Scissors lift

Not sure whether to put this in DIY or here but:

Looking at a build and was thinking about boil kettle height. Gravity feed would be great but I have to recirculate for my HLT anyway (it's electric) which means I need a pump there to begin with.

However, I like the idea of eliminating the wort pump; seems like one less thing to clog with grain and hot break and whatnot. Problem is the heights don't work out cleanly if you want to gravity drain from the MLT into the BK, then through a chiller into a fermentor.

So what about this:

36" height for HLT and MLT
BK on a scissors lift, adjustable between 12 and 40"
Burner on the lift with a flexible gas line

BK gets lowered to 12" for lautering
BK is raised to 40" for boil and runoff into fermentor

Anyone else try anything like this?

how big are you batches?

Dogphish said:

how big are you batches?

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5-10 gallon (into a 13, soon to be 15 gallon BK)

i seriously hope it works, because i thanksgiving day building a 3 tier rack system that uses gravity instead of pumps, just like you are describing.

i built my rack out of unistrut beams. they bolt together. it is 15.5" x 15.5" x 76", with a broad base for stability. it will hold my 12" diameter pots, the burners, and a 5 gallon round cooler.

i have never seen a production system for sale like this, with the 3 big components right above each other. i hope there's not a reason for that. my design is very space efficient.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing in my (still under construction) brewhouse. Attach a ceiling hoist that I can use two swivel clips and attach to the keggle handles. A few pulls on the chain and up it goes.

amazon link

Not sure how I would feel about 10+ gallons of hot stuff on a wobbly scissor jack.

edit: I should add that I've got a strong exposed ceiling above me, if you're outside, well...

Where did you get the idea that a wort pump would clog?

I use a March 809 and NEVER had it clog. I have made some major hop bombs. And the end of the runoff, all I was pumping was hop sludge. The pump never stopped working.

Personally, I would be paranoid about physically moving a container of 10-15 gallons of boiling wort. It just seems like a spill waiting to happen.

Hey gunga, pretty sure someone here (Lil Sparkey?)
has an electric hoist in the garage for this.

beeton said:

Hey gunga, pretty sure someone here (Lil Sparkey?)
has an electric hoist in the garage for this.

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I've been looking on craigslist for a used electric one, they are too expensive new... haven't had any luck yet. Plus, the 10 seconds of pulling the chain through the pulley per batch is probably some of that 'exercise' stuff I keep hearing about.

I think a $140.00 pump and some hose is a simpler, less expensive and more efficient alternative.

But hey, it's your rig. Enjoy the build.

billvon said:

Been watching ebay to see if anything pops up.

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The local transmission shop has a bunch of the ones from Harbor Freight like this one for $159.

No financial interests in the above link.

I've been thinking about this exact same thing. (I'm a newb, still doing partial boils on the stove, but thinking really hard into the future to try to make sure equipment I buy is as compatible as possible with future plans)

Can't wait to see how it works out.