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Maiden voyage last weekend...

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Wheezer and EightBall you had me tripping out...

I saw Wheezers photos then Eightballs and said WTF its the same EXACT thing, but they are slightly different I guess.

are those brew stands sold as a "KIT" stand, pots, pumps, control panel?

or is that the elusive Brutus20 I keep hearing about but have yet to see.


-=Jason=-
 
Mine was a rig from scratch too. I took the Brutus 10 concept and changed some dimensions to fit Boilermakers. Awesome that she has a twin!!
 
Had an old entertainment center sitting in my garage so I took off the sides and one of the shelves. The setup is a Brutus 20 inspired no sparge system. Just waiting on a couple more cam lock fittings before it's ready to rock. I also secured the burner legs to the stand with u bolts for safety.

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Hey puckard penguin, you have a build write up? I love the gas valves and those burners look like something i just have to do with my next stand. Nice build, man! Did you do the fabrication?

Im curious if that's a stainless square inset placed into a regular metal frame? My current stand has a problem keeping paint in that vicinity, and it makes me worry about rust. You have any problems like that?
 
Hey puckard penguin, you have a build write up? I love the gas valves and those burners look like something i just have to do with my next stand. Nice build, man! Did you do the fabrication?

Im curious if that's a stainless square inset placed into a regular metal frame? My current stand has a problem keeping paint in that vicinity, and it makes me worry about rust. You have any problems like that?

House,

I really don't have a step-by-step however I did model my build after Jlandin's

He has a great breakdown of parts and descriptions:D

I wish I could claim the fabrication, but sadly it is not my work. I found a local welder here in jax and had him do it off of Jlandins design.

I have made some modifications to it to better suite my needs but other than that it is essentially the same.

You are correct the inserts are SS and are just sitting up off the frame with some SS nuts and bolts to minimize metal to metal contact limiting heat txfr.

As for the heat and paint issue, I painted my stand with 2000K high temp header paint and cured it best I could by turning on the burners with the kegs in place and checking the temp with an laser temp gun (cheap from Harbor Freight). However I have found after 10 or so full 10 gal brews on it the header paint just wont cut it. You would have to have it professionally powder-coated or build the top portion out of SS.

I do get rust but for now I will just deal with it. Sometime in the future I might get it re done with the correct paint/powder-coat.

The valve setup was pretty easy following Jlandin's post's, but if you have any questions Ill do my best to get you the answer or at least point you in the right directon.:)

Thanks for the props!!
:mug:

Nick
 
As for the heat and paint issue, I painted my stand with 2000K high temp header paint and cured it best I could by turning on the burners with the kegs in place and checking the temp with an laser temp gun (cheap from Harbor Freight). However I have found after 10 or so full 10 gal brews on it the header paint just wont cut it. You would have to have it professionally powder-coated or build the top portion out of SS.

I do get rust but for now I will just deal with it. Sometime in the future I might get it re done with the correct paint/powder-coat.


Nick

This is disappointing about the header paint not holding up. Is the typical black BBQ paint supposed to hold up any better?
 
You know I am not really sure, I would have to "assume" that under ideal conditions, preparation, proper curing, and dry times both paints would hold up just fine. In fact there are many on HBT who have great results with grill paint and header paint. For me personally I wanted a brewing rig and wasn't too worried on how it looked:D
 
You know I am not really sure, I would have to "assume" that under ideal conditions, preparation, proper curing, and dry times both paints would hold up just fine. In fact there are many on HBT who have great results with grill paint and header paint. For me personally I wanted a brewing rig and wasn't too worried on how it looked:D

I think this is the main point that people should focus on. If you want to the stand to look good, you will have to spend a little extra money to powder coat it or build out of Stainless. But the High temp paint has worked for alot of brewers on here and others it hasnt. My guess is there is a curing issue, but there is nothing you can really do about that.

If you are concerned with the look of the stand, the spend the extra $$$. But for most it is ultimately about functionality. I plan to paint with the 2000* block paint and if it holds up great! If not, I'll reapply whenever I feel like it needs it, or when I start to see any rust. But I am in the function over appearance class
 
Thanks for the input on paint. I am just wondering if I am better off using header paint or BBQ paint. Don't have the $ for SS or powder coat along with SS heat shield like diatonic.
 
If I had to make a command decision I would say go with the paint that has the highest temp rating. Then do your best to cure it as directed on the can. :)

Hope this helps
 
Almost done with mine. Waiting for a high pressure regulator and another BG-14 burner from agrisupply. This is with primer on it, I am painting it this weekend.
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Test Fire
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Well it took me about a week, but I finally got through this entire thread.

Wow, my one keggle and smaller sparge water kettle look inadequate now ha.

Oh well, I always con friends into coming help so they can do some lifting for me ha.

Started all grain a few months ago and haven't looked back, so if SWMBO continues her supportive stance about my brewing (she makes wine so we see eye to eye on the booze), I should have some sort of rig to post by the end of the summer.
 
Wheezer and EightBall you had me tripping out...

I saw Wheezers photos then Eightballs and said WTF its the same EXACT thing, but they are slightly different I guess.

are those brew stands sold as a "KIT" stand, pots, pumps, control panel?

or is that the elusive Brutus20 I keep hearing about but have yet to see.


-=Jason=-

I thought they were the same to but one has blue casters.
 
Excuse me... I believe I ordered the LARGE thermometers! :mug:

So I have no idea about HERMS systems, why are there so many ball valves?
I think I've seen people use quite a bit of bulkheads but I haven't ever seen that many ball valves.

Haha! They are big, & easy to read after drinking a 6 pack, from 10 feet away :)

As for all the ball valves, you'd probably have to check the build thread (link in my sig) to get the full picture of my insanity. My HLT & BK both have whirlpool returns, so a valve for out & in on each. The herms coil on the HTL has a ball valve, and the MLT has a ball valve on the output. That doesn't seem like so many :)
 
Well I can't say my stand was a complete DIY, since I ordered it from Marcus @PinupBrewery, but here it is. Pretty simple, but it does everything I need it to do.

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Found a guy on CL that welds up firewood stands. I sent him some plans I found online and he fabricated it for me. Now mind you, the stand itself was $80. The burners and plumbing were extra. All said, minus the kettles, the stand was under $300. Already brewed 2 batches this month on it. An amber ale and a honey wheat.
 
Please forgive the novice:

Why are the burners at different depths?

Burners were at different depths because the ends were bumping into each other on the middle and right burner(in the pic) and we were rushing to get the burners in for a test fire after a day of building them.

I do have mine staggered however and keep the HLT burner as high as it can go, the MLT burner lowest so it doesn't scorch the wort at the bottom of the MLT keggle, and the Boil keggle burner a little lower than the HLT so I don't get scorching in the boil kettle.
 
Wow...I finally got through all 123 pages of this thread and have taken too much inspiration from it, lol. It has caused my to re-design my rig about 100 times which has severely slowed my construction haha.
Thanks everyone for contributing to the community!
 
Option said:
Wow...I finally got through all 123 pages of this thread and have taken too much inspiration from it, lol. It has caused my to re-design my rig about 100 times which has severely slowed my construction haha.
Thanks everyone for contributing to the community!

I hear you there. This thread is definitely responsible for me splurging on my brew rig! However, since putting it all together, I've recently been venturing BIAB, just so I dont have to lug out the whole thing! Nothing like a rocking brew rig tho!
 
This is my first post on this forum and would like to thank all who post here and share their time and knowledge. This post is awesome! I dont think you can find a bigger compilation of rig pics in one place. I've been working on this for some time now. Its finnaly come to its 2.0 version and has an integrated Arduino Microcontroller recording 11 temps into an access database. Arduinos are fun!
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I have more Pics if anyone wants to see them.

That is the whackiest Tech/Ghetto set-up I've seen to date. Does it make ice cream as well? I applaud your creativity, sweet system.
 
Layne said:
Just realized I never posted mine here.

Brew day.

I love how compact and clean that is! Awesome rig. Really considering some nice stainless pots myself. The kegs are just so bulky and heavy!
 
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