Can I build a half-barrel system for under $2000?

I am new to brewing, having only made a handful of batches with the extract kit / partial brew / bucket system, and I plan to continue learning and doing this for a while, eventually moving to partial mash and then full mash. Meanwhile, in the medium term (6-12 months, or sooner if possible), I'd like to put together a half-barrel brewing system to eventually use to fill my full-size kegerator (15 gallon). I have spent about 20 hours over the past week scouring this forum and using google-foo trying to gather as much knowledge as I can about such a system.

I'm not the most handy person, but I have a couple of friends with construction and welding experience who will help me (as long as I pay them in beer). :cross:

What I need help with is itemizing and pricing all of the things I will need. And if anyone has made step-by-step instructions for this, please point me in the right direction. If it can't be done for that price ($2000), what should I shoot for?

Would a kettle of this size work:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000O3JZD6/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Will this burner throw enough heat:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009JXYQ4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Where can I get a container large enough to ferment 15 gallons?

Etc... etc...

Any and all advice is welcome. I realize this probably sounds a little too ambitious for such a n00b, but I've really caught the brewing bug and I am committed to making a medium investment in time and money to the hobby. If I get enough positive feedback and I think I can put the project together, I will post my progress here.

Thanks.

B0rnFrustr8ed said:

I am new to brewing, having only made a handful of batches with the extract kit / partial brew / bucket system, and I plan to continue learning and doing this for a while, eventually moving to partial mash and then full mash. Meanwhile, in the medium term (6-12 months, or sooner if possible), I'd like to put together a half-barrel brewing system to eventually use to fill my full-size kegerator (15 gallon). I have spent about 20 hours over the past week scouring this forum and using google-foo trying to gather as much knowledge as I can about such a system.

I'm not the most handy person, but I have a couple of friends with construction and welding experience who will help me (as long as I pay them in beer). :cross:

What I need help with is itemizing and pricing all of the things I will need. And if anyone has made step-by-step instructions for this, please point me in the right direction. If it can't be done for that price ($2000), what should I shoot for?

Would a kettle of this size work:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000O3JZD6/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Will this burner throw enough heat:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009JXYQ4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Where can I get a container large enough to ferment 15 gallons?

Etc... etc...

Any and all advice is welcome. I realize this probably sounds a little too ambitious for such a n00b, but I've really caught the brewing bug and I am committed to making a medium investment in time and money to the hobby. If I get enough positive feedback and I think I can put the project together, I will post my progress here.

Thanks.

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You could look into conical fermenters. They can be had (14.5 gallon ones) for 600 bucks, less if used.
Or you can use a trash can like winemakers do:
http://morewinemaking.com/view_product/19676/103207/Wine_Fermenter_-_20_Gallon_FDA_Plastic

Not really a trash can, but yeah.

As long as you aren't boiling 20 gallons of water, that burner should be able to bring 16 or so gallons of water to a boil. It will take a while, but it will get there. Keep the lid on while coming to a boil to keep the heat in.

Also, look into the BIAB, or brew in a bag technique for a quick entrance to all grain.

Also also, you are using an aluminum pot. You should could might want to boil that guy for 30 minutes to get a good oxide layer on there. I don't know how valid this argument is as pure aluminum oxidizes in seconds, but it can't hurt. Heck, it will be a way to test the power of your burner for that pot.

I would look more at fermenting the amount you want over how to make the amount in one go. For instance I would like to start making 1-2 barrel batches. My plan is to get a few chest freezers with temp controllers(ebay aquarium temp controller thread) A handful of Delex 15 gallon barrels, and then brew enough to fill each one through a double brew day and one more batch the following day. Then each freezer holding three fermenters represents 1 barrel. Pricing wise the three fermenters and freezer from craigslist represent a total cost of $200 give or take. I know this is not exactly what you have in mind but it is another idea to consider for brewing ever larger batches. From everything I have learned it is the fermenting space and time that will ultimately slow you down. I'd worry more about this aspect over the actual brewing process. Good Luck

you can buy a 15 gallon demijon (glass) we use one and it works fine the cost is about $100 delivered.
you will need to have a brew kettle of 25-30 gallons for a 15 gallon batch.

i would skip the partial mash and go strait to AG keep a couple lbs of DEM on hand incase you miss your OG.

good luck on your projecct

When you say half barrel do you mean 15.5 gallons of finished beer if so you will need at least 20 gallon mash tun, hlt and a 25 gallon boil kettle. Then I would say you will need a 20 gallon fermentor,look at the plastic mart web site for a fermentor and stand.
I built this for under two grand but I did it all myself.

Check these guys out for your kettle and fermentor... be sure to ask them to make the kettle bigger for you: http://brewhemoth.com/

You're not going to have all blichman products but it can definitely be done. This is for the brewery alone; not for tools or labor, ingredients, bottling/kegging equipment, malt mill, etc.

$600 pots I got x3 45 gallon pots on ebay for $598 shipped. They were chinese and dent/scratch but they're fully functional and all three were cheaper than one blichman of the same size.

$200 plastic conicals from spraysmart.com. x2 15 gal shipped $122 plus $75 to put drain/racking hardware on them. You could also spend $30 each for the buckets mentioned above..

$200 for steel for your sculpture. I'd say this is a bit high but a safe estimate.

$100 false bottom (Recommend Jaybird's) He might charge a bit more but I hear they're well worth it. I plan on ordering mine from him for my 45 gal MLT.

$150 fittings (go onto bargainfittings.com or e-bay). Stick to two piece ball valves or you'll use $100 on them alone.

$100 camlocks (proflow dynamics for stainless camlocks) This price is quite high. $70 was enough for 6 stainless steel disconnect sets. A little padding won't hurt though.

$100 for burners (amazon or agrisupply.com) This price is high too. That's plenty for x3 BG-14 burners. I prefer multiple sp-10s personally. BobbyM did a x3 sp-10 burner under his 50 gal BK. They are also $9.00 each (minus shipping).

$100 for gas bar parts (home depot/lowes) A little padded here as well. Shouldn't be that high, stick to brass fittings. Get a 0-30 psi regulator off of agrisupply.

$100 for a pump (ebay). You can buy a march pump brand new if you want for slightly higher but I got mine off of ebay for $25..

$50 for a plate chiller (duda diesel) also on e-bay. great prices, a 10 plate heat exchanger is plenty.

That puts you at $1700.00.. I'd say it's easily doable... Again, you still need bottling equipment. A good place to spend some of your excess. Good luck with the build. Create a thread when you get started!

I also hear that penrose kettles from brewhemoth are awesome. they'll also do some welding for you for a very reasonable price. Do a search for their reviews in the forum; they're plentiful!

I think you're going to find a lot of miscellaneous expenses add up quickly. I'd plan at least 25% creep in your estimate. Personally I think some of the estimates above are actually on the low side.

I would sit down and draw everything out. Draw the stand, draw the pots, draw the ports in the ports, hoses, pumps, filters etc etc and how things will flow. This will give you a good idea what you're going to need. You also need to decide if you're going to build a HERMS or RIMS system as this will affect what you'll need.

Already said above but to restate, once you have a stand go all-grain. I mean you can do extract or partial brewing on a stand, but the expense of the stand really is so you can easily brew larger batches of grain that weigh a lot and require a lot of liquid to be moved around.

Good luck!

lehr said:

When you say half barrel do you mean 15.5 gallons of finished beer if so you will need at least 20 gallon mash tun, hlt and a 25 gallon boil kettle. Then I would say you will need a 20 gallon fermentor,look at the plastic mart web site for a fermentor and stand.
I built this for under two grand but I did it all myself.

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That looks pretty close to what I had in mind. I'll be reading that thread, and probably asking you a ton of questions, if you don't mind.

B0rnFrustr8ed said:

That looks pretty close to what I had in mind. I'll be reading that thread, and probably asking you a ton of questions, if you don't mind.

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I dont mind.

Pat

How much finished beer does that beauty make?
Those are all regular kegs, right?

I built my 1BBL system for less then $1,000 but I have modified it so much it is probably up to around $2,000 now. I did all of the work myself except for the SS welds.

The biggest cost of building a big system is the pots, I got lucky and got all of mine free (old pool filters) and I found a welder that charged me $30 to weld them (plus beer).

Little expensive for 80-qt aluminum. Sam's club is just shy of $95, or $102.44 for 100-qt. Note the Sam's club one doesn't include a lid, but I don't use one on my 60-qt ...

Since everyone is answering your questions as asked I'm going to take another tack. Do you really only want to have only one kind of beer on tap at a time? If so that's fine, but if you like variety why not stick to 5-10 gallon batch sizes and modify your kegerator to hold and dispense three 5-gallon cornies? I find it nice to have something pale and not too hoppy on tap for the wife and still have an IPA and a porter available for myself depending on my mood.

Keggles are a cheap way to go, i get a little under 15 gallons in a batch. Dont be a wuss - just fill you kettle up near the rim and SLOWLY bring it to a boil. I have amazed the skeptics who say it will boil over - poppycock!!! It boils down a bit but i just drain a little more out of my mash tun and bam! I get maybe 14 gallons of wort, pitch a 1 gallon yeast starter and there ya go!!! I fill up 3 carboys no prob, sometimes i use 1 5gal and 2 6's. 40lbs of grain, a full HLT and whats this? Oh i still have sweet wort in the tun?? Better drain it out and get 5 gallon small beer....

But no its not enough! I'm currently upgrading to 100qt pots (25 gal):

http://www.tigerchef.com/thunder-group-slsps100-100-qt-stock.html

$191.78 ---> delivered!

It can be done, but only i can do it!! (just kidding, you could too if you apply yourself!)

Here is a small batch i did! ;p

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/member...make-ten-gallon-batches-when-you-can-make-13/

camiller said:

Little expensive for 80-qt aluminum. Sam's club is just shy of $95, or $102.44 for 100-qt. Note the Sam's club one doesn't include a lid, but I don't use one on my 60-qt ...

Since everyone is answering your questions as asked I'm going to take another tack. Do you really only want to have only one kind of beer on tap at a time? If so that's fine, but if you like variety why not stick to 5-10 gallon batch sizes and modify your kegerator to hold and dispense three 5-gallon cornies? I find it nice to have something pale and not too hoppy on tap for the wife and still have an IPA and a porter available for myself depending on my mood.

Click to expand...

To be honest, I have a thing for Marzen/Oktoberfest beers. I'd like to cook more at one time and have it on tap as often as possible. I would continue to bottle my ales. At least, that's the plan. Bottling that many beers is daunting, but as I said, I have friends who will work for beer.

Though, you are right that I will probably eventually want to expand to a keezer and have an ale or two on tap in addition to the Marzen. But first, the BREW!

Salmonhouse said:

Keggles are a cheap way to go, i get a little under 15 gallons in a batch. Dont be a wuss - just fill you kettle up near the rim and SLOWLY bring it to a boil. I have amazed the skeptics who say it will boil over - poppycock!!! It boils down a bit but i just drain a little more out of my mash tun and bam! I get maybe 14 gallons of wort, pitch a 1 gallon yeast starter and there ya go!!! I fill up 3 carboys no prob, sometimes i use 1 5gal and 2 6's. 40lbs of grain, a full HLT and whats this? Oh i still have sweet wort in the tun?? Better drain it out and get 5 gallon small beer....

But no its not enough! I'm currently upgrading to 100qt pots (25 gal):

http://www.tigerchef.com/thunder-group-slsps100-100-qt-stock.html

$191.78 ---> delivered!

It can be done, but only i can do it!! (just kidding, you could too if you apply yourself!)

Here is a small batch i did! ;p

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/member...make-ten-gallon-batches-when-you-can-make-13/

Click to expand...

Cheaper options here: http://www.instawares.com/100-quart.7973.5.5852.0.0.8.htm including the thunder group one although the update international pots are what morebeer and NB and Midwest use. Can't beat free shipping!

jcaudill said:

Cheaper options here: http://www.instawares.com/100-quart.7973.5.5852.0.0.8.htm including the thunder group one although the update international pots are what morebeer and NB and Midwest use. Can't beat free shipping!

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Sweet, just saved $20! I did buy one already and it was about $180, dont know why its up now on that site... I checked it out, its a nice pot with a sandwiched bottom and all the good stuff. Bought a false bottom from homebrewstuff.com:

http://www.homebrewstuff.com/servlet/the-144/Perforated-stainless-steel-false/Detail

It fits perfectly!

I'm building my Brutus hybrid all grain keggle system for $1800. Ordered most my parts from www.HomeBrewStuff.com / www.MidwestSupplies.com / www.modularhose.com / http://www.proflowdynamics.com ... Great stuff, price and service!

If you have the idea of buying some cheap plastic fermentation buckets make sure they are HDPE and not MDPE. The medium density is prone to scratches.

If you want to go the stainless conical route I'd go with http://conical-fermenter.com they have a 14.5 gal stainless conical with tri-clamps for $410 + shipping. They will custom build 20 - 55 gallon conical vessels as well. Great service!

Don't get me wrong Blichmann makes great products. I use several different parts from them. If you want a SS conical go with http://conical-fermenter.com .. You are mainly buying the name if you buy a 14.5 Blichmann conical with tri clamps ($410 vs "Blichmann 14.5 gal tri-clamps" for $829)

Hope it works out for you.. Cheers

You might consider having several smaller batches of beer rather than one large batch of beer. I bet you could fit at least 3 cornies in that kegerator. Add a couple of extra taps and you'd be all set.

itsme6582 said:

You might consider having several smaller batches of beer rather than one large batch of beer. I bet you could fit at least 3 cornies in that kegerator. Add a couple of extra taps and you'd be all set.

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I second this! My kegerator is up to 3 taps and a 4th soon to go in. I don't have enough friends to power through 10 gallon batches. Having 3 different beers and a soda water on tap is just perfect.

I would also start out with a smaller all grain BIAB approach just to get the basics down before dropping 2k. You probably even have everything from doing extract kits that you need. Just do 2-3 gallon batches...

I have a 1/2 barrel system, three keggles. I ferment in a Sanke, but that only yields 15+ gallons not 15.5. You can ferment a higher strength beer and cut with water like the big boys do and get your larger than 1/2 bbl system. I do this, but pre-fermentor. Post-fermentor is the normal way breweries do it to save money and maximize fermentor space. Here's a wiki article on it.

You can brew a 10 gallon batch and split it up to two carboys, you don't have to keg them both up at the same time. I have 3 carboys generally / batch and i keg each one up one at a time. It's kind of nice this way because by the time i get around to the 3rd carboy the beer has matured a bit and it's nice to see the subtle differences that aging makes on a beer. I've also pitched different yeast into each carboy to see how varying the type of yeast affects a beers outcome.

I personally advocate brewing as much beer / batch as possible because it takes me a full day with all grain regardless of whether i do a 5, 10, or 15 gallon batch. I might be able to fit in 2 brews a month so i want to make enough beer as i can each brew.

Salmonhouse said:

You can brew a 10 gallon batch and split it up to two carboys, you don't have to keg them both up at the same time. I have 3 carboys generally / batch and i keg each one up one at a time. It's kind of nice this way because by the time i get around to the 3rd carboy the beer has matured a bit and it's nice to see the subtle differences that aging makes on a beer. I've also pitched different yeast into each carboy to see how varying the type of yeast affects a beers outcome.

I personally advocate brewing as much beer / batch as possible because it takes me a full day with all grain regardless of whether i do a 5, 10, or 15 gallon batch. I might be able to fit in 2 brews a month so i want to make enough beer as i can each brew.

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I like the idea of splitting up batches to use different yeast and maybe one on fruit etc..

I want to know how people are consuming 20 gallons of beer a month!!!!

I have 2 friends that help me, and we are lucky to even get through 1 5gallon corny. IF that.

Maybe I should announce free beer in the paper so I can brew larger batches.

Well, when you drink 4-5 pints a night... 15 gallons doesn't take you through a month. Count in spillage here and there, and the fact you may not have quite 15 gallons after racking off the yeast.... You get the picture.

I'm currently building a 15gal brewing setup (final batch size) with 3x 25gal kettles. My ENTIRE SETUP including kegging equipment, mill, fermenter, chiller, stand, burners etc etc etc etc is JUST shy of $2000 right now.

Two things I read here that ring true - you'll need plenty of space for fermentation & temp control, and your costs will creep up compared to what you estimated.

I also lucked out on some good ass deals (i.e. a kegerator for $100 incl CO2) to help me stay under 2K, but I think anyone can get good luck and good deals if they are patient and vigilant enough. I'm still building it, and if more unforeseen costs pop up I will likely break the $2000 mark. But considering I think I'm building more of a complete system than most people, for the price it's still a good value.

edit: I will also be posting a build thread in the near future (I'm not taking time off building to upload pics and start a thread until it's done) and I have no problem disclosing my entire bill of materials including sources, prices, as many details as I can muster. PM me if you want a current copy of the BOM - some items will be missing/incorrect/vague.

WortMonger said:

Well, when you drink 4-5 pints a night... 15 gallons doesn't take you through a month. Count in spillage here and there, and the fact you may not have quite 15 gallons after racking off the yeast.... You get the picture.

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I don't think I could do enough cardio to even out 1000 calories of beer a day!

Holy hell ;P

I wish I could get away with that.

TheSlash said:

I like the idea of splitting up batches to use different yeast and maybe one on fruit etc..

I want to know how people are consuming 20 gallons of beer a month!!!!

I have 2 friends that help me, and we are lucky to even get through 1 5gallon corny. IF that.

Maybe I should announce free beer in the paper so I can brew larger batches.

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Lite Weight! lol

My quickest time to float a keg was 18 days. Keg of bluemoon if i remember correctly.. Hell of a time though!

is this a good deal to start with?

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/20-gallon-all-grain-commercial-quality-kettle-kit.html

$600 shipped, and the valves, false-bottom, and thermometer are included.

These are the Update International pots - I linked to them earlier in 100qt version but you can get the 80qt's for about 160 bucks per with free shipping from instawares. Note that kit only includes 2 pots. For 480 you could have 3 pots, then another 100 for the FB, valves are cheap (get them from bobby_m), then the only thing not accounted for is couplings which you'll probably want to get then have welded in. So for a few more bucks, you get an extra pot out of it and then you can setup the couplings however you want.

TheSlash
How much beer you drink is like Sex as long as it’s good, wholesome, doesn’t have a lot of off flavors, and is available when you want it its great. How much you actually drink is up to the individual. In both cases it’s preferred to have an excess and a variety on hand at all times.

WortMonger said:

Well, when you drink 4-5 pints a night... 15 gallons doesn't take you through a month. Count in spillage here and there, and the fact you may not have quite 15 gallons after racking off the yeast.... You get the picture.

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This is the exact reason I'm building a Brutus 10... started the welding yesterday, but that's a different story.