Control Panel (Part 2)

STEP 6: Wire up ground

We want the control panel enclosure chassis to be electrically grounded for safety reasons the same way any power tool or appliance chassis is grounded. Grounding means that the entire metal chassis (in this case the entire enclosure) is connected to your house's electrical system ground plane. This ensures that any stray current can find its way to ground instead of through something else (such as the brewer) in the off chance that something goes wrong and one of the HOT wires becomes disconnected and touches the enclosure.

Without proper grounding the control panel enclosure would instead simply become energized and pose a great danger to you. A proper electric brewing setup should always have everything properly grounded.

Wire up the components as shown in the diagram below using the wire sizes and colours indicated.

Ground wiring diagram:

How it works

There are two ground points in the control panel: One on the door (which we moved earlier) and one in the main enclosure. We connect these together using the ground wire that was included with the enclosure. This ensures that both the door and the main enclosure will be grounded.

We then ground the enclosure to the Hot Liquor Tank and Boil kettles through the heating element receptacles, to the wort and water pumps through the pump receptacles, and finally to the ground in the house circuit breaker panel through the 30A/240V power in receptacle.

Every metal part in the brewery that contains power is now properly grounded to our house ground.

Each ground wire is separate (called a 'home run') to ground for safety reasons.

Location of the components: