From Pro Brewery (Almost) Back to Home Brewery

Well, I have worked the past two years putting together the business plan and working on a production brewery. My wife and I decided to put it off for a few years until the kids are older. So, I go the go ahead to move forward with revamping the home brewery. I recently sold my all grain set up and now am moving forward with a 20 gallon, electric system. I am "renovating the garage" into an ultimate brewery. If you are interested, I will be posting info on my facebook page (makes it easier to update in one place).
Cheers!
Tom

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Red-Dragon-Brewery/407139329322343

Before and after construction. I am waiting to have the mounts for the exhaust vent made as well as a triclamp patch panel. The panel will be attached to the stainless table. The kettles should be here late June and the electric controls should be done next month.

I added a stainless back splash this week as well as added track lighting. I put in a new water line with a filtration system. It will run directly to the HLT.

Here is my new brew stand..complete with triclamp patch panel. The triclamp valve on the top of the table is for water to feed the HLT. Next I need to mount my stainless exhaust vent.

I added my exhaust vent and installed my exhaust fan. I now just need to connect the two. It's coming along.

ummmmmm....WOW

Yes, very nice

I don't have bookface, and on more than one occasion it's stopped me from viewing people's personal/business pages because I couldn't log in.

Thanks for posting the pics here on HBT so I could oogle them

wow man, that is epic!

sub'd

Any updates on your system?? I like what i see!! Would love more pics

abarker8541 said:

Any updates on your system?? I like what i see!! Would love more pics

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Me too. More brewery pron for those of us w/o Facebook, please.

Ha Ha! Sorry about the delay for posting. Really, I have been waiting on the kettles. Actually, they are scheduled for delivery wednesday. It has been a long haul since I last brewed so I am very anxious! I have attached a pic of my new lab set up in the brewery. I have purchased a nice microscope, centrifuge, bench ph meter, and a larger stir plate. All that will help me with yeast storage, propagation, cell counting, viability/vitality testing, etc. I attached a couple of other ones I haven't posted. I will post more this week once I get the kettles.

The only problem so far is the epoxy floor. It has been peeling and chipping. I think there is too much moisture under the slab. I am looking into doing some type of garage floor lining. I found these really big vinyl mats you can use to cover. I guess I will have to choose between that and a new 15 gallon conical.

Screw the floor, get the conical. floors can always wait, brew equipment cant!!

Here are a few more pics. One is the completed electric panel and the other is the patch panel. Then there is the completed vent w/ lights.

I am thinking fermenter first as well! That is my bottle neck right now. I currently have a 7.5 gal conical in a controlled environment (heat/cooling) and another freezer that can take a 6.5 gal conical. So for now, I will have to split the batch to each of these. The cool thing is I can use different yeasts to make a different beer...to create some variety. But still want that 15 gallon conical!

Got the kettles in the other day and just did the cleaning and passivation. I need to get the hoses cut and triclamp fittings added. Then I will hook the electronics up and give it a test run (just h20) this weekend.

Very nice!

RedDragon said:

Got the kettles in the other day and just did the cleaning and passivation. I need to get the hoses cut and triclamp fittings added. Then I will hook the electronics up and give it a test run (just h20) this weekend.

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You're gonna have to brew with sunglasses on! Sweeeeeet!

More pics plzzzzzz. That is one sweet setup. How did the testing go? Are you brewing on it yet? Where did you get the kettles, stand and vent?

I'm in the process of selling my business,if it pans out this will be my next goal. Cheers!!!

Here are some more pics.
@VOCBrewery:
The testing went great and brewed my first beer last weekend. It went well but had a few issues to work out. The kettles are from Stout Tanks and I got the table (3 of them actually) from ebay. They got a little banged up during shipment but not too bad. I use one for the brew stand with a custom patch panel, another for a work table, and the third in my brewery lab. The vent I also got on Ebay. It took some searching but found a great price. The stainless triclamp hardware I got a Glacier Tanks and Brewers Hardware.

Good luck on selling the business!

If you want me to take a pic of anything in particular, let me know and I will post it.

I have attached some better pics...

Great looking brewery.

Only thing out of place is the stair railing. I think an Austin Powers stainless stair railing would fit in better.

Seriously though, please tell us more about your lab gear, and process controls. Also, I missed where you located your mill. Please add pix of that area.

I followed your FB link, thanks for illustrating more of the build there.

Thanks for the pix, and documenting your build. It is really a nice set up!

Yeah, I could use some cool stairs. I am keeping my eyes open. I just ordered a nice pub table for the brewery. I still need to get a larger conical fermenter...at least 15 gallon. I have a 7 gal conical so when I brew a large batch, I have to split into the conical and glass carboy. One refrigerator and the smaller freezer is for fermentation. The other freezer is where I age and force carb (w stone) and the refrigerator with taps is for serving. I plan to build a walk-in for everything. That would save space and electric bill. As far as the lab is concerned, I am just starting out. I have a compound microscope, bench ph meter, and micro centrifuge. I also just purchased a larger stir plate.

I added a few more pics of the different angles of the brewery. The mill is in one of them. I mounted it but still use a drill. A motor is still on my to do list.

Everything looks awesome! Nice use of a garage!

Where did you get the stainless sheet for your backsplash, and how much was it?

Thank you. I got the stainless sheets from Ebay I think for around $25.00 each. I dont recall the name of the seller but I am sure you can find plenty of good deals there. They came a little damaged on the corner due to shipping but not a big deal.

Thanks! I'd been searching a lot of places, but didn't think to look there - have a great Labor day weekend!

Wow. Everything looks great! I just realized I need a better/bigger garage.....

Damn, that's one if the best most professional home setups I've seen. I'd say you're pretty ready to go pro. Working in the industry is one of the most challenging careers you can have, but for myself it has been the most fun and personally gratifying. The best of luck to you.

This might be a dumb question but..... How do you empty out your mash tun after each brew on one of these rigs?

Clean up...

The first time I brewed on it, I shoveled it out with horse feed scoop into a trash can. It was a lot of hard work. If you want to take off all the probes and take out the elements, you can pull them off...just not a full mash tun...you still have to empty that. So I came up with a way to get everything clean....I got a large shop vac. Now I just suck all the grain out then dump the vac into a heavy duty contractor trash bag. I have to dump it a few times. I then spray out/wash the kettles in place with hose and suck the liquid out with the vac. It works great and makes fast work of it.

Thanks Land Locked Brewer. Last year we decided not to go pro but invest some of the capital into this system. It was a great project. I miss the designing and building of it...that was half the fun! Now I get to brew! I have a few more projects on the horizon to make it even better!

Sounds like a good amount of work. I scoop out as much as I can and then just take keggle out back, flip it over and hose it out. I don't have probes or anything in there so it's no problem. I figured these nicer rigs would have a fancier solution for getting rid of the spent grain. Tippy dump or maybe a switch that opens a tiny black hole... One of you geniuses needs to figure that out ASAP.

There would be no way for me to physically lift a full 20 gallon mash tun of wet grain. I dont like taking out all the connections too ofter (probably every 5 brews). I then have to fill with water to make sure there are no leaks prior to brewing. I do my soak of the boil kettle then just suck it out with the vac and rinse. Then I just drain the vac. It is really easy to tell you the truth. The less I move those, the better. I'd hate to risk denting them or scratching them up too much.

Can I get your address so I can rob you? Very impressive setup and your garage space would be good for parties.

Gonna be moving to lake anna soon (on the lake public side farthest from the power plant) ... maybe we can meet up and grab a beer in Fredericksburg sometime. I don't have an electric brewery like you but my brewery setup is comparable to yours.

Wow. Very inspirational (and a bit intimidating).
One day...

Very nice brewery !

I love the hose patch panel. However, I would be worried about running into the RIMS (?) hardware when its connected. Do you find that to be a problem ?

What do you use the stand pipe at the back left for ? What is the thing connected to the stand pipe ?

I'd love to see a list of all the ports on each kettle and how you use them.

Thanks