Finally built a brew stand + semi electric setup

[fakr]

So, after brewing a stout with my dad last Saturday, we looked at how the brewing process went, and both decided we should build a brew stand in my garage to get rid of some of the "inefficient" manual steps that we had to perform throughout the process.

So, we built a stand out of 2x4 and plywood...so on the real cheap.



AS seen in the pic, it's three tier, with the sparge tun on the top tier to the
left, the mash tun on the middle tier to the right, and a bottom (the ground) tier for the boil kettle and propane burner.  The whole thing took about 2 hours to build, and can be used as a storage area for brew equipment.  On the bottom tier beside the kettle is a wash station for automotive parts, but will be giving this to a buddy and putting in a plastic wash basin for brewing.

Being that the sparge tun is at the top, sitting on wood, and no propane burner, I was forced to turn it into an electric kettle so I ran "to code" a 40amp 240V line to the top of the brew stand for the 4500W hot water heater element that is goin to be installed in the kettle this week.  A stainless element isn't necessary in this kettle as I'll only be heating up water and nothing else.  I'm actually going to install a pivot arm over the sparge tun, plummed into a garden hose attachment at the bottom of the stand so I can just hook up a garden hose and turn on the tap to fill the sparge tun.

The only thing that typically would have to be moved is the boil kettle so the hot wort can be gravity fed through the CFC...well not anymore.  I have an impeller pump with a stainless top on it for potable water.  Issue is, it's not rated for high temperatures, so I'm, going to hook it up on the cold side of the wort chiller and "suck" wort from the kettle through the CFC as opposed to pushing hot liquid through...

So, all that remains is to hard plum in water to the top tier, anchor the pump, and plum in some lines with quick disconnects.  I think I'm even going to use a pivot arm type tap to fill up fermentors, then swing the tap back in against the brew station when not in use.

Is this my ideal brew stand?  Definitely not, but it's a damn good first one using materials around the garage.  Big plus with this stand is I'll no longer have to lift or touch hot liquid containers throughout the entire brew process.

[fakr]

here's a pic with the 240V recepticle in the pic:

[fakr]

by the way, the 4500W heating element I got was from Home Depot for less than $30.  I also bought the big square mounting bracket for it for $9.  My dad is going to turn down the square portion of the bracket and make it into a round nut.  I'll install the heating element pretty much the same way as a weldless bulkhead is installed.

$40 got me the 4500W heating element with mounting kit, and $69 for a new 50L SS pot from home hardware.

So, for $110+tax, and a bit of electrical, I have an electric sparge tun.

Now I just need a sight glass and thermometer.

[Richard]

Very nice... looks compact

[fakr]

Thanks Richard.  It is pretty compact yes.  I'll post another pic when it's complete.  Going to feed the sparge water into the lid of the mash tun, and add a sprinkler type setup on the inside of the mash tun.

I think I'm going to hard mount and plum in the CFC somewhere, maybe out of site, and have the water feeds down by the floor.

Good start anyway, and a lot better than having to have another guy around on brew day to lift full mash tuns and kettles in order to gravity feed everything.

[chrismccull]

Nice.

[jeffsmith]

Looks good. I was thinking about building a similar setup in my shed.

[fakr]

Thanks Dean.

I usually only use the oxygen for high gravity brews, to make sure there's enough oxygen for all that yeast and sugar.  

I'm happy with it.  I can't say I've done lab experiments to validate that it actually improves fermentation, etc, but I've had a couple of beers not quite reach the FG that I was looking for, and the ones that I oxygenate do.  Mind you there are quite a few factors that could dictate this, like old yeast, % unfermentable sugars, etc...

One thing I've done as a preventative measure, is to buy a 10 foot length of hose from princess auto for the $1.20 and use a new 2 foot length every time.
Reason being, I've noticed that condensation seems to form in the hose between uses, and I don't want to blow any of it into cold wort and chance an infection.

I also boil the aeration stone before use.

[DandyMason]

What does the heating element look like?

[Kyle]

Good call on using wood for a brewstand. I've gone with a modular brewery as it is stored on a different level of the house than where I will be brewing. I'll post pics when done too, but I bought a pile of 2x4's and built a stand for the MLT, and then changed it about 5 times as I refined it, and will be taking it apart and making one more change, and then tis good to go. The great thing with that approach is its easy to work with wood indoors and its really cheap to make adjustments.

How are you controlling your 4500w element?

[fakr]

it's an actual stainless aeration stone Dean.  

Here's a couple of canadian links to for ya:

category_id=0&search_string=stone&search_category_id=0&item_id=698
http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/viartsh ... tem_id=699
http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/viartsh ... em_id=1677

I'd recomment the .5 micron stone, as it would obviously distribute finer oxygen bubbles, but is also excellent for carbonating your beer as well.

Cold crash your beer, tranfer it to a keg, hit the open keg with CO2 through the stone for a minute or so, then seal and carbonate as usual...you'll notice carbonation takes much less time.
Beer has to be really cold for it to be effective though.

[fakr]

The heating element looks like this:

[fakr]

Kyle, because this whole build is on the "cheap", I'll be controlling the element with the breaker in the breaker panel as an on-off switch until I build a controller from the guts of an old stove....but have to find an old stove with a digital display....gonna go high tech digital readout!

[brew]

nice setup man - once i get a march pump for fathers day, hope to have something similar in my garage!

[fakr]

Thanks Brew!