Show us your sculpture or brew rig

fur_252 said:

I finally got done with my new brew stand! Brewed with it this last weekend everything went really good besides the rookie mistake of a boil over.....just learning the ins and out of the stand!!

Click to expand...

First, congrats. It's a long process to build these suckers. Second, is your wife a scrap booker who made you pose for that picture? Mine will try to make a scrapbook page when I'm fine and ill be sure to mess up all the pictures.

"Linbach 13" flavored with "a drop" of grilled cheese sandwich.

Click to expand...

Love this image. I like your ideas to speed up the process. Especially liking a bypass on the HERMS outlet to allow heating sparge water while recirculating. Currently, I heat ~8 gallons of sparge water in the BK, pump it to the HLT after mashout and then start sparging. I can pretty readily add the bypass though, so I'll give that a shot, too. A "handicap" I do have is once I start brewing, friends seem to congregate and help themselves to my taps, and I just can't let a friend drink my beer alone, so yep, that does take some of the urgency out of the proceedings.

Bensiff said:

First, congrats. It's a long process to build these suckers. Second, is your wife a scrap booker who made you pose for that picture? Mine will try to make a scrapbook page when I'm fine and ill be sure to mess up all the pictures.

Click to expand...

Thanks...with any project I start I always think its going to be easy and not take that long. Well I shortly found out with this build! Always researching second guessing myself. It was a fun build...but I don't want to do it anytime soon....I just want to brew! With my wife she love to take pictures....she took the pic to show her cousin which gave her the idea to buy me a brew kit.

Damn, there are some sweet looking brew sculptures here! Mine is simple. Let gravity do the work.

Here is the brewery in it's steady state. I've put a lot of hardware on and off of this rig, but I like where it's at right now.

BrewDawg79 said:

Damn, there are some sweet looking brew sculptures here! Mine is simple. Let gravity do the work.

Click to expand...

EDIT: Childproofed.

BrewDawg79 said:

EDIT: Childproofed.

Click to expand...

Done that before.

15 gal full boil BIAB rig.

I have to keep things civilized since I live in an apartment..

Edit: My blog must be down. Here is a direct upload pic.

Didn't come through.

ODI3 said:

15 gal full boil BIAB rig.

.

Click to expand...

I like it! What kind of element are you running?

Its a 5000w nickel alloy element made by a company called Ogden(chromalox). I found it on ebay. It came with a thermostat housing (the orange box) which I adapted into plug housing. Also, the element has a SS head, so it doesnt rust like the camco elements.

The element is 18 inches long, 30w per square inch.

There are some more pics of it on my blog, Link is below in my signature.

Here is mine, it works pretty good.

The newest variant... Kent quick disconnects all around. Cherry popping on v2.0 is this Saturday

Mine. Not fancy but does the job!. Just have the kettle on top for pic. The HLT burner frame is moveable for storage on bottom shelf. Going to re-tweek it though.

My white trash. Get the job done rig

cfrazier77 said:

Here is mine, it works pretty good.
http://s212.photobucket.com/user/cfrazier77/media/20130916_141542_zps959338a3.jpg.html

Click to expand...

Erector set. Awesome

Just added some automation.

Very nice.

After a year ++, I can finally put my rig on this thread.

Copbrew133 said:

After a year ++, I can finally put my rig on this thread.

Click to expand...

Super nice, are the Ts on your outbound valves equipped with thermo couples? If so mind posting details on where you got them?

bd2xu said:

Super nice, are the Ts on your outbound valves equipped with thermo couples? If so mind posting details on where you got them?

Click to expand...

Www.brewershardware.com has thermowells of all lengths.

FredTheNuke said:

Www.brewershardware.com has thermowells of all lengths.

Click to expand...

Thanks and then just a standard stainless t?

Yes - mine uses a standard T with a 2 inch thermowell screwed into one and barbed fittings into the other 2 for my MLT return line. The MLT temp thermowell is a heat shielded 8 inch.

Ain't pretty, but it's mine! After 4 extract/partial batches and 9 months of BIAB, ready to roll on my inaugural 3-vessel system this afternoon.

brewers hardware is where I got my thermos as well, same setup.

breckenridge said:

Ain't pretty, but it's mine! After 4 extract/partial batches and 9 months of BIAB, ready to roll on my inaugural 3-vessel system this afternoon.

Click to expand...

Cunning reuse of the fryer basket there...

dyqik said:

Cunning reuse of the fryer basket there...

Click to expand...

Yeah, not going to keep it like that, though. After Today's brew, I have seen the light of having the HLT and MLT up and BK down. Trying to pump drain the MLT left 1.5 gallons behind (!) that I was able to easily get into my vorlauf pitcher by simply opening the drain.

From now on, pump between HLT and MLT (and BK -> chiller -> fermenter) only. Now I gotta build a stand to raise the BK high enough to prime the pump, but low enough to still be gravity fed.

That is to say, time to start sketching out my brew sculpture!

This is first setup for all grain want to add some automation. I'm running all electric which has been great sofar just hope there's not a power out halfway through the boil

buntung483 said:

This is first setup for all grain want to add some automation. I'm running all electric which has been great sofar just hope there's not a power out halfway through the boil

Click to expand...

Interesting keg conversions. Did you curl the tops after cutting them?

Just got into the hobby, decided to go big. Been working on this sculpture for a couple weeks. More upgrades to come.

That's a damn sexy rig. Nice work man

Thanks man, I've been busy going OCD on this project. Got a 10 gal system, 15 gallon conical in a temp controlled sub zero fridge with STC controller. Built an outdoor brewery. Credit card and obsession to brew, and drinking fine craft beer is a bad combo. Can't wait to brew though, thinking a Citra DIPA all grain with honey. Hmmm.

buntung483 said:

This is first setup for all grain want to add some automation. I'm running all electric which has been great sofar just hope there's not a power out halfway through the boil

Click to expand...

Is your sight glass teed into the kettle outler? If it is how well does it work when pumping? Does the SG drop lower than the kettle level?

MoJoe said:

Just got into the hobby, decided to go big. Been working on this sculpture for a couple weeks. More upgrades to come.

Click to expand...

Nice rig! Going to adjust that fuel/air mix?

mattd2 said:

Is your sight glass teed into the kettle outler? If it is how well does it work when pumping? Does the SG drop lower than the kettle level?

Click to expand...

Yeah it drops when pumping. I have since removed the sight glass and go by some marking on the inside of the kettle. As it seems to always be the same level and I don't get much loss to boil off which is good but when you need a longer boil to get and extra couple of points it takes a while.

I have done around 8 brews now and starting to be very familiar with my process

501irishred said:

Nice rig! Going to adjust that fuel/air mix?

Click to expand...

LOL - I thought the same thing. Not going to heat any kettles with that. Plus they'll be black in a matter of minutes.

JonW said:

LOL - I thought the same thing. Not going to heat any kettles with that. Plus they'll be black in a matter of minutes.

Click to expand...

Haha. Just testing out my plumbing and pressure. Had to do it. I'm going to boil a pot of water and fine tune it.

i've been brewing for a year and a half now and am at a loss when looking at all your setups.
i brew all grain 5 gallon batches. i have one floor burner and two pots. mash in one boil in the other.
i have no pumps or any stand and do not understand how it would really simplify the process.
i have two kegs i will convert into keggles soon, but my process will remain the same.
is there any kind of "brewstand for dummies" anywhere

Here is my 120v e-herms rig. It has aspects of every stage of my brewing evolution. One day maybe I'll move up to 220v and three matching kettles, but it works great for now

FredTheNuke said:

Yes - mine uses a standard T with a 2 inch thermowell screwed into one and barbed fittings into the other 2 for my MLT return line. The MLT temp thermowell is a heat shielded 8 inch.

Click to expand...

Looks like you have a lobster trying to get out of that middle kettle.