Because Simple is Stupid

[Beer_Baron]

It might work, but why reinvent the wheel? Look how the pros are doing it & emulate it the best you can. If you do build it, take lots of photos for us to cheer your victory or make fun of your defeat, depending on how it turns out. You can pretty much rest assured you'll get one of the two.

The description of the automatic stirrer sounds very similar in concept to the power mash rakes that the pros use.

That said, I'd love to see photos of the final product.

I wasn't aware that the pros were whirlpooling in the MLT It is similar to a mash rake, but that's not what rakes are for & a rake wouldn't whirlpool the liquid anyhow. I would look at fluid dynamics, not manual agitation; that is the final goal anyhow. Like I said though, it might work. Work or not, I'd bet there'd be some good lessons for all of us from the project.

When I said "similar in concept" I meant that they both sound like automated stirring thingies. My point was that I don't think that slavishly imitating pro brewers is that helpful on a homebrew scale. Pro brewers use equipment and techniques (like power rakes) that are appropriate for much larger volumes and industrial production. Homebrewers use things like batch sparging, cooler mashtuns, Brew in a Bag, etc. that are appropriate for doing at home but would not work so well once scaled up. This is not reinventing the wheel, it's just an admission that you don't use truck tires on a scooter... That said, I want to see pictures of the finished product, too.

[Ozwald]

When I said "similar in concept" I meant that they both sound like automated stirring thingies. My point was that I don't think that slavishly imitating pro brewers is that helpful on a homebrew scale. Pro brewers use equipment and techniques (like power rakes) that are appropriate for much larger volumes and industrial production. Homebrewers use things like batch sparging, cooler mashtuns, Brew in a Bag, etc. that are appropriate for doing at home but would not work so well once scaled up. This is not reinventing the wheel, it's just an admission that you don't use truck tires on a scooter... That said, I want to see pictures of the finished product, too.

They're just two different concepts, doing two very different actions (I actually deleted a few sentences from my 1st reply regarding/comparing the idea with mash rakes before I posted it). And in this case, emulating the pros is the easiest, most effective & depending on how the build goes, very likely the cheapest way to do it. I'd agree not everything they do is effective on our scale, but this is a case where it really is the best way to go.

[KiltedDrummer]

I'm designing a new kettle and plan to use an existing pump to recirculate back into a tangential port for whirlpool. Building this stirrer makes more work for you since you'll have another thing to prep, clean and store. It would most likely work though if you want to pursue it.

That's how my system works - through a whirlpool return port/arm. Besides having to prep, clean & store it, it's a more complex design with multiple extra points for potential failure/breakage. In the 2 breweries I worked at the mash rakes break down more often than anything else, considering the amount of time they're used (the pumps are always the thing to go down first, but they're used way more frequently than the rakes). Hence my original point, why reinvent the wheel? But on the other hand, I frequently do projects for the mere sake of doing them. Why? Because you can. This isn't something I'd have any interest in doing, but I'd sure be interested in the build itself & what can be learned from it to apply to other things.

I was thinking about buying a pump, porting my kettle, and putting together a valve, but I'm going to be able to build this for about a quarter the price. Would I be able to use the pump for other brewing tasks? Sure, but right now my brewing process is pretty basic, which I'm fine with, and considering the number of times I brew a year (a handful) the $45 I'm putting into this is about where I want to be.

What would I love to have? A single tier HERMS running off a laptop monitoring temps and automatically controlling pumps and valves while logging the process for future data crunching. I'd also love to lose 100 lbs through the power of positive thinking and video game playing. Right now I don't see either on my personal horizon so it's my Rube Goldberg-esque automatic stirrer for the time being. Plus I'll get to bond with a friend of mine over beer while putting this together. He suggested improving the experience of beer and power tools by adding firearms and large fire crackers but I think well just let the girlfriends mess with those.

[Ozwald]

I'd be surprised if the final build costs as little as you're expecting. Most of my projects end up about double - extra parts, unforeseen break downs, figuring out you really need a 1/2" part where you thought a 3/8" part would work, etc. I don't know how, but it always seems to happen. Engineering gremlins.

That being said, a pump is invaluable. One of the best things I ever bought for my brewing system, in fact. I use mine for lots of different things, from the mash, vorlauffing, transfers, whirlpooling, chilling, more transfers... and that's just during the brew. I also use it to clean the system, clean kegs, clean fermenters, and the list goes on. If I only used it for half the stuff I do, it'd still easily be the most used piece of equipment in my arsenal by a landslide. Even for 5 gallon batches, it's a life saver... and a back saver, knee saver... If my pump died today & I couldn't replace it, I'd brew maybe once or twice a year instead of weekly.

[duckmanco]

I completely rednecked my cooling setup to something similar, and used stuff I had lying around the house.

I basically suspended a hand mixer above the wort and use only one of the mixer paddles at the lowest speed possible. This generates a nice and easy movement of the wort throughout the entire kettle. It works unbelievably well.... Looks like total shit, but works really well. Best part is that sanitizing the one metal mixing paddle is dead simple and so is clean up. I still use my pond pump to recirc water through the IC when ground water gets it to 100f, but it's insanely quick to chill a 6 gal. batch.

As a single infusion batch sparger (which means lazy asshole with a cooler) I didn't need and never wanted to buy a pump, so this method has worked pretty well.

[spiderwrangler]

Looks like total shit, but works really well.

Post some pictures?

[KiltedDrummer]

I finally had some time to put together the stirrer and it seem to work. The design is basically the same save for two slight unforeseen issues:
1) The wheel wouldn't fit under the handle like I hoped, so I have to put it above the handle, which meant raising the level of the motor. No problem, I got a 1'x1'x1/8" sheet of plastic and cut out small pieces to build a small block to put under the motor
2) I basically built a pulley system, but the wheels didn't have fenders to hold the rubber band in place, fixed by cutting out fenders from the plastic and gluing them to the wheels

Pictures and a video of the stirrer working below. I didn't get it done before my last brew day so it's still theory that it will do what I intend it to do cooling wise but it will stir an appropriate volume of water. Total cost came out to $45 (I didn't include the cost of a Dremel cutting bit for the plastic or line levels I used to make sure I was drilling straight (you'll notice the drilling straight was a failure)). And like duckmanco said

Looks like total shit, but works really well.

Parts


Assembled and working




The video isn't great, but I think you can see it is causing a whirlpool

[adamK]

Nice work! That looks pretty bad ass!