Brewer’s Hardware has developed hardware to convert Sanke Kegs into full featured fermenters. They feature all stainless construction and are designed to fit american style sankey kegs.
This review is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, expert homebrewer and experienced reviewer. Grab a link to Brad’s website at the end of this review.
Dry hops. Homebrewers debate their favorite dry hop, how to calculate their IBU contribution, and when is the best time to add dry hops. While many love them, the technical challenge of adding them “right” is a hefty one. Whether you’ve heard of hop creep, or tasted an oxidized IPA, you are interested in minimizing the introduction of oxygen to your beer when you add dry hops.
Dry Hopper Assembly
If you add oxygen to your beer at the tail end of fermentation, you can spur your yeast on to keep going. When they would otherwise be content to be finished, the addition of oxygen gets them going, converting more sugars. The result is a lower FG, and a highly attenuated beer. And if you introduce oxygen after the yeast have officially called it quits, instead of the yeast using it up in fermentation, the oxygen is available to make oxidation compounds in your beer. These oxidation compounds are the things you taste in stale beer, and I’ve personally battled with harsh hop bitterness in IPAs when I got sloppy with oxygen intake on a finished beer.
Bottom Valve and Mounting Flange
Another dry hopping challenge is how to add the hops to a beer you’re fermenting under pressure. If you’ve gone through the work to finish up fermentation with your beer under pressure, you don’t want to simply vent the pressure to add dry hops. And if you’ve ever watched pressurized beer in a fermentor drop to 0 pressure, you know the whole thing becomes a churned-up mess- totally undoing all the work of precipitating trub and yeast.
Related: Fermenting Under Pressure
Sight Glass Hop Chamber
Brewers Hardware came out with the Dry Hopper to specifically deal with these challenges. The Dry Hopper attaches to a Tri Clover flange on your lid. There are two sizes- one for a 1.5” TC port, and one for 3” TC port. Both designs contain the same 3 elements- a valve at the bottom that mates to the lid of your fermentor, a tube in the middle to hold the hops, and a fixture on top with a gas ball lock port and a PRV valve. The 3” TC version is larger and holds more dry hops (14 oz) than the 1.5” TC version (4 oz).
Hands on Review: Kegland Hop Bong
This review is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, expert homebrewer and experienced reviewer. Grab a link to Brad’s website at the end of this review.
Dry hops. Homebrewers debate their favorite dry hop, how to calculate their IBU contribution, and when is the best time to add dry hops. While many love them, the technical challenge of adding them “right” is a hefty one. Whether you’ve heard of hop creep, or tasted an oxidized IPA, you are interested in minimizing the introduction of oxygen to your beer when you add dry hops.
Dry Hopper Assembly
If you add oxygen to your beer at the tail end of fermentation, you can spur your yeast on to keep going. When they would otherwise be content to be finished, the addition of oxygen gets them going, converting more sugars. The result is a lower FG, and a highly attenuated beer. And if you introduce oxygen after the yeast have officially called it quits, instead of the yeast using it up in fermentation, the oxygen is available to make oxidation compounds in your beer. These oxidation compounds are the things you taste in stale beer, and I’ve personally battled with harsh hop bitterness in IPAs when I got sloppy with oxygen intake on a finished beer.
Bottom Valve and Mounting Flange
Another dry hopping challenge is how to add the hops to a beer you’re fermenting under pressure. If you’ve gone through the work to finish up fermentation with your beer under pressure, you don’t want to simply vent the pressure to add dry hops. And if you’ve ever watched pressurized beer in a fermentor drop to 0 pressure, you know the whole thing becomes a churned-up mess- totally undoing all the work of precipitating trub and yeast.
Related: Fermenting Under Pressure
Sight Glass Hop Chamber
Brewers Hardware came out with the Dry Hopper to specifically deal with these challenges. The Dry Hopper attaches to a Tri Clover flange on your lid. There are two sizes- one for a 1.5” TC port, and one for 3” TC port. Both designs contain the same 3 elements- a valve at the bottom that mates to the lid of your fermentor, a tube in the middle to hold the hops, and a fixture on top with a gas ball lock port and a PRV valve. The 3” TC version is larger and holds more dry hops (14 oz) than the 1.5” TC version (4 oz).
This review is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, expert homebrewer and experienced reviewer. Grab a link to Brad’s website at the end of this review.
There are different types of valves, suited for different purposes. On a fermentor, it is useful to have a valve that has the ability to pull small samples for gravity readings or taste samples, but also able to flow well when it comes time for transfer to a keg. The sample port valve provides fine adjustment to flow rate, allowing you to vary between a slow trickle for pulling a sample or a higher flow rate for gravity transfer to fill a keg.
Valve Handle with 2 O-rings and Silicone Seat
The sample port valve has a fine pitch thread to allow for small adjustments to the opening of the valve. With the Brewers Hardware sample port valve, you can feel while turning the knob that the threads and the stem of the valve are machined to tolerances for a precise fit and without slop or wobble. The valve stem has 2 O-rings to keep beer from sneaking out or air sneaking in. And the tip of the valve has a silicone bumper that gets compressed onto a seat for a secure fit to prevent leaks when closed. Silicone is non-porous, making it easy to clean and not harbor stow-aways from one ferment to another. And its elasticity allows it to conform to the valve shape for a good seal, yet spring back so it can be used over and over again to seal and unseal.
The overall quality of the valve from Brewers Hardware was top-notch. The surfaces were smooth-polished stainless steel, and the ridges on the adjustment knob were cleanly machined for grip with no sharp edges. Turning the adjustment knob, it felt precise with no slop or wobble, with a tight seal. It’s difficult to give justice to the fit & finish of the part with just words or a couple pictures, but it really stands out.
This review is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, expert homebrewer and experienced reviewer. Grab a link to Brad’s website at the end of this review.
Up until now, I’ve known of two types of ball valves- 2-piece and 3-piece. The key difference between them being that the 3-piece can be disassembled for full cleaning. When I first started buying gear, I figured I’d go for the 3-piece because the idea of being able to take it apart and clean it sounded like something I should probably do. After seeing the complications of needing to use 2 wrenches at a time, while holding the body of the valve stable, I quickly concluded my 3-piece valves would never experience the joy of a ‘deep cleaning’.
This review is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, expert homebrewer and experienced reviewer. Grab a link to Brad’s website at the end of this review.
A large sight glass on a brew rig set-up can legitimately be classified as a luxury. There are various ways to assess your wort clarity during your brew session. During recirculation of the mash, or during vourlaf, you want to know when your wort is running clear and free of grain debris. Connect a sight glass into your recirculation loop and you can easily see the wort clarity without having to look for grain bits in a recirculation spray. It’s just right there in plain view.
Sight Glass showing cloudy wort during recirculation
Sight Glass showing clear wort during recirculation
Brewers Hardware very rarely does sales. Very rarely. They have come out to play for Black Friday. Get a free gift card $75 gift card with orders over $500, a free $40 gift card with orders over $250 and a free $10 gift card with orders over $100. No coupon code is required. Limit one gift card per ORDER. Gift cards will be emailed on 12/1/20. This is a rare chance to get a deal at Brewers Hardware.
Free Gift Cards from Brewers Hardware!
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Brewers Hardware’s Clearance Page features an ever-changing selection of discounted homebrew gear and hardware. Quantities can be limited. If you see something you like, I’d suggest placing your order sooner rather than later.
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BCS-482 Brewery Control System via Brewer’s Hardware
More InfoFrom the product description, check product page for current description, price and availability:
ALL NEW! BCS-482 interactive temperature controller
– 8 temperature inputs
– 8 discrete inputs
– 16 discrete outputs
– Removable terminal blocks
– Heavy duty aluminum enclosure with mounting flanges
– Operates on 12VDC power supply (not included)
– I2C bus for additional accessories
– USB Support
Operates at 12VDC. Power is brought onboard via screw terminals to allow for a broader range of PSUs (Not Included). Our power supply unit now comes with the end pre-cut off exposing both wires. If you have your own power supply you will need to cut the end off and attach one wire to 12V IN and one wire to Ground (GND). Check out our third product image for a more detailed look.
– New Faster TI Tiva M4F Processor
– Higher current outputs (150mA 12VDC instead of 20mA 5VDC) to directly drive valves and accessories.
– Onboard LED Indicators for outputs
– Operates at 12VDC. Power is brought onboard via screw terminals to allow for a broader range of PSUs (Not Included)
– Internal daughterboard I/O expansion option (Q3/2018)
– I2C Jack for external 7-segment LED displays
– RS485 Port for future expansion boards
– USB Jack for simpler firmware updates
– Built-in alarm buzzer.
The BCS series’ user interface is all web based. Monitor and control temperatures and processes on your browser from any browser enabled device such as a computer, tablet or phone.
The BCS-482 allows up to eight independent temperature sensors to be monitored simultaneously. Inputs can be any NTC thermistor based sensor with a 10Kohm ambient reading. Use our sensors, or purchase/build your own. Just set the temperature coefficients that are provided by the sensor manufacturer into the BCS-482, or calculate them based on experimental data.
Operates at 12VDC. Power is brought onboard via screw terminals to allow for a broader range of PSUs (Not Included). Our power supply unit now comes with the end pre-cut off exposing both wires. If you have your own power supply you will need to cut the end off and attach one wire to 12V IN and one wire to Ground (GND). Check out our third product image for a more detailed look.
Along with the eight temperature sensor inputs, the BCS-482 provides eight 12VDC discrete inputs. All inputs can trigger controller responses. Sixteen 150mA 12VDC discrete outputs are provided for relay control or can directly drive many electric ball valves on the market. Eight of the outputs can be controlled by PWM, differentially by a temperature input, or under complete PID control. The remaining 10 outputs provide on/off control.
The BCS-482 was designed with expansion in mind, supporting both internal and external expansion modules. The first expansion module slated for release in Q3 2018, is an internal in-case expansion board that will allow for an additional 8 inputs and 8 outputs. Additional modules on the drawing board include options for 1-wire support and 4-20mA support.
Data is logged internally in the device, and displayed on your browser, or saved as a text file. The BCS-482 supports internal logging of four signals up to 4k samples each. The user can set the frequency of the samples anywhere from 1 second to 6 hours, resulting in trace lengths anywhere from 1.1 hours to 2.8 years long.
A revolutionary State Machine interface allows the user to program with simple and intuitive rules, giving the controller the ability to exhibit extremely complex behavior. The BCS-482 allows up to eight independent processes, each with eight states. Check out the documentation for programming examples.
The control system from ECC utilizes a simple HTTP GET/POST mechanism to control and monitor the unit. The protocol is completely open and documented, allowing users the ability to develop third-party interfaces. Does your application require a unique GUI, or if would like to have your own data logging/graphing application? Want to link multiple BCS systems together and have them all controlled from a unified interface? The possibilities are endless.
BCS-482 Brewery Control System
This post may contain affiliate links. We may make a commission when you use our links. This will never cost you extra. Thank you for supporting Homebrew Finds!
This review is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, expert homebrewer and experienced reviewer. Grab a link to Brad’s website at the end of this review.
There are different types of valves, suited for different purposes. On a fermentor, it is useful to have a valve that has the ability to pull small samples for gravity readings or taste samples, but also able to flow well when it comes time for transfer to a keg. The sample port valve provides fine adjustment to flow rate, allowing you to vary between a slow trickle for pulling a sample or a higher flow rate for gravity transfer to fill a keg.
Valve Handle with 2 O-rings and Silicone Seat
The sample port valve has a fine pitch thread to allow for small adjustments to the opening of the valve. With the Brewers Hardware sample port valve, you can feel while turning the knob that the threads and the stem of the valve are machined to tolerances for a precise fit and without slop or wobble. The valve stem has 2 O-rings to keep beer from sneaking out or air sneaking in. And the tip of the valve has a silicone bumper that gets compressed onto a seat for a secure fit to prevent leaks when closed. Silicone is non-porous, making it easy to clean and not harbor stow-aways from one ferment to another. And its elasticity allows it to conform to the valve shape for a good seal, yet spring back so it can be used over and over again to seal and unseal.
The overall quality of the valve from Brewers Hardware was top-notch. The surfaces were smooth-polished stainless steel, and the ridges on the adjustment knob were cleanly machined for grip with no sharp edges. Turning the adjustment knob, it felt precise with no slop or wobble, with a tight seal. It’s difficult to give justice to the fit & finish of the part with just words or a couple pictures, but it really stands out.
This review is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, expert homebrewer and experienced reviewer. Grab a link to Brad’s website at the end of this review.
A large sight glass on a brew rig set-up can legitimately be classified as a luxury. There are various ways to assess your wort clarity during your brew session. During recirculation of the mash, or during vourlaf, you want to know when your wort is running clear and free of grain debris. Connect a sight glass into your recirculation loop and you can easily see the wort clarity without having to look for grain bits in a recirculation spray. It’s just right there in plain view.
Sight Glass showing cloudy wort during recirculationSight Glass showing clear wort during recirculation
This review is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, expert homebrewer and experienced reviewer. Grab a link to Brad’s website at the end of this review.
Up until now, I’ve known of two types of ball valves- 2-piece and 3-piece. The key difference between them being that the 3-piece can be disassembled for full cleaning. When I first started buying gear, I figured I’d go for the 3-piece because the idea of being able to take it apart and clean it sounded like something I should probably do. After seeing the complications of needing to use 2 wrenches at a time, while holding the body of the valve stable, I quickly concluded my 3-piece valves would never experience the joy of a ‘deep cleaning’.
Brewer’s Hardware has developed hardware to convert Sanke Kegs into full featured fermenters. They feature all stainless construction and are designed to fit american style sankey kegs.