Top Tier Build

I've been reading the forums for a few years now but never really had much to contribute because I still consider myself a novice brewer. However, recently I decided to start a little project and I thought I'd share... So here is my version of a Top Tier Brew Stand. This is by no means as glamorous as the Blichman, or may of you guys stands, but so far it appears very functional. I consider this a Ribeye Top Tier on a Ramen Noodle budget. My total investment in this including the stand, burners, gas and water manifold, shelves and hoses is about $400, about half of the price of the base stand form Blichman. But definitely not as pretty. I do not have any welding skills, so the only welds I have are the shelves and I subbed those out to a co-workerr in exchange for some home brew.

I started with the Faztek 3030 T-slot on amazon (free shipping with amazon prime) only I got it for $90. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008MQA482/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I had an old storage piece from work that I cut up to make the legs, but bought some flat iron for the louvers. The shelves are SuperStrut, I needed two 10 foot pieces at $20 a piece, and used a chop saw blade on my mitre saw to cut them.

Well done! That is slick and that piece of aluminum looks exactly like what Blichmann uses. I'm curious to know if you could slide the Blichmann burner right onto that. Have you considered slapping some lawnmower wheels on it for portability?

I bought a NG conversion kit with a quick disconnect for a gas grill and all the black pipe and copper for my gas and water lines and plumbed everything in right off of my hot water heater. So I have a hot water line, and a gas line with manifolds running up the stand and a RV drinking water hose connected to the stand for about $100.

The next challenge was mounting the Banjo burners I got from HomeBrewStuff.com for $50 a piece. I had a bit of a light bulb moment while mounting the burners, and this is really why I decided to post this thread. I had looked at many threads on here about mounting the burners, and all of them looked either too complicated or required too much skill (welding) or money than I had to spend, so I knew I was going for something new. First I tried grinding out a U shape into a spare piece of superStrut with some plumbers strap to anchor the burner. This took me like 4 hours and I still wasn't happy with the appearance or the security of the burner. After the first burner was done I was searching through my toolbox for some additional strapping when I found an old 2 1/2 inch exhaust pipe clamp and the light bulb went off!!! If you look at the pictures you'll see that this method was EXTREMELY faster, easier, more functional and more appealing than any options that I had seen before. IMHO, this is the easiest, cheapest (I think this clamp cost me less than $5 several years ago), and more secure mount for a banjo burner that I have ever seen. I drilled 2 hole in the bar of the clamp and mounted it to the SuperStrut scrap and clamped the burner in!! Secure and balanced. I now plan to pick up some threaded rod and hang the burner mounter to the SuperStrut from the shelf with a wing nut so I can adjust the height as needed.

I really hope someone else finds this idea helpful because it really was just too easy.

@Tommy. The problem with adding the Blichman Burners to a DIY stand is Blichman has a specific bracket that only comes with their stand, they don't openly sell them seperately. There was a thread on here about making a clone of the brackets, but the OP used a laser cutter I believe to make them, and I don't even have access to a plasma cutter, let alone laser. Plus the sheet metal was more expensive than the SuperStrut.

Wheels will probably come somewhere down the line, maybe after a test brew. I have also tried to make this easy to break down and store in the corner of the garage (none of the flat iron gussetts are welded or bolted, just forced in by gravity, so the shelves just lift off after removing the wing nuts so the whole stand will tuck in nicely with the legs under the shelves on the side of my garage!!!

More to come...

Sorry, Timmy, not Tommy. Its late and homebrew is good!!!

Are these the brackets you're thinking of or did you mean something else?

http://www.brewbrothers.biz/TopTier-Burner-Mount

Still waiting on the other two shelves to get back from the co-worker/welder, so I'm on hold for now. But complete enough for a test fire of the burners! They look pretty, but I feel like they should be putting out more flame? I did get the NG orfices from Williams Brewing, so I am pretty sure I am connecting it correctly, they put out a lot of heat, but the flames are less than an inch high with the needle valves and air baffels wide open. Does that sound right to anyone out there?

No, you would still need the two large pieces of SS Sheet metal that actually bolt to the stand.

Those brackets just re-enforce the brackets that come with the stand. If you look at the base stand from blichman, it comes with the three pairs of brackets, and I am not aware of them being sold by themselves.

I run NG as well, and you should be able to to much better than what you are getting... when I run all 3 burners wide open I can get 3-4" flames coming off the burners. My meter is set to 7" WC and the trunk line is 1" so I teed off that and ran a 3/4" all the way to my stand, about 30 feet. My manifold on the stand is 1/2" and I'm using the same line I used for propane to go to the actual burner (3/8?). I think your problem is restriction, meaning your source line is too small. Its hard to tell from your pictures, but what size piping do you have from your meter to your stand, including how many elbows?

subbed. great build.

I tapped right off of the connection for my water heater and furnace. The main line appears to be at least 3/4, but steps down to 1/2 after the hot water heater splits off and I installed a 1/2 T to split off to the furnace and a quick disconnect for the brew stand. The quick disconnect was a gas grill conversion kit from HD. I suspect this conversion kit is the bottle neck because it takes a 3/8 MPT into the hard line and there is a 10' hose that is also 3/8. Has anyone else used one of these grill conversion kits with or without problems? The 10' hose then connects to my 1/2 manifold on the stand, but the 2' hoses that run from the manifold to the burners themselves is only 1/4 inch. I didn't think the 1/4 hose would be the problem since it was such a short run, but hind sight being 20/20 and all...

All that said, where do you set your baffles (?) On the back of the burners? When I had the baffles (I don't remember what the are actually called, but the air control disks on the back of the Banjo Burners) wide open, the flame was bright blue but very short, but I also got a lot of NG smell in the garage. I was not planning on a long burn, just a quick test, so I did not even open the garage door or turn on a fan, but the smell of gas was surprisingly strong. When I close the baffles nearly all the way I get a significantly taller flame that has a little orage to it. Could limiting the airflow in to the burner actually increase the amount of gas that is burned? I'm wondering if the low pressure NG is just escaping out the back of the burner and not ever making it to the burner face. Thoughts?

Oh, forgot to answer the question about elbows. The connection to the house is on the straight shot of the 1/2 T, so no turns there. The only elbow is at the base of the stand where the hose connects to the manifold and where the burners split off.

Ok, another update. I bypassed the manifold and therefore bypassing the 2' 1/4" hoses feeding the burners and ran the 3/8 hose from the quick disconnect directly to one of the burners and there is a huge improvement. I'd say I have a good 4" flame now almost all blue, with only a few of the taller flames turning yellow at the top. And no gas smell either! So clearly the cheap hoses were a bad decision, so I'm off to do some more shopping...

I am having trouble locating a shorter length (36" would be ideal) of NG hose, 3/8 ID minimum with a 3/8 flare on at least one end. Could be 1/2 MPT or 3/8 flare on the other.

Anyone have a good resource?

Have you tried McMaster Carr?

http://www.mcmaster.com/#general-purpose-hose/=qqa48c

Markj19 said:

Ok, another update. I bypassed the manifold and therefore bypassing the 2' 1/4" hoses feeding the burners and ran the 3/8 hose from the quick disconnect directly to one of the burners and there is a huge improvement. I'd say I have a good 4" flame now almost all blue, with only a few of the taller flames turning yellow at the top. And no gas smell either! So clearly the cheap hoses were a bad decision, so I'm off to do some more shopping...

Click to expand...

Glad you found the source of your problem. Happy NG brewing.

Been a long time since I started this post, but haven't updated in a while.

I finished the build at least for now. I never did find NG hoses that really fit all my needs, so I ended up using the yellow NG hoses from HD with too many adapters and fittings, but hey it worked. The stand is solid as can be, my garage floor isn`t completely level so it took a bit to get the legs leveled (note for future mods, add leveling feet), but once I got it level I walked up the shelves like stairs and sat on the top shelf and it didn`t even budge. It`s plumbed for NG and hot water so my water starts out in the HLT at about 140 f so that really cuts down on my heating time. I still feel like I should be getting more out of the burners, so I will add heat shields soon (picked up some scrap stainless steel sheet for a fabricator for $12 that should be enough for both burners). Brewed a 10 gal batch on it last weekend, took a bit of time getting used to adjusting mash temp with this new system, so overall took about the same amount of time, but I was able to start the mash within 25 mins of getting out in the garage, so I know that once I get it all down it will really cut down on my time and can't describe how much easier. No more lifting 10 gallons 170 degree water over my head makes me smile!

It's not really all that pretty or as refined as the Blichman, so I might re-do the shelves in stainless later (much later), but it works great for now.