3 tier stand build/pics

I really like the idea of all gravity systems, but i dont like how tall they are. I also dont want to use a pump. I found my inspiration from Bernie Brewer rig
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/show-us-your-sculpture-brew-rig-46578/index10.html
also got some ideas from https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/brew-tower-built-exercise-equip-62617/
I'm going to use a winch to lift my BK high enough to gravity drain the wort into a car boy.

I'm getting closer to being done. Its been a 3 week project.


the BK will sit on this.


I tried the get the BK as low to the ground as possible. It held 15gl of water weight with no issues.


my hobart 140 mig welder is a little beast


This is the stand that the HLT is going to sit on. I'm going to attach a pully under it and it is going to pull up my BK.

I should be finished with it by the end of the week. I'm going to hard plum Gas lines the the burners. Will give updates as i make progress.

Super silly question. How will you winch the BK station up if you hard plumb the burners. Perhaps the burner doesn't move with it?

Bobby_M said:

Super silly question. How will you winch the BK station up if you hard plumb the burners. Perhaps the burner doesn't move with it?

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the hard pluming will run vertical from the bk to the HLT. Coming off of the hard pluming is a 2ft rubber propane line that attaches to the burner that will move with it.

Edit: after thinking about your question a bit more..... I think I misused the word "hard pluming". i was Talking about propane lines, not liquid lines....

So just a update. I have welded my HLT stand. The problem that I am running into is There is no real good place to mount my winch without the cable getting in the way of the BK...I think that i am going to half to mount it on my HLT and add additional support. Another problem that is being made clear to me is that i only really save about 12in of height going with this design. I am going to add caster(3inches)... with the casters that will put the bottom of my BK at about 10inches off the ground.
I did design it that if i wanted to make my Mashtun as a keggle there is room to do it. I'll post picks when i get the winch mounted and the propane lines in order.

I really think you could raise your BK up about 6-8 inches maybe. Will you ever full the BK completely from you cooler? For that fact, you could raise the cooler too and prolly gain enough height to feed from your BK to your Ferm. Just a thought...

I wish I had even this much room in my garage for a setup like this. Looks good!

pinback said:

I really think you could raise your BK up about 6-8 inches maybe. Will you ever full the BK completely from you cooler? For that fact, you could raise the cooler too and prolly gain enough height to feed from your BK to your Ferm. Just a thought...

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there is a ton of room to make improvement to the design/setup...yes i would probably not max out the hight of my HLT into mt MT....

Naptown said:

I wish I had even this much room in my garage for a setup like this. Looks good!

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I wished the same thing.... i was renting a 2 bdr apartment and went into this mess!! i have never parked my truck in this garage!!!

Well at least you'll get a fast siphon! It looks great bro.

If you build Z brackets on the ends of your support legs for your casters.

Then you can adjust the height increase to be whatever you want. It would allow you to use as big a caster wheel as you want and only increase the overall height of your brewstand by 1/4 to 1/2 inch or whatever you felt you needed for ground clearance.

On another note a friend of mine has an adjustable height system where the HLT and BK are tied together and both slide up and down to allow for easier water additions to the HLT and to get the winch cable above the entire assembly instead of in the way of the BK.

Well I am Like 95% done with the structural building. I just a few thinks left to test (gas leaks, add hooks, ext.) . I think its over engineered for what it does. There is just over 22inch of "lift" so i will have no problem with filling 6.5 gallon carboys. I think the HLT is just low enough i can reach up and dump water into it with out the use of a stool. I'm going to do a few brews with it, then give it a paint this summer. I'm holding off on the paint for right now because i might do some more welding/modifying, its also still kinda cold here.

yjfun said:

If you build Z brackets on the ends of your support legs for your casters.

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I am going to mod up some Z brackets for the casters, that was a really good idea.






This is at its full lifting height. 22inch from ground!


This is with the lifting bar pulled back. This is what i will do when i'm boiling so the bar is not in the way. I car move it forward after the wort is cool and its time to fill up the fermenters.




how i mounted the gas lines.

just finished my first batch with my new setup. Everything went pretty well. My mashtun spigot is right in the middle, so i had to turn the cooler a little sideways to be able to drain. It was the fastest brew day i have had. From setup to clean up it took me just under 5 hours. I think i shaved about 30-40 min off my time, mostly because i could heat the first runnings while i was batch sparging. I might have to try fly sparging!!! The lift/winch worked perfectly, it seem very stable and shouldn't have a hard time lifting 10gallons. My efficiency was a little low at 66%, but I know it was because of the poor crush i got from my LHBS.

I dig it man! I just built my three tier and I wish I had incorporated a pulley so mine wasn't 7 ft tall, but hey, it makes beer!

thommcc said:

I dig it man! I just built my three tier and I wish I had incorporated a pulley so mine wasn't 7 ft tall, but hey, it makes beer!

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thanks man, I really like the idea of gravity fed systems. I didn't want mine too tall.....beer+ladders=falls on my a$$

I've made something similar to what you have here. I still need to plumb it bit its really nice! Any comments are appreciated!