Something for Nothing, take 2

A year ago I built a stand out of an old pipe and the remains of a workout machine. I gave that one to the guy who had been lending me his brew equipment and who taught me to brew.

Plus, I knew what I REALLY wanted to do. . . so it was already outdated!

I had an old server stand sitting around. You know, from the days that servers weren't rack-mounted. This thing is beefy, each shelf can hold well over 100lb. I've sat on each one, and I'm over 270 so. . .



Problem is that the stand is way too tall (8') and there aren't legs/wheels going backward. . . Answer? Cut the top off and use the pieces to make legs. . . Good thing my wife and in-laws bought me a welder for Christmas.

Chopped the top off, but I wanted the cross-piece for stability. Here it's positioned with clamps holding it up until I tack it.


Now to weld the legs on - I've already welded nuts on the bottom for the casters. I did a pretty solid tack on the bottom which allowed me to adjust the straightness of the leg, then weld the rest.

Here's one of the casters - SO nice being able to just wheel it around.

And here's the finished frame. It's about 6' tall and the shelves are completely adjustable.


And with the keggles, propane tank, and mash tun:


I did move the HLT and BK shelves down a bit - the BK is just high enough to drain perfectly into the carboys; the HLT is just high enough to grav-feed my sparge arm - just a copper pipe that is crimped at one end and hooks onto the far edge of the cooler and has holes drilled every inch. Sprinkles the water perfectly.

I needed to reinforce the shelves a bit because I had to cut holes for the burners - and the shelves aren't really thick steel, so some 1" .060 steel welded up in a grid and welded to the shelves makes them REALLY solid.

I didn't weld the entire length - doesn't need it. 2" stitches holds everything together really nicely - and since I have to use flux core for now, just was easier!


They fit perfectly and work perfectly.

I did put a couple of sheets of thin steel between where the top shelf is and where the cooler is - just heat shield. Works a charm - I can put my hand on the cooler side while the HLT is at full burn. Otherwise it would look like this:
so the heat shield blocks the view but has an inch opening at the top.

I do have two 160K btu burners from agrisupply mounted under the two metal shelves - the MT is on a laminate covered wood shelf.

I brewed on it on Sunday - Gold Dust Pale Ale - and while I have a little bit of height adjustment to do (just a bit) - it worked extremely well.

Future -
Gas manifold. WANT.
Pump to take water up to the top. I use water from the water store down the street. It tastes great, and FAR better than tap at our place, and the beer tastes great with it, so it's what I use. Just lifting the 5gal bottles up . . . well, I can do it, but SWMBO wants to help and there's no way. So that's on the list.
Quick-connect on the HLT to sparge arm - just for convenience.

Dude, you really need to learn how to modify the tint in your pics.

But yeah, this project looks pretty interesting.

Yeah, I know. Stupid cell phone. I'll pop them into Lightroom this evening, and get a decent "finished" pic.