann Therminator
  Sparge-arm
  Glycol chiller with 55 Gallon drum of water (for now)
  Three 15 gallons single zone glycol fermenter's with heating and cooling capabilities

So a normal brew session consists of. Get recipe and brew sheet from BeerSmith, get water calc's and fill kettles, bring water up to temp by setting the love controllers, and lighting the pilots, water comes up to temp, set love Mash Tun love controller to desired temp and start rest, once I hit temp mash for 60 mins, raise temp over a ten minute period to desired sparge out, hold for ten minutes, sparge for 60mins, boil for 60 - 90 mins depending on brew, chill to 68° then pitch yeast, set temp on fermenters love controllers, wait for the goodness.

So with the BCS460 I think I could get some cool interface into the fermenters, temp, etc. am I heading down the right path here?



the list if currently what I brew with. I would like to move this on to the next level so my question is where do I start with parts. I found BCS460 and Brewtroller site and was wondering if I am getting things right in my my head. My thoughts are I would like to have the systems do something a bit more on its own and have a cool interface to program schedules etc. Would also like to manage my fermentations a bit more and not need to flip things on and off. That is where I think the BCS460 comes in? Again just trying to get it all straight in my head

[gbrewer]

It sounds like your brew sculpture is similar to mine. The only difference is I replaced the ASCO valves with Honeywell Valves with a standing pilot. I didn't like the lack of safety associated with ASCO Valves. With the Solenoid, if the gas pilot goes out, the burner can still pump gas.

With that being said, the BCS460 would replace the Love Control. I prefer the BCS460 over the Brewtroller simply for the interface provided. The BCS460 interface is simple to use. IMHO.

You would need to purchase a relay for each item that you want to control. There are numerous wiring diagrams in this forum. The relays cost anywhere from $10.00 each to $54.00 each depending on where you get them. (For the same relay). I bought mine on ebay at a low price and they work great. You also need temperature probes for at least the MT and HLT.

Once you have the relays installed, you can do with them what you want. You can have up to four processes with numerous states in each process. You can create a process to maintain your fermentation temperatures, create a "brew" process, and make one to flush the toilet if you wanted.

I don't do much with the BCS460 as far as the boil goes. A boil is a boil. I currently use the BCS as an expensive wrist watch for this process. I will eventually place a temperature probe in the BK so I know how close to boil I am.

[waterkc]

Thanks for the speedy reply.

So I would only need one unit and a relay for each device I would need to control? Also can you send the info on the honeywells, as that is the main issue i have with mine, the wind blows out the pilot and then I smelling gas or burning arm hairs.

[gbrewer]

4E770 - 24v 190K BTU Gas Valve - - Grainger
2E166 - Thermocouple 18" - - Grainger
1D287 - Pilot tipk, 8-L, P-F - - Grainger
5AU59 - Pilot Tubing 60" - - Grainger
6WU91 - 24v Transformer - - Grainger


The part numbers on the left are all Grainger part numbers. I would recommend shopping around for the parts. They are cheaper elsewhere. You can look up the grainer numbers and they will give you the product specs/numbers.

I bought my last valve from http://www.pexsupply.com/ It was MUCH cheaper and came as expected. These valves run on LOW PRESSURE PROPANE. IMPORTANT!