Is brewing in the basement unsafe?

I was reading over in the electric brewing area and kept seeing reference to Being able to brew in the basement now that they have gone electric.

I want to set my brew area up in the basement of my new-to-me house and go natural gas. What is the difference if you have a vent. Is there a proper/improper way to vent if brewing in the basement? Thank ahead of time for any advice.

I would never brew with gas (propane or natural) in my basement even with a burner that was specifically designed for this (the way natural gas stovetops/ovens are, not the way you mod a propane burner by drilling the hole bigger).

If you decide to go that way, no matter how much you vent it, always keep a CO detector nearby. Oh and please wait for your wife and kids to leave the house for the day.

If you choose to go natural gas, just think like a restaurant (but you do not have to spend like one). Fireproof surfaces, venting and make-up air (fresh air from outside) that equals the volume you are exhausting. For a small batch brwery this does not have to be massive or that expensive.

A commercial quality in-line vent fan with a custom made hood (you can build it) takes care of the venting and a second penetration of AT LEAST the same size for the make-up air...unless you go with powered fresh air.

Keep in mind that the amount of BTU's you can pump into your wort with household natural gas are somewhat limited compared to propane or 240V electricity (this is more because it is more efficient not because you can pump out more). For 5-10 gallon batches this is not an issue.

Onkel_Udo said:

If you choose to go natural gas, just think like a restaurant (but you do not have to spend like one). Fireproof surfaces, venting and make-up air (fresh air from outside) that equals the volume you are exhausting. For a small batch brwery this does not have to be massive or that expensive.

A commercial quality in-line vent fan with a custom made hood (you can build it) takes care of the venting and a second penetration of AT LEAST the same size for the make-up air...unless you go with powered fresh air.

Keep in mind that the amount of BTU's you can pump into your wort with household natural gas are somewhat limited compared to propane or 240V electricity (this is more because it is more efficient not because you can pump out more). For 5-10 gallon batches this is not an issue.

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I was thinking of running a Blichmann Floor Burner w/ Natural Gas conversion for 10 gal. batches. I have a window right above where I was planning the brew pot and had though a homemade range hood and a squirrel cage blower from the old furnace would rid the basement of steam and c02 fairly well. I have a window to use as a direct fresh air source 26' away on the other side of the room and an indirect one from the open stairwell leading upstairs that is 10' away.

I'm not opposed to 240v for my energy source, I just can't justify the expense of automation.

Robar said:

I'm not opposed to 240v for my energy source, I just can't justify the expense of automation.

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Electric can be done on a budget and you can certainly go electric without sophisticated automation. A lot of the electric systems showcased here are high end.

For 10 gallon batches a 4500w element simply run at 100% will yield an acceptable boil. While not particularly fashionable, the ghetto approach to electric brewing is to just size the element to the boil size and run it at full power.

I would seriously look at electric a bit more before attempting a natural gas rig in your basement.

I think anything you are going to set up inside needs to be done with some caution and common sense. I have brewed in my basement with natural gas for about 14 years or so (and absolutely love it).

That said - I have a walkout basement which allows for a full size window as well as a vent fan in the wall. I have a Carbon Monoxide detector in the room - it has never gone off. It sounds like you are working with less ventilation than I am, so, you likely have more significant obstacles to overcome. If you do not feel that you can overcome those, I would look more toward electric at that point.

I'm also with using electric. Add a 5500w element and get a controller from still dragon. I purchased mine while in college...not that expensive.

Carbon monoxide poisoning sucks. Trust me.

As an alternative...and seriously ghetto...what do you have for dedicated circuits in the basement? Three 1500 watt elements will cost you say $75 in parts. Add a good hole saw are you ate at $100. that is for your boiling keg.

Now, want a BIAB system? Want a single tier RIMS? Want an old-school three tier? ALL REQUIRE ventilation for steam but no make-up air.

Three tier requires at least on 1500 watt element for the HLT.

So worst case scenario for no automation 10 gal brewing your need $130 in elements and install gear. 4 switches and appropriate box. Some 12 gauge wire. Three 12 gauge extension cords. Finally, appropriate ventilation. Pump and plumbing if you want single tier.

Hey,I want say thanks again for all the feedback. I was thinking a lot about 3 tier system and my 1st vessel for heating water being electric any way. I'm pretty comfortable with basic electrical work both 120 & 240 so no real problem there. The only thing that makes me leery of an electric brew kettle is I've never used one before. It was always on top of the stove or outside with my turkey fryer's burner.

The general consensus seems to be a NO so I'll take that advice and look further into the electric brewery. Thanks!

Honestly, make a cheap eHLT like I did. Unless you are doing a HERMs or RIMS or some other acronym, you Hot liquor tank's purpose it to heat water 165 F give or take....once for your strike water and once for your sparge water. Mine is a 48 q cooler with a 2000W element. It heats 60 F water to about 170 in an hour'ish. LEts you get your feet wet with electric.

As I have mentioned before on other threads, if I were to do it all again...I would be an eBIAB guy. One vessel and a giant mesh bag. You could go all gran with the 3 -1550W elements, 3 light switches and three extension cords.

Onkel_Udo said:

[...]LEts you get your feet wet with electric.[...]

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Onkel_Udo said:

As I have mentioned before on other threads, if I were to do it all again...I would be an eBIAB guy. One vessel and a giant mesh bag. You could go all gran with the 3 -1550W elements, 3 light switches and three extension cords.

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I've been pretty busy this week, but have had the chance to check into the eBIAB setup and think it looks pretty slick. One keggle to RULE them all! Sorry couldn't help myself...

Less clutter and certainly less clean up. The way I'd like to set up my keggle I'd be into it for less than 500 bucks, but it isn't a problem to keep doing it the old way until I had all components purchased and had the thing built. Besides a couple outdoor brews will give me the chance to break a little more ice the neighbors in my new neighborhood.

Thanks for pointing me in this direction I think it will be a way better setup in the end.

I would go 20 gallon pot for 10 gal BIAB. A simple set up would be 4500 w element on 220v, or two 2000w on 110.

Without a controller you would heat full volume strike water to 160 plus minus, add grain and bag, stir well and wrap the kettle with a few blankets.

After the mash, remove bag and boil.

If you want to automate with pump and controller, that is a wonderful option as well. But you could get brewing bare bones and add as you go.

wilserbrewer said:

I would go 20 gallon pot for 10 gal BIAB. A simple set up would be 4500 w element on 220v, or two 2000w on 110.

Without a controller you would heat full volume strike water to 160 plus minus, add grain and bag, stir well and wrap the kettle with a few blankets.

After the mash, remove bag and boil.

If you want to automate with pump and controller, that is a wonderful option as well. But you could get brewing bare bones and add as you go.

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The only issue I see with the first statement is that in a lot of parts of the country, finding two 20 amp circuits can be a challenge as the code that pretty much dictated that outlets need to be 20 amp was not adopted until the last 10 years or so (15 amp for dedicate circuits is still allowed like the dedicated dishwasher and garbage disposal circuits) most of your older homes (I talking mid-90's and older) have the vast majority of the outlets on 14 gauge and 15 amp. Your jurisdiction or builder may be different.

I would absolutely put some durable insulation on the kettle for any electric setup. The bubble wrap stuff has gotten so reasonable now it is virtually free if you consider the time savings. This is particularly true if you do single infusion mashes because after you hit your strike temp...you have nothing to do for an hour if you well insulated enough.

Due to the extra heat and poisonous gases that must be removed, the ventilation requirements are considerably higher with a gas brewery as compared to electric.

John Blichmann wrote an article for the November 2012 issue of BYO magazine that summarized ventilation requirements as follows:

- Electric based brewery: Divide the element size (in watts) by 17.6 to obtain the required CFM (cubic feet per minute). In my case I use a 5500W element in our boil kettle. 5500 / 17.6 = 312 CFM. I therefore require a fan that can move a minimum of 312 CFM in order to ventilate our electric brewery properly. Fans this size are readily available and reasonably inexpensive.

- Gas based brewery: Divide the burner’s BTU/hour rating by 30. Because of the inefficiencies, a 80,000 BTU burner produces approximately the same amount of heat in the kettle as a 5500W element. 80,000 / 30 = 2666 CFM. We would therefore require a fan that can move 2666 CFM in order to ventilate a gas setup properly. A fan this size is not readily available. A commercial restaurant exhaust fan is likely required.

Because of the enormous ventilation requirements of a gas based brewery (12.5 times higher than an equivalent electric setup), an indoor gas brewery is not easily achievable. It requires a massive amount of air evacuation as well as an equally substantial make-up air system. Large fans with ducting larger than 16" in diameter may be required, making safe indoor gas brewing very expensive. It is not uncommon for the ventilation and make-up air system of a gas based indoor brewery to cost more than the brewing setup itself.

Good luck!

Kal

kal said:

Large fans with ducting larger than 16" in diameter may be required, making safe indoor gas brewing very expensive.
Kal

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If that were really the case, no restaurant would ever be built. The average 8' grill plus 6 burner stove plus 4 burner griddle (with double full sheet ovens) plus two fryers uses a 16-24" duct for exhaust and usually equal for powered make-up air. If I were to estimate since we are talking about 11 "bays" at about 30K a bay plus two ovens at 30K each and two fryers a 60K each we are at give or take 510K btu's. A busy restaurant at dinner will run those 5 hours wide open (all of them). Part of the reason for duct sizing is the assumption of a 10% loss of diameter in the first three feet due to the grease build-up that makes it past the filters due to poor maint and stupidity.

On your WORST day with a three-burner 300K BTU per burner set-up you MIGHT hit a combine BTU's of 510K. But first I challenge you be able to pump out 510K BTU's from residential natural gas, Most boilers that require a 1" line for SFH max out at 320K BTU's and they will NEVER see that. Those boilers are power vented with an 6" vent.

Fear mongering is something that bothers me be it glass carboys, infections in plastic fermenters or CO poisoning.

So back to the OP...I changed my mind...I want you to build a three tier all natural gas 15 gal keggle set-up. I want you run all three banjo burners full bore with your hand-drilled orifices but I want you to do it will an 800 CFM commercial grade blower into a 6" exhaust with a 6" 800 CFM make-up air. When your CO monitor goes off (assuming you do all this with less an 180 degrees of bend in each line) I will give the money to upgrade to 16" exhaust and make-up air.

Whew...I feel better.

Preface this again with your own situation may vary - and error on the side of caution......


But, I have never understood why 4 or even 6 natural gas burners going on your stove, in your kitchen, is ok........ but one natural gas burner to brew beer is not ok. Or, why is it ok to brew beer on your natural gas stove in your kitchen, but not ok to brew beer on your natural gas burner in your basement.......

No one ever says ..... "oh my god - you brewed beer on your kitchen stove using two burners at the same time - what about carbon monoxide?!"

Again - you gotta look at your own situation - if I was in an enclosed basement with no real windows - I would not do what I did. My brewroom has 2-3-4X the ventilation that my kitchen has... and, as I said, 14 years without setting off the CO detector (and, yes, I check to make sure it works). Propane is another story, and I would never use it inside, no matter what ventilation I had.

Braufessor said:

But, I have never understood why 4 or even 6 natural gas burners going on your stove, in your kitchen, is ok........ but one natural gas burner to brew beer is not ok.

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Mostly it is just fear but it also has to do with capacity. Your stove puts out 3-15K btu's per burner...most are right around 7K. So 6 burners would be about 42K BTU's and one good banjo burner on natural gas can pump out quite a bit more that the combination of 6 stove burners.

Propane is used in residences all over the world including the US. It is rural home fuel of choice in most of the US. All that plumbing runs indoors too so the actual danger, when handled correctly, is only a tiny bit higher than natural gas due to the heavier than air nature.

Onkel_Udo said:

Mostly it is just fear but it also has to do with capacity. Your stove puts out 3-15K btu's per burner...most are right around 7K. So 6 burners would be about 42K BTU's and one good banjo burner on natural gas can pump out quite a bit more that the combination of 6 stove burners.

Propane is used in residences all over the world including the US. It is rural home fuel of choice in most of the US. All that plumbing runs indoors too so the actual danger, when handled correctly, is only a tiny bit higher than natural gas due to the heavier than air nature.

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Yes indeed. I think the danger lies in modding a propane burner for natural gas. Again, to link with the OP, I can't say for the Blichmann's conversion thingy, but I would definitely err on the side of caution if considering drilling a Banjo Burner "until the flame is blue". A wee bit too empirical for a father of three.

The last 7 posts have been quite educational. I appreciate the education as I always like to be informed. I think in the long run that the electric brewery may be perfect for me. Other than a nice temp controller and a pump I don't need anything else in the way of automation. The word "Need" may be traded for the word "Want" at the reader's discretion.

I can still brew on the stove top or outside until I get the electric setup completed. The only reason I wanted to setup a brewery in the basement in the first place is that it's closer to where I'm going to build the bar.

Thanks again guys.

Robar said:

The only reason I wanted to setup a brewery in the basement in the first place is that it's closer to where I'm going to build the bar.

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Keeping everything more or less in one spot is always a good idea to simplify. The worst is having to lug wort up or down the stairs 5 gallons at a time - that was never something I enjoyed.

As to what size ducting you'd need to properly vent 80 - 160K BTU (1-2 burners) of a basement gas brewery, I'll have to defer this to John Blichmann as he's the original writer of the article in the November 2012 issue of BYO magazine.

Kal

I think the focus on LP/Nat Gas is on symptoms rather than cause. Well adjusted gas burners do not require high volume ventilation, but do require some ventilation. Poorly wired 240 VAC is a killer, but correctly wired and insulated is safe. Build and adjust correctly and either is safe as can reasonably be expected. If massive ventilation is necessary, then your burners are NOT being operated correctly.

If anyone has been brewing with gas inside (or has any other gas appliance and cares about their safety) for a few years they really should check on the age of their CO detectors. The elements in most CO monitors use a sensor with an evaporating electrolyte that is only functional for 5-7 years. Look for a manufacturing date on the sticker adjacent to the serial number which usually will be either on the back or behind the battery.