Your Brewstand Retrospectives?

I'm planning out a brewstand build and would like to know how people have felt about the dimensions or materials of their builds.

My plans so far include:
-Needs to be able to be disassembled (Not easily necessarily but can't be welded) and will probably be bolted together.
-Planning on using angle iron instead of square tubing. I think this will be sufficient support, yet make it lighter and more accessible for bolting.
-I won't immediately be putting any automation other than a pump, but I would like to leave the option open in the future
-The stand will hold keggles
-I have a hunch cutting angle iron is going to be a pain, so I would like to minimize the cuts.

Most of my inspiration is drawn from bobby_m's overbrook brewery. I would try to clone it, but I couldn't find dimensions anywhere.

So given all that, what dimensions have you found to be the best? The original Brutus build is 28" tall. Has someone found this too tall, or short? To be economical with my cuts, would it be possible to get a 6' length of angle iron then cut it into a 48" and 24", making the stand just 24" tall or would that be too low?

Also, any advice or hindsight (even if entirely unrelated) about building your stand would be greatly appreciated.

I recently built my brew stand and used some metal crates that included some angle as well as some square tubing. Cutting it was not difficult. I used an angle grinder I bought at Harbor Freight for $20 and I bought a metal blade for my compound miter saw (chop saw). I will take some pics when I get home and post them. My brother-in-law is a welder so he helped me. Furthermore, I put casters (also from Harbor Freight) on it so I could wheel it in and out of the garage. I think that bolting it would have been just as easy. All that to say that cutting the iron is pretty straight forward. One tip - my chop saw has a plastic insert on the deck that I melted before I thought to remove it....

I was going to get the cheap angle grinder from HF today actually to see if I could manage the cuts. Its good to hear they aren't that hard - I also think I can do it after watching the ease in this video

Did you find the grinder to be sufficient, or did you end up using the chop saw more often? The reason I ask is that I guess I could rent one for a few hours to make all the cuts (although it would still be more expensive than that 20$ grinder).

If I were to start over from scratch, I would go modular. IOW, each module would be a stand alone unit. One each for the HLT, MT & burner. This would make for flexible and compact storage. A separate stand for a control panel if needed. A pump (could be on a portable stand). You could also build them so that they could be bolted together if desired. My setup has sort of evolved into a modular arrangement. Keep in mind that the outdoor propane turky fryer type cookers are also stands that can hold a kettle. Two or three of those and you have a modular rig. You could elevate one just a bit so that it could hold the HLT and drain it by gravity for the sparge. Otherwise you would probably want to use two pumps with everything more or less at the same height.

sarsnik said:

I was going to get the cheap angle grinder from HF today actually to see if I could manage the cuts. Its good to hear they aren't that hard - I also think I can do it after watching the ease in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ms495wcnF8

Did you find the grinder to be sufficient, or did you end up using the chop saw more often? The reason I ask is that I guess I could rent one for a few hours to make all the cuts (although it would still be more expensive than that 20$ grinder).

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The chop saw will give you truer cuts. IOW, it's difficult to cut accurately with a hand held angle grinder. It's a breeze to do so with a chop saw. Both tools are handy to have around for all kinds of projects.

agree with the chop saw. I had my metal pre-cut which was great but i ended up trimming my inserts with my angle grinder and it was a bit of a pain and took alot longer than I think a chop saw would have taken. However, time wasn't an issue so it all worked out.

Yeah modularity might be a good idea. I might have to bring this stand cross country in the future, so it might be even easier to move that way in addition be being able to be bolted.

I was considering getting a saw, but I figured even rough cuts by hand could be leveled and smoothed with a grinding pad. I also though cutting angle iron instead of the tubing would probably be neater given there are only two edges to line up.

Getting a saw isn't out of the question though. It is worth buying one over renting one? I've always been more into hand tools, so most of this is new to me. How large of a saw - amps, rpm, blade diameter - would be practical? I see harbor freight has a large one for $99, and the reviews seem ok.

HF also has a 6" chop saw for only $35...check out the video. W/ a decent blade I think this would cut plenty fast and be accepatable for "occasional / light" use.

http://www.harborfreight.com/power-tools/cut-off-saws/6-inch-cut-off-saw-41453.html

Catt22 said:

If I were to start over from scratch, I would go modular. IOW, each module would be a stand alone unit. One each for the HLT, MT & burner. This would make for flexible and compact storage. A separate stand for a control panel if needed. A pump (could be on a portable stand). You could also build them so that they could be bolted together if desired. My setup has sort of evolved into a modular arrangement. Keep in mind that the outdoor propane turky fryer type cookers are also stands that can hold a kettle. Two or three of those and you have a modular rig. You could elevate one just a bit so that it could hold the HLT and drain it by gravity for the sparge. Otherwise you would probably want to use two pumps with everything more or less at the same height.

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That's what I'm doing. In the process of welding each of the 3 stands now. Just making 3 stand alone stands that can be bolted together on brew day then broken down after I'm done.

wilserbrewer said:

HF also has a 6" chop saw for only $35...check out the video. W/ a decent blade I think this would cut plenty fast and be accepatable for "occasional / light" use.

http://www.harborfreight.com/power-tools/cut-off-saws/6-inch-cut-off-saw-41453.html

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Ah nice find. With the 20% coupon (TOOL20) its pretty cheap...can you do a will call to one of their stores? I have one near my work I think, so I might as well save on shipping.

I agree with Catt22. The angle grinder works and its a great excuse to get another tool but th chop saw was easier and makes MUCH better cuts. Since I already had the chop saw the $10+/- metal blade was a no brainer. However, a steel brush on the angle grinder helped immensly in the cleanup.

Finally, remember that "When you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

By the way, I have my stand in the google sketchup model database if you want it.

1. Go with square tubing instead of angle. Not only is it more surfaces to weld but all the crappy welds will be on the outside and easy to grind smooth. Square tubing will also cut more squarely in a the chop saw whether you are mitering or cross cutting.

2. I don't think single tiers make a lot of sense anymore. HLT up high, mash and BK down low. No reason to force a second pump when the HLT is basically hands off. Every time I hook up a set of silicone hoses to pump sparge water, I think to myself, this could have been a 2 foot piece of tubing hanging off the HLT up high instead.

3. Build it only as strong and big as necessary. Ever see how thin the metal is on driveway car ramps? I just layed under my truck doing the exhaust when I glanced over and thought, am I crazy? It's only .063" thick. I'd use 1x1x.063". Once you have the basic shape welded together you can decide if you need any center supports or crossbracing.

This is what I made http://www.aleiens.com/profiles/blogs/wallace-the-weldless-brew but I did what bobby said and made a two tier with the HLT up top its pretty sweet just waiting on the burners and will post pics later.

Thanks for the advice. I would like to use square tubing, but I'm not sure how I would bolt it together (since I didn't want to weld so that it could be disassembled). Also, the angle iron is presumably lighter. If anyone has any ideas though, I would definitely consider it.

As far as making it 2 tier, do you find it enough of a pain to use the pump to outweigh the benefit of a more compact single tier system?

If you could send me the plans that would be great...maybe through a PM? Or I can send you my email

Just drill holes in the square tubing and install bolts/nuts to hold it together. That way you can break it down easily if necessary.

You can also cut more accurately and with ease with a reciprocating saw. It vibrates too much at full run but doesn't cut very well at lower speed settings....so I simply set it to max and hit the button to get it going, letting go and coming down as it slows down. Made for some very accurate and yet easy cuts once I got the hang of it. Sometimes had a sharp spike at the end though which needed grinding with angle grinder.

MaltnHops said:

Just drill holes in the square tubing and install bolts/nuts to hold it together. That way you can break it down easily if necessary.

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But it costs more, is more work...and he wants it lighter.

Stankonia said:

That's what I'm doing. In the process of welding each of the 3 stands now. Just making 3 stand alone stands that can be bolted together on brew day then broken down after I'm done.

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I don't know if you ever do any group brewing or not, but the modular arrangement makes transporting everything much easier.

MaltnHops said:

Just drill holes in the square tubing and install bolts/nuts to hold it together. That way you can break it down easily if necessary.

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Well that is what I would do. The problem is that I don't know how they would actually 'lay' together to bolt them. The only way I can think of is to bolt two sides of the square tubing which I think would be inelegant. Angle iron will sit inside another peice of iron so I would bolt it together much like sam did with his 'wallace' stand. (I don't want to use perforated angle iron like he did though, I like the look of solid steel)




I was also thinking I could do a hybrid approach, with both square and angle. The angle iron could be bolted on the outside of of the square. I could use angle iron for the 'connections' between any peices of square tubing.

That saw looks great. However it is only good up to 1" stock. Think you can squeeze 1.5" out of it?

Angle is lighter given the same wall thickness but you can use square stock of half the wall thickness for the same overall weight and even more strength. In other words, I'm pretty sure 1" x 1" x .063" is stronger than 1" x 1" x .125" angle. Any engineering guys know for sure? Maybe I'm putting too much faith in my intuition but I'd wager money on it.

I agree that square isn't the easiest to use in a bolt-together design but frankly, I'd cut all the pieces, mark them up and bring them to a welder. You will probably pay the one hour rate (about $60-75) and it will be done faster than you could drill all the bolt holes.

Yes, running a second pump is more trouble than having the HLT up 20" higher. If you're that starved for headroom, you wouldn't be able to stand in the brewing area. If you built it right, you may even be able to fit the HLT underneath the upper tier for storage.

By the way, that mini chop saw can handle slightly larger stock but you'll have to do half the cut, flip the work over and finish the cut. The most efficient and less workshop fouling method of cutting stock is a bandsaw or power hack saw. HF also has a portable version here http://www.harborfreight.com/portable-variable-speed-bandsaw-47840.html

I went with a 2 tier so that I only needed 1 pump. However, i put the mash tun on the higher level and the boil kettle and the MLT on the lower level - I am a little paranoid about infection so I only wanted water going through the pump. I will post a pic of my brewstand however the camera is on the fritz so it may be a little bit before I can post. For me, I think that while a modular setup would be nice, it also means that I have to move that many more things on brew day which I am usually beat by the end of the brew. That being said, my current project is digging out the crawlspace for a dedicated brewery so I don't have to move anything and don't have to waste a bunch of time looking for all of the components that I may have put in one of 5 or 6 places. Also, if you do bolt it together then that solves your portability concern on the few times you want to move your brewery significant distances (rather than just into and out of your garage). Just my perspective.

The square tubing has better longitudinal compression resistance than the angle iron, no question. Frankly though, you would be hardpressed to make a steel stand that couldn't support brewing weights. Even if 3 keggles were filled, at 8 lbs a gallon + extra equipment weight you would be looking to support ~400 pounds. This is also spread across the entire length of the stand, not in a single area. A stand without additional cross supports would only need it's legs to support a quarter of that weight. In practice you probably use 50-70% of that weight anyways. Also, the casters will definitely give out before the steel.

That being said, I'm making plenty of supports. I bought an angle grinder yesterday since I'm planning on cutting keggles. I'll see if I can get through 1/8" angle and 1/16" square this afternoon with it. If not, I I'll need to get a different tool. Would that mini chop saw get through 2" tubing, or is that pushing it? I'm not completely adverse to getting something that will do the job right, like the hacksaw, but I also don't want to get something I won't need to use again (I don't cut stock often if you can tell )

JeffBham said:

I went with a 2 tier so that I only needed 1 pump. However, i put the mash tun on the higher level and the boil kettle and the MLT on the lower level - I am a little paranoid about infection so I only wanted water going through the pump. I will post a pic of my brewstand however the camera is on the fritz so it may be a little bit before I can post. For me, I think that while a modular setup would be nice, it also means that I have to move that many more things on brew day which I am usually beat by the end of the brew. That being said, my current project is digging out the crawlspace for a dedicated brewery so I don't have to move anything and don't have to waste a bunch of time looking for all of the components that I may have put in one of 5 or 6 places. Also, if you do bolt it together then that solves your portability concern on the few times you want to move your brewery significant distances (rather than just into and out of your garage). Just my perspective.

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Yeah I think I have to bolt as least some parts of it together. I could always get the top and middle portions, or the sides of the frame welded and then bolt on the legs or lengths. I think I'm also going to make it a two tier - I'm starting with one pump, and if I decide later that space it too constraining, I could always unbolt the seconds tier.

Just a thought too,

for awhile I was using my miter box stand I got a Home depot for about 6months. I got it on sale for $79, and used it to install base boards.

It held my eHLT and Mash tun for 10 gallon batches fine and i gravity fed to my kettle. One thing that was really nice about it was it collapsed down when not in use and could be stored hanging on the wall. It could be modified very easily to house two pumps and a burners and make it in to a three tear system.

JeffBham said:

I went with a 2 tier so that I only needed 1 pump. However, i put the mash tun on the higher level and the boil kettle and the MLT on the lower level - I am a little paranoid about infection so I only wanted water going through the pump. I will post a pic of my brewstand however the camera is on the fritz so it may be a little bit before I can post. For me, I think that while a modular setup would be nice, it also means that I have to move that many more things on brew day which I am usually beat by the end of the brew. That being said, my current project is digging out the crawlspace for a dedicated brewery so I don't have to move anything and don't have to waste a bunch of time looking for all of the components that I may have put in one of 5 or 6 places. Also, if you do bolt it together then that solves your portability concern on the few times you want to move your brewery significant distances (rather than just into and out of your garage). Just my perspective.

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This design gets into a bunch of disadvantages in my opinion. The biggest one is having to climb up to stir the mash/dough in. There is no harm in running wort through the pump. First, you can recirculate hot water and cleaning solutions post brew and ultimately it will be heat sanitized by a recirculation of boiling wort post boil. Sanitation fears are not logical in this application. Again, just my opinion. I like the HLT up high because you never have to look inside if you have a thermometer and sight glass. No step ladders. Also, since you can purpose the pump for moving post boil wort, the MLT and BK can be quite low.

I'm running essentially what Bobby describes above. I have an elevated electric HLT with the MT and BK at ground level. A single pump direct fired RIMS. I pump to circulate while mashing. Then pumping from the MT to the BK while fly sparging. Post boil I use the pump to chill through my cfc in a loop back to the kettle. Post chill, I pump to the fermenter. I don't have problems with contamination/infection. My cleaning procedure is to pump hot cleaning solution (oxiclean etc) through the chiller and hoses. I connect all of the hoses together and make one large loop. I often let the pump circulate the cleaning solution overnight and rinse the following morning. My secret weapon is a floor drain.

Bobby M: I understand what you mean and agree that I have to get a step stool to stir the mash at the dough in and for all around curiosity. That I also admit that I have a sumwhat unreasonable fear of infection (I funked my first solo batch years ago and haven't been able to shake the paranoia). However, I use an immersion chiller (in an attempt to leave behind most of the trub) and I also know that my cleanup is usually 1-5 days later.

My whole point:
When building a brewstand or anything else - I built a setup to take into account how I do things rather than how things should be done.

No argument there. The thread is meant to be a restrospective on what each of us has done so I'm stating what I'd do differently. It's all personal experience and none of what we say is going to be perfectly adaptable to another's situation.

This:


That's what I want to do, but shorten the bottom legs so I can see into the mash tun and BK. I'll keep it high enough that I can still gravity feed into my fermenter.
I'll sparge w/ gravity and pitcher-transfer a gallon of wort at a time to my BK. I'll take gravity readings on each gallon and use the law of averages to hit my starting gravity numbers. Then I can either top up with water to my preboil or continue to sparge and boil longer.

So yesterday I cut through a 2" sided 1/8" thick piece of plain steel angle iron with my angle grinder. Took about 30 seconds and the cut was pretty straight. I'm going to try to make all the cuts with the grinder. If I plan things out well, I can probably buy sections that are already cut to size.

Glen, Thats remarkably similar to what I want to do. Well, I guess its not all that remarkable considering most stands are about the same...but its a really nice design.

The differences I would probably make are: 2" angle iron instead of 1.5". I figure my bolts will be the weakest link in the stand structure. If I have more area to bolt onto, I'll feel better about it's integrity. As mentioned before, I also think I'll be using square tubing for supports. especially the keggle holding 'diamond' supports above the burners.

Two questions for you glen:
Will you really need to shorten the legs of the stand to be able to see inside the MLT/BK? Would you mind sending me your designs (sketch up I'm assuming)?

Lastly, to anyone who might know, how large should the burner area be to support keggles? I know they run about 17", is the 18" design that Glen made sufficient?

Thanks again for all your input guys.

It seams that many people oversize the stand and then have to add a lot of extra pieces to make the vessel support area small enough to hold the vessels up. My design put the front and back rails close enough to be the vessel supports. It's a lot less cutting.
I think my keg skirts contact about a 3" long area at four locations on the stand which is more than enough. With flat bottom vessels, you can undersize the stand even more and have the pot overlap the edges by a bit.

I can see oversizing the width of the raised tower area however so that you can put a shelf in and store the top vessel underneath for a more compact package.

One thing a bolt-together design has to account for is height differences due to overlap. Don't forget about that.

I was thinking about holding the kegs together with a setup similar to yours bobby, with a welded square of angle iron that would sit upright and hold the keggle in place. this should negate any differences in heights from bolting.

I ended up going with a homeowner sized version of industrial racking. It is more than sturdy enough to hold any and all the weight I want it to. I got mine from Menards, 6' section uprights and crossbeams for just over $100. Costco sells a similar product (though not online) for I think $180. Same size dimensions but with extra shelves. If I had it to do again I would have gone with that. I would never choose to pay the price for the cost of a welded sculpture.

I have a single tier -3 keggle, RIMS recirc with BCS controller.

I also built a single kettle BIAB on a cart with pump/pid control

My retrospective is the 3 keggle set up never gets used anymore. I can't brew as big a batch but clean up is a lot easier and faster.

Bobby_M said:

2. I don't think single tiers make a lot of sense anymore. HLT up high, mash and BK down low. No reason to force a second pump when the HLT is basically hands off. Every time I hook up a set of silicone hoses to pump sparge water, I think to myself, this could have been a 2 foot piece of tubing hanging off the HLT up high instead.

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This is exactly what I was thinking. Have any thoughts for a good width to use for sanke kegs? You mentioned in another post that you think brewstands are too wide.

samc said:

I have a single tier -3 keggle, RIMS recirc with BCS controller.

I also built a single kettle BIAB on a cart with pump/pid control

My retrospective is the 3 keggle set up never gets used anymore. I can't brew as big a batch but clean up is a lot easier and faster.

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Sorry for being dense, but can a 2 pot system only do BIAB? I wouldn't mind consolidating, but I don't like BIAB all that much.

thesanch said:

This is exactly what I was thinking. Have any thoughts for a good width to use for sanke kegs? You mentioned in another post that you think brewstands are too wide.

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Unless there are concerns about being top heavy and unstable, I'd look to have the vessels rest directly on the front and back horizontal rails. In the case of a sanke, that's 16" edge to edge.

BIAB is essentially a one vessel system where the mashtun becomes the boil kettle directly after pull the grain bag out. However, there could be BIAB systems that use a dunk sparge setup in a second vessel. Also, there's the brutus 20 system which is what I'd call a no-sparge, 2-vessel RIMS.