My Brew House Build

My wife and I moved this summer, and out new house has this wonderful shed/workshop that is BEGGING to become a brewery.



This wil be the future brew room after cleaning up, pouring a slab, putting in a floor drain, and running some 220V outlets for a possible eHERMS system. I could also get a natural gas line in here but that is still a debating point. The wall on the right will be opened up into this area:



for a 12'x12' cool room (~60-65F) with a 4'x8' fridge, grain closet, and storage room for equipment. I am still working on details for the layout of the cool room, but will post plans as I sort more out.

The cool room will be my first order of busisness, and I hope to start construction within the month. Preliminary plans include framing a raised 2x6floor on the slab that I can insulate with some R-19 fiberglass, and doing similar with 2x6 walls and sheathing with 3/4" Rmax and OSB externaly. My big question is if I need to raise the floor any for ventilation so moisure does not build up between the fiberglass and the slab. As I get more thrown together on sketch-up, I will post for review and comments.

so someone built that building around the trees.. funny
looks like a good project, you could start a business in there

Lot's of great potential!

Can't wait to see the progress.

So sweet. The built in trees give great character to the place. You could name it "treehouse brewery" , or uhhh, something like that! I can definitely see that being a sweet place once you get it fixed up. Good luck!

Wow, what a great building!

Nicely done!
i'm jelly

Awesome place to start your brewery; I look forward to seeing how the build progresses.

Other than storing things back there, I had not spent much time in this shed. Last night I started looking at pulling the scafolding down in my build area and it looks like most of the buildings wiring runs through the supports. Also some of the uprights may be structural... Well better to find out now before I had final plans or bought supplies! I'm still going forth, but may have to re-think my coolroom size, location, and layout....

Due to an automotive incident that tapped into my project savings, I had to put plans on standby for this month, but hope to get rolling in March. So far this is my basic floor plan:


I am trying to work out a way to run this off of one AC unit since its a smallish area that will have the tar insulated out of it. The AC will be in the "fridge" area. What I am trying to figure out is how to cool without opening up a ton of air circulation that will make temps fluctuate wildly. The options I have considered are:

Bathroom fan: Something with a lowish cfm rating between the "fridge" and "fermentation room" pros- cheap and easy, wire through a relay to a household thermostat to kick on and off. cons - air flow circulation between the two rooms. To get air movement for effective cooling I will an input and a return fan and that means air leakage and a bigger AC unit to maintain steady temps. This will probably be fine for a smallish area like I am designing, but expert advice from those more familiar with HVAC applications is needed.

Liquid coolant: I know some have done this in smaller cabinets; place a tub of propylene glycol on the cold side with a submersible pump, run the lines through the wall to a radiator/fan setup for cooling. Pros: maintain an airtight cool side Cons: more moving parts, possible expense, may not achieve high enough heat transfer to maintain steady temps.


If anyone has advice or has solved this problem already, please let me know!

are you going to build a bar at all?

no bar on this cool room. Eventualy when I get the brewery finished out I am going to move my 3 tap kegerator out to the barn for "work days" and put a keezer in the house

anymore updates on this badboy?

Hit some snags when I started trying to get some layouts on working out the wiring, and those shelves in the picture are structural, so I am back to the drawing board on plans. I am also toying with using another barn instead, or leaving the brew house in one, fridge in the other. The project is still a go, but on a temporary hiatus. sorry for the wait...

Awesome. I'm an Aggie, so you are basically living my dream of getting to return to College Station, get a little land, and build a brew barn.

What do you do in CS?

I call myself a "Half-Ass Aggie" I graduated from Tarleton State... It is part of the A&M system.
KORA has a new DJ, Adam Drake. He came from Fort Worth from the station I listen to. Looks like you have lots of work ahead of you. Be creative and get that brewhouse up and running! Best of luck.

For anyone who even remembers this thread, life took a left turn for me but this project should be getting back on track. I am getting back into research and planning and will post here with updates as the project gets rolling.

Yay, look forward to updates!

Have dug up the water and septic lines running underneath the barn and getting the plumbing started now for the brew area. I will have a faucet set for clean up, hard plumbed auto-fill for brew stand and drainage for CFC, as well as a floor drain for just hosing everything down at the end of the day.

My plan right now is to build a ~9'x11' raised floor and put it at a 1 to 1 1/2 deg incline towards a trench drain like this: tuf-tite.

I should be getting lumber to frame it up this weekend, then subfloor it and probably just water seal it with Thompson at first. Eventually I am looking at sealing it with marine grade epoxy SM 3000 and building some cabinets with hardie board. Walls will be OSB at first then covered with milkboard for waterproofing and ease of cleanup.

For electrical I will be putting in some GFI 110V outlets for general use, but will be running cable for 60A service to a control panel. I will probably do a wall mount control panel with most of the conduit running in the walls to try and keep wire clutter to a minimum, with outlets/hookups behind the brewstand. I will post a link HERE to another thread on the brewstand when I get that one started, right now I am still drawing plumbing and electrical schematics for review, but baseline I am putting together a brewtroller controlled 3 vessel, 2 5500W eHERMS with possible direct fire NG on MLT for strike water.

The cool room will be in a barn next to the brew house, and that project will be started in in a month or two since I will need some storage area for produce when crops start making. I tried working without it last year and ended up having a house full of produce before it got picked up... I am interested in the brewtroller since I think I can control both my brewstand on brewday, but can also use it long term to control the cool room.

Rough ideas on the cool room are a bit different from what I originally planed and still very rough, but it will be ~8"x12" that the majority will be maintained at ~55deg, and a small refrigerated room. I am considering glycol cooling/warming and a couple of conicals for most brews, and possibly plumb the brewstand into them so I don't have to move them back and forth. Right now still working on the number of valves I can control and if I can plug some CO2 into the system to flush long lengths of line.

This is still a step-by-step long term project, but significant progress should be made here shortly.

Busy day today but still a long way to go. Pulled up all the flag stones and removed a lot of the gravel to fill a low spot in another barn. I started digging trenches for plumbing by hand when a friend called me up to see what I was doing this weekend... Well a few minutes of conversation and convincing later I get him to bring me a present...



This sped things up GREATLY and i managed to get a decent dent done in the plumbing. I finished the fresh water lines and will get the water filter on the brew stand. Septic lines will be tomorrow.



The tie in for septic is in a really tricky location, wedged among other plumbing in such a convoluted fashion I am convinced that whoever laid it out was either drunk or half a bevel off of plumb. Judging by some of my closest neighbors, probably both... Some of the fittings were glued, and some were not, so going in and trying to do a little removal back to the T fitting that the sink is attached to resulted in this:



You may be able to slightly make it out, but the fitting is cracked back beyond the hub. Since it is no pressure and wash water should be the worst waste it sees at this end in a dirt floor, a slight leak i can live with. So rather than remove 3 more fittings back since they are all butted and in VERY unavailable locations, I will be attempting some creative JB welding tomorrow and see what happens. I will post with results.

I do apologize for picture rotation, they were oriented fine when I uploaded them half an hour ago. Drink barleywine until they look straight

Pictures to follow when I have a little more progress. I have most of the plumbing done, but septic is giving me a little trouble getting everything sloped for drainage since I have a big tree root right in my path. The tree may look cool growing through the barn, but it may turn into a PITA eventually. I am considering raising the floor another inch or so to help, so I may frame up before I finish the septic line. I did run a 3" conduit between the two barns for future lines (CFC to fermenter or anything else I decide to run inside. I may never use it, but it is there.)

For walls I am debating options and would love some input on these from those with more construction experience. Product recommendations would be great as well:
1) original plan - OSB and glue plastic panel over the top like this seal bottom with floor epoxy... $$$$

2) OSB with an epoxy paint directly applied

3) Sheetrock with epoxy paint directly applied.

I am looking more onto the epoxy paints and the specs look good, but I don't know the exact product that would fit my application or if I need a sturdy surface to apply to like OSP, or if it would seal completely enough for sheetrock. Sheetrock would certainly be cheaper, but I'll spend a little extra within reason for longevity.

I am also looking onto sealing the floor with epoxy, but the marine stuff looks like you would need to do massive prep work and adds up fast. I have found a couple of sources that use the rustoleum or sherwin-williams garage floor coating on trailer floors and the like, but some say to prime it first with a latex primer while others say do not. I would love some input on this if anyone has experience.

I also know that some epoxies are self leveling and great for floors and some are better for walls so wont sag. I would like something I could spray down with a hose and not worry too much about it, but the more I look at marine stuff, while cool, may be a bit more heavy duty than I really need. Suggestions and product recommendations are welcome and encouraged.

Tonight my goal will be finish leveling out my foundation piers, then start laying my outer trusses so I can begin getting everything fully lined out and leveled.

Sweet!

Dr_Deathweed said:

half a bevel off of plumb.

Click to expand...

I love it. Going to have to incorporate this into my daily speech. Good luck with the build, been looking forward to you picking this back up!

subbed!!!!

You may be able to find less expensive sources for plastic sheets. Check with independent lumber yards and farm supply places. I've seen them about 1/2 the price Lowes shows.

Progress to date. Ran my conduit, but getting it under the wall trusses on the barns proved to be a real PITA. After about half an hour chipping away with garden hand tools I found an old garden claw in the back of the barn and gave it a shot:



Using it like an auger worked like a charm.



With that finished I turned back to that broken septic fitting. First I glued a short piece of slicing into place and stuck the fragments back where they belong. After letting it cure I mixed up a goodly amount of JB weld and smeared liberally.



I did a second coat of JB weld after looking at that photo since my camera could get where my eyes could not. I achieved a good layer back beyond where I had seen any cracks before. After checking again, I used a piece of plastic smeared with JB weld and wrapped it like a bandaid around the whole structure and resumed my plumbing.



With that part done I got to work on framing my floor and getting my foundation piers in place. Next step is subflooring.



I am still working out my wall/floor coating issue. I am leaning towards the epoxy paints since everywhere I have looked around here has been on the $30+ side for FRP sheets. I am concerned that the flex and swell over time of the wood will effect longevity, but if worse comes to worse the epoxy would be a cheaper trial (~$200) to do both floor and walls, and I can possibly get FRP panels in bulk when I do my coolroom if it looks like the paint is not holding up. The Benjamim Moore people were very helpful and reccomended thier P42 product for both applications while Sherwinn Williams said, "You would be better off coating everything in 6" of concrete." Well duh... Any input is welcome and apprecieated. Until then enjoy the pics!

Edit: I do not know why my pics look straight when I upload them, then rotate when I post....

Been pretty busy but have been building an hour here, an hour there... The floor and drain are in and I have been working on the wiring.


While those are not technically the correct NEMA outlets for 2 hots and ground, but are the 2 hots + neutral dryer outlet, these were certainly easier to find. I just wired ground to neutral and will label the outlets appropriately on the VERY off chance anyone decides to use them for anything but brewing... Plus, these outlets are only hot when my control panel will turn them on.

I also installed dedicated outlets for pumps the will turn on/off at the control panel as well, each outlet individualy:


I drilled the blank and installed the M8 female plug for my temp probes as well


now on to kettles

subscribing. looking sweet so far

Super jelly!

I have made a lot of progress, walls are up, floor is down, stand is welded, working on plumbing and valves for the stand currently. I have brewed a couple test batches that are fermenting away nicely. I am hoping to brew again this weekend if I can get my valvles set up and configured. I have pictures for update, and will post them as soon as able.

Here's a quick picture of my work. I didn't get to brew like I planned since I am working out some issues with plumbing layouts on the stand. I will try to get some more pictures up soon and get some evidence that my ugly work will still work!

Plumbing sucks... And I have not even begun the copper yet. The valves I got from tf valves were supposed to be full port L 3 ways, but ended up being full port through with a groove L. They will work for anything post pump, but I dont want that restriction pre pump so I may need to order a couple replacements. Still, progress is progress.