My brewery... the baby stages

HAIL ALL!! A few months ago I purchased a Vollrath 17 gallon stock pot with 2 1/2 inch threaded holes in it, one with a plug and one with a 1/2 inch ball valve. I also cut the top of a 15 gallon keg out(with a DREMMEL TOOL!!!! HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! took FOREVER!!!! It was like sawing through the greatest tree in the forest... WITH A HERRING!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!). I got a Turkey fryer, just the base, mind you. So, I'm getting ready to put it to use with a weldless false bottom kit and a Nice thermometer for the vollrath stock pot, and a weldless fitting and thermometer for the keggle. To move all the liquid I have THIS PUMPon the way!!! :rockin: Going to the hardware store tomorrow.... (Ace harware is a 10 min walk away........ It's dangerously close when I drive.....) I need another cajun cooker base eventually, and another keggle. As soon as I get my parts I can batch sparge!!! good enough for me for now. It will get me all grain brewing!!! WOOOOO HOOOO!!! going to get some copper tubing for an Immersion wort chiller. I want a CFC, but also want to ice bath the water coming in. I'll just use the immersoin wort chiller I build to do just that. I want to build my own CFC but THIS CFClooks pretty sweet! Not sure which way I'll go yet... Course, I do have a crazy work schedule... haha, i'll probly end up buying that one, LOL!! but TOMORROW I get my first 4 parts! pump, weldless false bottom, and the 2 thermometers!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!:rockin: :rockin: :rockin:

Sounds pretty nice, man. I can't wait to see your pics when you get it all put together. I'm absorbing ideas from every setup I see so I'll have a killer system one of these days.

I really need to upgrade my membership so I can post pics... Just got my weldless thermometer and weldless false bottom kit put in my keggle. I decided to put the thermometer just above and to the right of the ball valve really low in the keg so if I still want to do a 5 gallon batch the thermometer won't be 3 or 4 inches above the water line, hehehe..... oh yeah! I am so excited. Going to Lowes with my credit card to get 4 ball valves, high temp tubing, 10 hose barbs/whatever they're called with some hose clamps for each one, a propane tank and parts to make an immersion wort chiller. In months to come I will be buying another Single Burner Turkey Fryer by Bayou Classic and some kind of quick release for hoses. When I get another keg I will start working on a stand for it all. Scored a SS counter top w/ backsplash etc. Think I'll make a long cart and have that at one end for a workspace of sorts. I will some day have a HERMS system, but for now a RIMS system with a mash tun and a HLT doubling as the brew kettle Will work for me! Tonight I am doing a "dry run" with my equipment. hehe, dry run, yeah, with plenty of water... hahaha, dry run :rockin:

Wait until you see the price of copper for a wort chiller at Lowe's (or anywhere else)! It'll give you second thoughts about making one from scratch, unless you somehow get a really good deal. But, I gotta admit, shopping at the hardware store is a lot of fun!

beer4breakfast said:

Wait until you see the price of copper for a wort chiller at Lowe's (or anywhere else)! It'll give you second thoughts about making one from scratch, unless you somehow get a really good deal. But, I gotta admit, shopping at the hardware store is a lot of fun!

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You got that right.... 25 feet of 3/8 copper tube cost me over $30 at home depot a few weeks ago.

20' of 1/2" ID at lowes was $63..... SCREW THAT!!! I can get a pre made immersion wort chiller for $50 that has 50' of 3/8 ID at my LHBS!!! talk about an outrage... but I did manage to run up my lowes credit card... HAHAHAH!!!! WEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! that soldering stuff together with a torch and flux is some tough stuff... If I could see someone do it first my set up would look more professional.... oh well... hehehe, that's what they make sand paper, scotch brite dremmels and files for.

Say... what size drill bit should I use on my sparge arm/wort return arm in my mash tun. I have 1/2" ID copper pipe in the form of a lop sided "H". I have 1 pipe coming down from outside the tun which connects to a T which splits the wort flow in 2 directions. From those 2 directions 1 pipe each direction for 3 inches then another T. from that T back twards the inside of the keg a short section of pipe goes about 2 inches then I have a cap. Going the other way on the T 1 pipe on each side extends 8 inches then it's capped as well. I want to put one hole on the top of the manifold every 1/2" to one inch. The idea being when lowered to just above the waterline while recirculating the wort will flow very slowly so it does not disturb the grain bed, so slowly that it dosn't make much, if any, of a current. I havn't soldered this section together yet because I want to drill holes and deburr them very well before I do solder it all together. Any imput is appreciated. I do know that I want holes that wort can flow SLOWLY out of so a larger diameter I am thinking will do the trick. But what Diameter would be the best? :cross:

Just remember, when sweating copper, heat the female part of the joint, not the male piece, and NOT the solder itself. Clean everything with a light bit of sanding first. If you're gonna overdo it on anything, overdo the flux, it only takes a little solder if you do it right.

And take some pics! Sounds like you're having a blast with this. Good luck!

Thank you yuri, I do appreciate your advice. Gotta go sweat it out some more in the garage!! HHAHAHAH!!! I'm sorry, that pun had to be made! Sweat it out, hahaha! Most people don't laugh at my bad jokes, but that's alright. I crack myself up enough to make up for it!!!! On a serious note, thank you ever so kindly Yuri_Rage. I do appreciate advice given.

Oh, and I used 1/8" holes in my sparge arm - seems to work pretty well.

Thanks again, btw. Got my sparge arm all soldered together and it looks sweet. Of course some of the joints weren't pretty I started getting the hang of it twards the end. Drill press... that's the next tool I'm buying for sure! It was difficult to drill holes into a pipe EVENLY! really easy to drill holes, just not in a straight line... oh well... they're mostly straight. Hooked all the parts up to my pump and got to thinking. At first I was just going to spring for another Bayou Classic Single Burner Turkey Fryer base so I could have one under both my HLT/brew kettle and my Mash Tun but all I really need, and since I'm buying one friday, is an immersion wort chiller. It will serve 2 purposes. 1 to act as a heat transfer coil for mashing with the wort running inside it while the flame is on under the HLT/Brew Kettle (HERMS BABY!!! YEAH!!), and 2 to act as an immersion wort chiller when the boil is finished. I really can't wait to get a 3rd vessel, for my HLT, but I think this system I'm assembling in my garrage, as inefficient as it may or may not be, will do the trick for now. I'm trying to build everything right the first time so I don't have to build stuff more than once or spend more money. The trick is to get it to work now but integrate seamlessly into the 3 vessel brewery. I think I already have over $600 into it and I'm going to buy another keg, another weldless thermometer, cajun cooker stand... the list goes on. I can't wait to spring on the SWMBO that I need a nice grain mill. oh yeah, she's going to love that! HAHAH!! Then it'll be a nice big fat 50 lb bag of grain! oh yeah, need a place to store that grain too so I'll need.... and i'll need.... and I'll need...... and..... and...... Does it ever end? Anyhow, I'll stop jabbering now. Friday when I get my immersion wort chiller and parts to hook it up I'll be posting again. Till then, HAPPY BREWING!!!

pictures would be great!!!

Ok, you asked for it! And now you get it!!! (i hope this works)





AND....





This is what I've got together so far. No tubing is on the hose barbs yet, save the tubing from the pump to the in pipes and out to the T and the 2 ball valves. While I was cleaning up the sparge arm I put it together and it got stuck. So I got out the torch and melted a few parts off. In the morning I'm runnin to ACE and getting 2 more 90 Degree elbows, 6 inches of copper pipe and one male 1/2" threaded to 1/2" copper pipe fitting. The reason for the threaded male and female on top of the sparge arm is I can't get it into the mash tun unless I move the pipe on the outside 30 or so Degrees. My way around that was to make it moveable. When cleaning it I put it together WITHOUT teflon tape and it got stuck... REALLY stuck. Bad. Bent an elbow stuck. So I'm going to make the top one solid piece and have an elbow 90 Degrees down to a male threaded fitting then a female coupler to another male fitting another foot of pipe and another threaded fitting to accomodate another hose barb. The reason I want this pipe up and down on the outside is I'm sawing a 3" segment from the diptube off of the 15 gal keg which is the mashtun to affix it near the top. After fitting it through the diptube section I will use a small clamp just above the aforementioned diptube to clamp the pipe as means of holding the sparge arm in place. My apologies for long winded explainations... At least it makes sense to me? Anyhow, I can't wait to get my immersion wort chiller tomorrow... in about 8 or 9 hours!!!! That will work 2 purposes. Heat transfer, from mash tun to pump to Immersion Wort Chiller to Spare Arm - repeat. And when the wort is done boiling I'll just hook a hose up to it to cool the wort to pitching temps. I've figured out a way to have no tube running up to the top of my HLT/Boil Kettle. The T just after the out on my pump Will be hooked to the ball valve at 90 Degrees from the other ball valve on my Vollrath kettle. When I run sparge water from the HLT to the Mash Tun I crack open the ball valve that sticks straight out. The water then runs to one of the 2 hose barbs to the right of the pump, through the pump, then through the immersion wort chiller sparge arm and into the mash tun. after stirring the mash and vorlauf I crack open the Ball valve on the HLT/boil kettle and close the ball valve leading to the in on the pump making sure that the other 2 Ball valves on the out from the pump are closed the wort will go up the T and into the brew kettle without need of hanging a hose over the top of the kettle. When the Boil is done and the wort is cool I open up the out Ball valve on the Boil Kettle which leads to the in on the pump and I crack open the other ball valve on the out from the pump to which another length of tubing will fill my carboys up. Eventually That will be the in to the Counter Flow Wort Chiller and the poor over worked immersion wort chiller will only have one job. I CAN'T WAIT to test this baby out!!! I wonder if my efficency will be above 50% From what I've heard when people batch sparge they usually drain the mash tun into the brew kettle THEN pump in the sparge water, stirr, vorlauf and pump that into the brew kettle, sometimes twice. I will just pump sparge water in, stirr, vorlauf, drain. I plan on obtaining another Keg and burner (notice the bubble wrap still on this one!! HAHA!! I don't dare try it out.... FIRE FUN!! :rockin: ) but if efficiency is high enough on this system, SCREW IT! I'm going with 2 vessels. I have a feeling that it won't be 75% If I can get into the 60-70% range I'll be very happy. Wish me luck!

Well... Need to go buy another washer and nut to get the !@#$!@#$ weldless false bottom ball valve assembly to seal correctly. Every time I crank down on the washer with the bulkhead it twists the ball valve just enough to put uneven pressure on the rubber gasket causing it to slip. I have to torque the bulkhead down so hard just to get it to where it starts to tighten against the rubber gasket... I don't know. I think I'm just going to cut that bulkhead in half and have my buddy weld it onto my keggle. 1/2 for the ball valve, 1/2 for the thermometer. He dosn't have much time on his hands and it might be months before he can get to it but if I can't get it to seal with a few more parts I'm S.O.L.... Anyhow, barring that nusience, Might anyone know what efficiency my set up might get. Just looking for a ballpark estimate, somewhere 5% either way-ish. I've got it in my head I might get between 55% and 65%... Is that dreaming? I know there's only one way to tell... Brew with it... but so I can do math on ingredients might anyone have an educated guess on efficency so I know how much to buy for my first batch to get semi-close to my target gravity.

A few tips on sweating pipe in case it will help anyone. You must use emory cloth or fine sandpaper to take all oxydation off the pipe and use a proper pipe wire brush for inside the fittings. It should be super shiny and clean, no fingerprints afterwards! Wipe off the solder with a rag to clean it also.

Add a liberal amount of paste flux. Apply heat to both the fitting and pipe alternating between, but spend more time on the fitting because the solder will be drawn into the heat. Remove the heat and touch the solder to the joint, if it melts, just run it around the joint once and stop, you don't need to see a huge bead of solder on the joint, it does the work in the fine joint between the fitting and pipe, not on the outside. If you get a nasty looking bead, wipe it with a wet cloth quickly. Hope this helps.

I don't think you will want to pump really hot liquid through the hose you have shown. I don't think it is up to the 200 deg. range so pumping the boiling or recently boiled wort through it may be a problem. It should work just fine for mash temps but the high temp silicone is what you want for the hot stuff.
Hang in there with your project, it looks like you are doing great. Wish I was building mine too!
Darrell

Well, at about 170 degrees F the tubing gets reallly soft. Had to tighten the hose clamps down a bunch to stop the leaking. Its going right now outside. Tossed in the grain at 160 F and expected the temp in the mash tun to drop to 144 but it went down to 140. Been stuck there for a bit too... =( I've got my HLT at 160 and holding. Time to get back outside and see if the temp has risen. :rockin: WHEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! I'll post the recepie after I'm done boiling. My hop schedule depends on my efficency so I'm not too sure what the schedule will be yet. Gotta run!

WOOHOO!! 154 and holding!!!:rockin:

Where does one get a Vollrath 17 gallon kettle ? I'd love to have a kettle with that volume.

Thanks.

brewman ! said:

Where does one get a Vollrath 17 gallon kettle ? I'd love to have a kettle with that volume.

Thanks.

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I got it through a friend. Someone was selling off all their AG stuff. It was all that was left... I was bummed that I couldn't score any of their other stuff but excited about that!
Batch sparging as we speak. First runnings were nice and thick. Wierd, got about 3 gallons of runoff. *shrug* Then I put 4 more gallons in and got a total of 7. I wanted 12 total so in went 7 more. It's recirculating right now. Came in to warm up a bit. It's chilly outside. Need to get some SS braid for my brew kettle soon. Diddn't get any yet so I have to use a hop bag so I don't jam up the pump with hops.. HAHAHA!! off to go goof some more. Can't wait to build a cart and get a system down. Been playing with this stuff since 5pm. Just looked at the clock and it's midnight. LOL! course, 3 hours of that were running cleaning stuff through the system and making last min checks... heheh, oh well. I'll post more later!

WOOOOHOOOO!!!! 80% efficency!!!!!!!!!!!:rockin: :rockin: :rockin: :rockin: I have a boil gravity of 1.069 and an original gravity of 1.081!!!!! ok, here's my recepie...

21 lbs 2-row pale
2 lbs vienna
2 lbs munich
2 lbs crystal 40
1 lbs crystal 80

4oz glacier 6.7%
2oz chinook 12.7%
2oz centennial 11%
2oz Tettnanger 4.5%
2oz northern brewer 9.3%

Rogue Pacman Wyeast.

took half of all the amounts and boiled for 60 min and added the other half at 5 min. It is still boiling right now... Can't wait till this 10 gallon batch is done!!!!!! I got the Tettnanger and Northern Brewer hops in case I had a terrible efficenty. I was going to sparge 10 more gallons and boil it down to a 5 gallon batch and use those, but with 80% efficenty I figured what the hell! I'm using them ALL!!! HAHAHAHAHAH!!!! ok, time to go sanitize some carboys and blow off tubes. I'll post one more time after I take an actual original gravity reading after boiling my stuff up! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

1.073 was my OG... guess I did some math wrong for adjusting for temps. That's quite alright though. That will still be a 6.8% beer with 81 ibu's... bit higher than I wanted for this beer. hehe, oh well. Arrogant Bastard is 7.2% and what, 125 ibu's? something crazy like that. It'll be fine. Overall I am pleased with the way my brewery, "The Brother Yarr", worked. I need to flip my pump over for it is VERY annoying getting bubbles out of it. If there are big air bubbles I lose all power until I rock the pump up and down, backwards and forwards. Then it's a little powerhouse. Cleanup was a bit of a pain. I really need to build a cart. On the cart I need my mash tun to dump as well. All in due time. It was an 11 hour adventure today that I wouldn't trade for anything. I did a dry run on my system, ran some cleaner through it. Clocked the cool down time, rinsed it all out and started again. I'm sure next time it'll only be a 5 or 6 hour venture from brewday start to finishing packing it all in. With a brewcart and all copper tubing and a few strategicaly placed ball locks clean up would take 30 min tops, not an hour. Rolling a cart outside instead of grabbing cinder blocks and positioning the !@#$ SS countertop on them and moving "The Brother Yarr" out would save at least another 30 min. The addition of another burner and keggle would make life easier as well, but for now I have an all grain HERMS system with one hell of a pump, false bottom, 2 NICE thermometers and a very nice brew kettle for ~$750.00 ish. another 3 or 4 hundred and it'll be complete. Anyhow, I am off to bed. It's time to crash. Goodnight everyone. Happy brewing and WOOOOHOOOOO!!!! 70% efficency AG BREWERY!!!!!!:rockin: :rockin:

I got it through a friend. Someone was selling off all their AG stuff. It was all that was left...

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Are you sure its 17 gallons ? I searched and I can't find that particular pot.

brewman ! said:

Are you sure its 17 gallons ? I searched and I can't find that particular pot.

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Well, I took the dimensions and got the cubic inches then did the math to convert to gallons. Maybe not. Sometimes my math isn't the greatest. I do know it's at least 15 and has 2 1/2 inch ID pipe fittings welded into the side. =) I also know I can't wait to get either a false bottom for it or some SS braids so I don't have to use the hop bag anymore. hehehe