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Month: March 2011

Scalded Wort

Published March 12, 2011

The thinner new pot and super-hot turkey burner flame resulted in a little bit of scalding on the bottom of the boil kettle from beer-making yesterday. However, it’s just a little bit, and I don’t see it causing any issues. The larger kettle with a bigger opening made boiling a lot easier. Foam-ups during hop addition cleared themselves automatically, there was practically no risk of boil-over, and I could keep the heat nicely high (and thus a harder boil) during the whole process.

After boiling and cooling the wort I also did something to save a bit of money on yeast: racking the wort right on to the trub from the previous batch of beer. Since I was making a darker and hoppier (but otherwise similar style) beer this won’t affect the flavor of it, and the extremely large quantity of yeast meant that the batch was fermenting strongly within four hours. Normally the amount of activity seen just a few hours later would take 24-36 hours to occur when pitching (pouring into the wort) the quantity of yeast in a Wyeast Activator pack. Not only did this decrease lag time while the yeast started growing, it also saves roughly $8 on yeast, the time spent cleaning out the fermenter, and is simply less wasteful overall.

As this beer (a dark IPA) is recommended to have two months of aging I’ll probably do another short-aging-time beer after this with the goal of having three full kegs of beer in the kegged beer cooler. If I can constantly keep three different (tasty) beers in there with one aging, I’ll be pretty set for variety, having friends over, and saving money overall.

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Banananuunlingonberry

Published March 8, 2011

Today I found that Ikea’s Lingonberry concentrated drink mix can easily be combined with some water and one banananuun-flavored nuun tablet to make a decent tasting impromptu electrolyte drink. Having run out of HEED this past winter and wanting to go on a reasonable length ride today I needed something calorie-iffic to drink, but I wanted to be sure it had a few electrolytes in it as well, since I tend to sweat a lot. Well, this did the trick.

I’ll still probably pick up some HEED or possibly an Infinit Nutrition product for normal riding, but at least for the next few rides this should suffice. (During normal riding I like to have my CamelBak full of water and a bottle of something sweet on my bike. I can then sip the water when I’m thirsty and drink the bottle of whatever throughout the course of the ride to be sure that my blood sugar stays sane and I don’t bonk.)

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Home Early and Riding

Published March 8, 2011

Today found me home from work a bit earlier than I have been lately, and with the nice weather I patched a flat on the Titus and set out for a ride. Since it was just above freezing and (yet another) big snow fall is still melting, I stuck to a paved route as best I could. Still, I couldn’t help but occasionally run into some slush or dirt left behind by the thaw, or even some mud. At one point on a small neighborhood trail I ended up leaving a few-inch deep rut, so it’ll be interesting to see how well this serves as an example of what not to do on a trail. (More information about damage caused by riding muddy trails in springtime can be seen in this flier from the MMBA.)

The route that I rode ended up on the Macomb Orchard Trail which was quite a bit less thawed than I expected. Most of the route was what’s shown above, with a thawed section in the middle full of muck with slush/snow/ice along the sides, but some portions were completely snow and ice covered. Thankfully it was compacted, almost-slushy which made it very ridable.

I’m extremely happy that the weather is taking a turn for the nice. I hope that I’m able to ride this year after work as I was last year, as being able to get outside in evenings and spend some time by myself watching nature go by is extremely relaxing and just the sort of thing I need most evenings.

(Total for the day was 23.53 miles in 1:43:51, following this general route: Home, 22 Mile, Neighborhoods to Shelby, Mound, 25 Mile, MOT West, Dequindre, School, Neighborhoods, 23 Mile, Mound, Shelby, River Bends Pavement, Home via 22 Mile and Neighborhoods.)

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MultiTech MultiModem II (5600 Series) Teardown

Published March 7, 2011

I recently had a chance to play with one of the last bastions of high-quality analog modem technology, a MultiTech MultiModem II, 5600 series. It’s an extremely high quality device which can do things such as automatically dialing a stored number when DTR goes high. These are quite useful as diagnostic backup devices and are often found connected to enterprise-class equipment to allow tech support another channel in or to allow the device to send emergency error messages.

Since I had access to this I decided to open it up and look inside, since tech like this isn’t too common these days. Photos of the MultiTech MultiModem II (5600 Series) disassembly (such as the one above) can be seen here in this gallery.

In the two photos showing the two sides of the PCB (top · bottom) here’s the components I found most interesting:

· Conexant SM56D / CX06833-44: This is the heart of the device; the modem itself.
· Atmel ATF1502ASV: EEPROM CPLD (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory Complex Programmable Logic Device); likely where the front panel controls run and how the modem chip is controlled.
· LM7805 (x3): Three linear voltage regulators which seems to me like an old but very reliable method for getting smooth power.
· Intersil ICL3207ECBZ (x2): RS232 transmitters / receivers.
· Atmel 26C16AN: 16K serial EEPROM.
· Atmel AT49BV040A: 4-megabit (512K x 8) Flash Memory. (Hidden in photo by front panel bracket.)
· Fairchild Semiconductor 74LVX4245: Dual Supply Translating Transceiver. Converts between 3.3v and 5v busses; used to drive 5v logic in LCD display module. (Hidden in photo by front panel bracket.)
· LM386: Audio amplifier for modem speaker.
· Cypress Semiconductor CYIFS781BSXC: Spread spectrum clock generator designed to reduce EMI.
· 28.224 MHz Crystal: Connected to clock generator.

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Gas Distribution Manifold and Dessicant

Published March 6, 2011

This afternoon I added a bit of a luxury to the Kegged Beer Cooler, a three-way gas manifold. While not necessary, this will allow me to easily shut off gas to different connectors if I’m needing to play with different pressures for force carbonating beer, soda, fruit, etc.

Since I was drilling from the inside of the cabinet outward without using a guide the external screw heads aren’t quite lined up (picture). This is disappointing because it doesn’t look as nice as it could, but I guess I’ll just have to leave it. To be sure that I didn’t hit any gas lines I first cut small holes in the aluminum liner with a pointed razor blade, tore back the metal with needle nose pliers, then poked carefully through the foam with a plastic tool until I reached the steel outer wall. The foam was then cleared out using a drill bit in my fingers, and then I completed drilling through the outside.

A few days ago I received some desiccant bags purchased from eBay (picture) and those are now in place as well, so the kegged beer cooler project is pretty much finished. I may eventually add external taps, but for now using picnic-style taps inside of the unit should suffice.

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Inconvenienced by Safety

Published March 5, 2011

A few weeks back I ordered this turkey fryer setup from Cabela’s to replace the burner/regulator that I had problems with a few weeks back. Today when setting it up for use I found that there is an electronic interlock on the gas line which will cut off the gas flow after the last time it was manually reset.

I attempted to remove this, but as can be seen here there is a laquer-like thread locker on the fitting between the regulator and the interlock. While this likely won’t be a huge issue, I’d really prefer to simply concentrate on brewing beer and not pressing a button to keep things running.

UPDATE: In practice this wasn’t that much of a hinderance. The large red button which starts the gas flowing and resets the electronic timer serves as a quick turn-on, and the black button is a good emergency-off in case of a boil-over. A green light illuminates when the gas is flowing and it starts blinking before the gas shuts off, giving one ample time to press the red button and keep gas flowing. While it would be nice to not have this safety in place, it’s not as difficult to deal with as I’d expected.

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Corporate Fanboyism

Published March 5, 2011

Driving home on I-75 in Detroit yesterday I saw this vehicle (black Saturn VUE, Michigan BWB 0564), driven by a 50-ish man with grey hair, grey beard, gold-rimmed glasses, and a flannel shirt bearing some rather interesting hand-written slogans on the windows. The ones shown here are:

TRY PAYING
BILLS & TAXES
WITH FOREIGN
$
BUY AMERICAN OR GOOD BYE!

and

FOREIGN CAR
DRIVERS NEED
2-B HOMELESS
+
JOBLESS

The rear window had something about cell phones similar to the Shut Up, Hang Up, and Drive bumper stickers.

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Kegged Beer Cooler: Complete

Published March 3, 2011

The kegged beer cooler is complete, sitting in the basement, and is actively cooling what remains of two kegs of beer. Tonight I ran the gas lines, fitted everything into place, and set it up against one wall of the basement. It’s currently set to start cooling at 40°F and shut off at 35°F ambient temperature in the unit, which I expect to keep the beer at somewhere in that range. It may be necessary to narrow the band to something a bit narrower, but I’ll be able to determine that after putting a full keg of beer in the freezer and monitoring it.

I’ve been considering fitting the fridge with taps, but for the time being I think I’ll just stay with using picnic-style taps inside the unit. Actual beer faucets are around $100/each after considering all mounting hardware, and I don’t think they’ll provide enough benefit to justify doubling the cost of the unit.

Here’s some more notable photos of the unit throughout its progress:

· Completed chest freezer to beer keg conversion.
· Looking inside at two corney kegs, party tap-style dispensing lines, gas lines, temperature sensor, etc.
· Gas line transition from the compressor compartment into the body of the freezer. It is held in place with twist-type reusable cable ties.
· Temperature probe in place and gas line and Y fitted. Excess foam was left in place to serve as a hose guide.
· Operational Johnson Controls A419 temperature control indicating that it is currently cooling.

All of the photos can be found here. And yes, Roxie approves of it.

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Temperature Control Fitted

Published March 3, 2011

The temperature control for the kegged beer cooler fitted and it seems to work. It started, cooled the unit until the appropriate temperature was reached, then turned itself off. Now I just have to run the gas lines and see how it goes with actually cooling beer. This will require a little bit more hardware, although I’ll probably only fit it out for two kegs for the time being, as that’s how many I have. It’s too bad that my current kegs are also almost empty, as I won’t be able to run it fully loaded. I guess it’ll be time to brew more soon.

I also need to consider monitoring temperature in the unit or attaching the probe to a specific keg. I think that in the unit will be sufficient, but for the first couple weeks I’ll double-check this by occasionally checking the temperature of a keg itself.

New photos from tonight’s work are can be found on this page.

(Yes, I know those screws are too long, but they are what I had laying available. Oh well, they neither interfere with anything nor will they be seen once the unit is closed up.)

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