Show Me Your Wood Brew Sculpture/Rig

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Here's ours. We call it "the mammoth." It's about ten feet long, with the ladder. Why so long? Because SCREW YOU, that's why.

20120719-IMG_7553.jpg
 
LandoLincoln: I'm jealous of your banjo burner you have under your boil kettle! Mine barely barely fits a keg, that one looks much more friendly. I have like 1/2 inch to spare on each leg where the keg rests.
 
LandoLincoln: I'm jealous of your banjo burner you have under your boil kettle! Mine barely barely fits a keg, that one looks much more friendly. I have like 1/2 inch to spare on each leg where the keg rests.

That's the Bayou Classic KAB6. Yes, it fits a keggle very nicely. The burner we have up top (Bayou Classic SP10) had to have extra metal welded onto the top of it to fit our keggle HLT safely.

Unfortunately, the KAB6's 10" burner underneath really outputs a lot of heat to the sides of the keggle, which will fry your valve and sight glass easily if you don't have some serious heat shielding going on. I've used that burner for about five brews now and I'm still having some problems nailing down the proper heat setting on it so I can reliably hit my target volumes. You turn that thing on full blast and you'll have a rolling boil like you've never seen before.

My brew partner and I are thinking of just getting a 25 gallon pot which should alleviate the heat-to-the-sides issue quite a bit. And we'll be able to brew more beer at once, of course.
 
Just used my new woody for the first time yesterday, its not quite done as I'm waiting to add the blichmann tower of power to automate the mash temp if it ever gets done. And have to wire the pumps to a more permanent solution as well.
2012-03-14_16-27-05_523.jpg

What type of surface do you have on top of your sculpture (under your burners)? And how is it working?
 
Here is mine. I am going to add a filter and water directly to the HLT. I presently fill the HLT a gallon at a time. Everything is at a height that I don't have to move anything heavy except the spent grains.

IMG_5399-1.jpg


IMG_5398.jpg

Any plans or dimensions for this? Nice job....Only thing I would add are some wheels in case you need to move it away from a wall.

No dimensions, I started from the floor and decided how high I needed to have the boil kettle to drain into the fermenter. I then figured the height for the mash tun and finally the HLT. I have since reversed everything so that the boil kettle is toward the sink. No need for wheels since I will not be moving it. It is about a foot away from the wall and I don't need to move it for space. The only thing I use the porch for is brewing.

Just 2x4's and plywood painted with hi gloss paint.
 
Here is my brew kit. I need to modify the wind shroud a bit before it goes up in flames, but so far so good. I enjoy the RIMs system a lot. I feed the kit with a MM3 2.0

Pulled down 3 ribbons at the state fair this year brew'n on it :)

image-2912970628.jpg
 
Here is my brew kit. I need to modify the wind shroud a bit before it goes up in flames, but so far so good. I enjoy the RIMs system a lot. I feed the kit with a MM3 2.0

Pulled down 3 ribbons at the state fair this year brew'n on it :)

View attachment 72715


Are my eyes deceiving me or are those burner stands resting on only the narrow end (the "2") of a 2x4?
 
I built this wooden brew stand a few weeks ago.
IMG_1546.jpg
I made it out of 2x4's for the base and uprights and 2x6's for the top. I have the HLT and MT on 1/2 particle board and the burner on cement board. I don't need to heat water in the HLT because I have an on-demand water heater that puts out 175F water from a faucet in the garage.

IMG_1547.jpg
The burner is a 32jet natural gas wok burner. I've capped half of them to reduce the amount of flame coming out from under the keggle during WOT.

IMG_1548.jpg
I used aluminum flashing to protect the wood from burning. I've done a few test runs and so far no fires. I also cleaned up the look and tried to avoid cuts by putting metal duct tape on the flashing's sharp edges.

Since these pictures I've switched out the barb fittings for camlocks and installed two of the lightobject pumps.

Sadly I have not yet brewed with it. Right after I finished this I installed underground sprinkling and then had to travel out of town for work. Maybe in early September I'll get a chance.
 
Kmcogar said:
I like this a lot! Good work man. I might have to steal that design

Thanks, the bolts come out at the joints for easy breakdown and stow away. Limited garage space made this a must. But I pretty pulled the inspiration directly from the TopTier. Now I plan to mount my water filter and away I go!
 
MillCreekBrewing said:
Ours is about 90% complete, just need to do some more bracing and add the casters to the bottom! Will post finished product tomorrow.

Looks nice and solid. Will it have wheels?
 
... might cut down the 2nd level a little kinda close to my sofit. Anyway stores my equipment well when not being used.

Very nice work, looks as though you have about 18" extra height...6" b/w the HLT and MLT, and 12" b/w the MLT and BK. Storage space is plus, but extra height while brewing can be a hassle...trade-offs I guess.

Looks good either way.
 
Thank you to everyone who has posted pics of their "woodie" given me some really good ideas to build one of my own
 
Just built mine today. Most of my inspiration came from harten74's rig in this thread. I still need to add casters.

I don't use a separate burner for a lauter tun, so I didn't feel the need to make the third tier permanently fixed. Plus, I was able to make it a little smaller for storage.

The angled braces for the third tier simply pull out from some dowels allowing the whole tier to collapse.

image-2301420264.jpg


image-2759812687.jpg


image-1118491857.jpg
 
Might as well as show off mine:

The diamond plate looks like overkill.

I LIKE overkill! :D

What kind of insulation are you using on your MLT? Are you losing any heat leaving the top part exposed like that?

Though, with a RIMS, I guess that doesn't matter as much...
 
The diamond plate looks like overkill.

I LIKE overkill! :D

What kind of insulation are you using on your MLT? Are you losing any heat leaving the top part exposed like that?

Though, with a RIMS, I guess that doesn't matter as much...
The diamond plate is aluminum. I grounded it, thus my kettles are grounded. The top of the MT has a lid and I'm sure it loses heat but the dual RIMS takes care of that. I got the insulation from McMaster Carr. I think it's closed cell type.
 
Feel like this is a dumb question, but in all of these 3 tier systems I see that rely on gravity and no pump, how do you get the water into the HLT on top? Garden hose seems obvious but the water out of my garden hose tastes funny (tap water itself is fine). Or do you use buckets and climb the ladder?
 
bd2xu said:
Feel like this is a dumb question, but in all of these 3 tier systems I see that rely on gravity and no pump, how do you get the water into the HLT on top? Garden hose seems obvious but the water out of my garden hose tastes funny (tap water itself is fine). Or do you use buckets and climb the ladder?

Potable water hose and then allot use carbon filters too!
 
I use a blue hose, approved for drinking water.

Do not drink (or get brew water) from regular garden hoses. Some of them are made with lead, so better safe than sorry. Plus, the water tastes bad.
 
Here's my 3 tier setup. $40 for casters, shelving and sealer. The rest was scrap wood.

how's this rig working? i like the idea of a tower but the metal ones are so $$$ and i don't have welding capability so was thinking of building a tower solution with wood
 
After thinking on this for a little while, I finally put together an L-shaped design using scrap wood

scrap-56746.jpg


and about $30 worth of plywood & casters. Getting the frame square was the hardest part

framing-56747.jpg


But after about 6 hours last weekend I finally got this together:

the-stand-56748.jpg


Still needs paint, gas line plumbing and a pump, but it's functional.
 
Back
Top