The Stout Fermenters do look nice, I need to do a bit more research before I decide one way or the other on them. At this point, they seem like a solid value though.
Update on the Brewery 2/20.
Auto Tuning the PIDS (Auber SYL-2352):
Yesterday evening I filled the HLT up as if I were going to do a full batch run. HLT filled with cold water all the way up (14ish gallons) and then fired up the panel. I must have overlooked the proper AutoTuning setting to start the process, because before I knew it I was at 150 degrees set temp and the AT wasn't running. So I dumped 60% of the hot water, refilled with chilled water again and fired the AutoTuning process up. This time, the kettle ramped to set temp with the Tuning indicator flashing, then started to rapidly cycle the element, causing the kettle to heat almost 15 degrees beyond the SV. I cancelled the process and did a sanity check on my settings. I think that failed because the RTD fluctuated high to SV, then quickly back to a slightly lower temperature (1 degree) and then back. This threw the tuning for a loop and ultimate caused that run to fail.
What I found was that the Filter setting on my PID was still at the default (0). Changed the filter setting to smooth the RTD input to (5) or 25%, and then dumped the water and started for a third time. Finally, hit my set temp, element cycled off correctly and the kettle repeated a SV-> Slight Cool ->SV ramp a couple of times. It took about 10 minutes once the SV had been reached for AutoTuning to finish.
Note for anyone seeing odd behavior, you may need to add some smoothing in your SYL's Filter setting. I completely overlooked this when I first read the instructional PDF.
Boil Kettle Auto Tuning:
After I finished testing the HLT, I moved the heated water over to the Boil Kettle to run an auto tuning routine on the BK. It was already fairly late, so I copied my PID Setup from HLT -> BK and began firing the element with AT running. With an SV (Set Value) of 212, the Kettle climbed up to 208, then 210, then 211... But ran for over 20 minutes in AutoTuning without ever making it to 212 (and it wasn't the same behavior as before, where the element was clearly being cycled). This time, the element was on 100%, but the temp just couldn't seem to hit that last degree.
I ended up canceling Auto Tune on the BK because it was about 1am, and realistically, I'll be running it mostly in Manual mode for boil for this weekends brew, but I would like to determine why I couldn't get that last degree. My ThermoWorks probe was reading 211/212 on the dot, and the pid was reading 211, so I don't have a major offset issue here as far as the RTD is reading. I may adjust the offset up 1 full degree and run it again. Ambient temperatures were around 64 degrees in the basement, exhaust fan on full. The only other thing that stood out was that the BK was sitting DIRECTLY on the Steel Table, which I'm certain was acting as a huge heatsink for that large thermal mass. (EDIT: See comments below for the likely reasons!)
Anyway, a few worthwhile notes from yesterday. More troubleshooting tonight before running on Saturday! Feel free to ask if anything looks odd. I took an 8 minute video of the AT on the BK and discussing the process, which I may upload to youtube (it's a bit dry, but I can throw it up if anyone is interested).