Keezer w/ Taps (finally)

I finally got tired of the picnic taps inside the keezer, and wanted a collar to give me room to easily put in the last keg and take the CO2 bottle out. Here is the build

Mold for the spray foam

Adding the foam

Trimming the foam and mold, adding aluminum tape over the foam to keep dust down.

The final build, with out tap handles. I'm using rubber bands to prevent the taps from being opened accidentally, and have one prototype handle printed w/ the 3D printer.

Project H2OHx Fermentation cooler

I've been using water baths with frozen water bottles to "control" fermentation temperatures. This has worked to some degree, but there isn't much control. See for example.

Borrowing an idea from work, I wanted to try a Thermoelectric Cooler (TEC) to cool (and potentially heat up) the water rather than relying on me to remember to put in frozen bottles daily or so. This would also allow me to dial in the temperature precisely. TECs typically run 12V and turn electron movement into heat movement, this is a 92W version available on amazon for 7$. 

http://a.co/g7bkNtu

To cool the water, the TEC moves heat from the water block (blue) into the heat-sink (silver) where a fan dissipates it into the air. A pump moves the water in the cooler through the cold water block and that is what cools the fermenter. 

I use a towl to keep the heat out so things are more efficient. The TEC is switched on and off by a simple temperature controller: http://a.co/g69nd9F

The temperature controller has a sensor which you put in the water and it can switch a relay to control when to cool (and also heat) the water. The only thing left was a beefy power supply that can output ~10A at 12V. All in all a pretty cheap system. Next post will probably be about the ultimate performance after I attempt to cold crash this beer. For now it's holding fermentation temps at 65F no problem. 

Keezer

Here is a picture of my keezer as it is today, with two kegs and a lot of bottles inside. 

The black wire to the upper left goes to the temperature controller: http://a.co/flzaufo
The two pepsi bottles contain root beer (non-alcoholic), something I've been playing with lately and will definitely post separately. 

You can't see my 2.5 gal keg, and it's my favorite keg. It looks a lot like this one although I got it in Canada. 

http://www.cornykeg.com/product/2-5-gallon-ball-lock-keg-ss/

The 2.5 Gal keg has my breakfast stout V2, and the 5 gal has a pale ale with lots of tropical and citrus notes. 

Mash Tun

I can't believe I never posted about the mash-tun I made. I have two rectangular coolers at about 10gal and 4 gal. I built a system of interchangeable rigid PVC sections that fit together to fit either cooler, depending on which sections I use. These connect to a hose that I syphon the wart from and using a hose clamp I can change the flow rate pretty effectively. The wart goes through cuts in the tubes, which are fine enough I've never had any issues with stuck sparges (so far). This system is pretty easy to clean since all the tubes come apart.

Wort cooling tres important

This is the wart chiller, taking a test run on hot water. The cooling was magnificent even with stainless steel; remember it's thin so the conductivity of the metal should play only a trivial role. 

Getting Started - The Plan

Brewing is expensive, well actually it can be expensive. I'm going about this with the attitude that drinking beer is expensive (the drinkable stuff in Canada runs 15$ a six-pack), so hopefully making it saves me money in the long run. Unfortunately I can't drop a ton of money on brewing, and why would I? I build things for a living...

I have a large pot (2.7G), a cooler (or mash tun), some Pyrex... but not much else. I will be building my system from the bare essentials, using what I have to get by with, until I can get the items I really want (only the best unfortunately). The strategy is going to be brewing as soon as possible on as little $$ as possible. The first months are going to be the hardest though, because I think I've convinced myself I would rather keg than bottle, so buying bottles now would just be a huge waste of money (about 80$ for glass n cap(er/s)). Kegs require a large initial investment, in particular for the gas delivery system, fortunately the same gas system can be used for multiple kegs (someday).

Meanwhile I've sources some places in Ontario to purchase from:
The best prices on kegs and keg equipment (why don't they have brewing buckets?)
http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/default.asp

This place has everything but keg stuff:
http://homebrewsupplies.ca/category/bottling/

And this place seems to have a bit of everything but not as much selection:
http://www.torontobrewing.ca/servlet/StoreFront

There are others, if I come across anything great I guess I'll post it then.

This month I will buy miscellaneous things to get started building the Lautering system. This will almost certainly come from McMasterCarr, and it will be mostly plumbing, piping, etc.