It's been a number of years since the last post, which coincides with the time since I last brewed (more or less). The pandemic got me rethinking my system, and I decided I wanted to get away from propane. Coincidentally, I found The Electric Brewery and started in earnest to convert to electric. I started slowly, going with groups of components first, buying what my budget would allow. Slowly I built up all of the components required to convert my existing 10 gallon system, with one exception - I didn't have the electric supply required to power the system.
After completing the build, it sat for a while until I got into gear and started talking to electricians. I thought what was needed was to upgrade the service from the house panel to the garage, but I was convinced by the guys at Lighthouse Restoration Group that the better solution - and one that wouldn't cost any more - was to install a stand-alone 240V 100A service to the garage. The more I thought about this, and the more I thought about the possibility of an EV in my future, the more I agreed that this was the route to go.
After about a month dealing with the permitting process in our town, getting ComEd to set up the install, and getting the panel installed, all went well and I finally had the power required for my system. Power was hooked up, install was checked, and all that was left was to plug in the control panel and see if it powered up. And....it didn't. Turns out that the best was to build the panel was to check the components as you build, and since I didn't have the power required, I couldn't. After some sleuthing and re-reading the troubleshooting instructions, along with a number of e-mails with Kal Wallner at The Electric Brewery, I figuredout I had the transformers connected backwards, which fried a number of components, such as the AC/DC converters and the amp and volt meters. Finally, all was rebuilt, and the panel powered up successfully.
Having that out of the way, I immediately jumped to the question: what is the first beer I should brew? I'd been trying unsuccessfully for years to get Goose Island Honkers Ale in 5-gallon kegs, and apparently the only place you can get it any more is at the brewpub, Honkers was the first local beer I really got into, and I spent a LOT of time at the Clybourn brewpub in the 90s and early 2000s when I lived in Bucktown. It was a no-brainer.
Having made that decision, it was now time to look at my brewing software. For years I'd used ProMash, which was really intuitive, and I had everything dialed in for that software. Unfortunately, it's no longer supported and more than a little out of date. I did a bit of searching and came to land on Brewfather, not only because it's web-based (so no software to install) but it's mobile and has a pretty extensive library of publicly-available recipes. I also like that if you go to buy supplies for a brew, you have everything at hand. I also discovered the Tilt hydrometer/thermometer, a bluetooth-connected device that will log both specific gravity and temperature, and also syncs with Brewfather.
Now that I had all of that completed, it was time to brew. I must say that having the ability to have your temps controlled by a PID is a wonderful thing. It took a while to get back into my process, but it all worked out really well. Here's the link to the Honkers Ale session. Can't wait to get back to this on the regular.
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