Hunter's Basement E-Brewery Build

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@Woodbrews The website is a little confusing, but if you got the $11 deluxe cable (or the $16) then you got the panel connector as well. The connectors aren't as stout as the ones Kal uses, but then again how often are you connecting and disconnecting them.
 
Got over to the Fab Shop this morning and picked up the hood. No good pictures of it unwrapped yet, but I did snap a few while I was picking it up!

Need to clean up the hand prints from assembly and pull the protective film off, but it looks great from what I can tell:
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Going to look great love watching your build, one day I'll have this in my basement one day lol
 
Well, I got the protective film removed and shined it up this evening- ready for installation tomorrow! ALSO, The wife surprised me with a brand-new SS Brewbucket for fermenting the first batch! Stainless-overload today =D

First, the brewbucket:
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And, the new vent hood. I'm pretty impressed with the build quality for the price. A word for you guys that might want to chase the fab shop down for a quote, if you have them add the ends as 'caps' rather than seam-welding the entire edge, you'll probably be able to save yourself some money. The downside, you do see the spots where the welds are on the end caps, but for the savings, it was worth it for me. Have a look and judge for yourself:

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Dam look at that perty shiny stainless, that's going to look wicked hung over your blichman kettles
 
The SS fermenter looks awesome. I like being able to look through the glass and immediately see the fermentation or I may have ordered one of the stout conicals.

You have plenty of bling now!
 
Installed the hood today and hooked up the vent fan. Still some exhaust duct work to do, but we ran late as it is! Here's the progress from today, hopefully it answers your question @calebstringer

Cutting the 4 1/8" Hole for the new steam vent. I used a Lenox Bi-Metal hole saw chucked up in my 18v drill. The only issues I had was that the siding bit and the saw rode a bit, but we just cut the siding before continuing and everything worked out fine:
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Wired up the Fan to the 120v Adjustable Switch, in the previously installed junction box. Fishing that wire was a real trick:

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Installed the vent fan in the Rafters using a custom 2x4 bracket we fashioned. The clearance here was REALLY tight:

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Installing the cross braces for the vent-hood to hang from. We ran 4 of these cross beams and each of them easily supports 175lbs, ask me how I know =)

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Raising up the hood for bolting into the brackets:

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And, final shot from today, the vent hood installed, but not fully trimmed or vented to the fan. I'll work on tying up some loose ends tomorrow, but I call this progress!

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Having built a 30a setup just recently, this is a great price for a turnkey system. Good Luck with your sale, someone is going to get a great deal here.

You might look at providing an itemized list with the costs so you can show the value.


Hunter I just went back through your e-build. Quite impressive! The wife's SS ferm bucket is equally impressive. U R a lucky guy!

Thanks again for the support.

Hunter's Build - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=5731115

Ryan
 
Does your adjustable switch for your fan work? I've tried two now and both only worked on high speed.
 
I bought two from lowes that were the same brand but not specifically that one. Disappointed on both. One made the fan hum on lower speeds but that was it.
 
If anyone came across an inline duct fan with a square housing that is pretty quiet, I'd love to hear it. I need one for my bathroom!
 
Well, spent the evening finishing up some odds and ends in the brewery. I trimmed out the Vent Hood, cut the exhaust fan hole, ran the ducts, and finally hung the panel. Here we go:

Trim boards for the vent hood to help hide the brackets:
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Making a reducer for the vent fan. Unfortunately the local big box only had 8" long reducers, which while I'm sure would be very smooth for air flow, would not fit the cramped quarters of my exhaust venting situation. SO, I had to improvise a bit. This piece is easily accessible, so I'll likely run it and see how it affects venting performance and then decide if I need to come up with a better alternative:

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Cut the 4" vent hole for the exhuast system using the same Lenox hole saw that I used for the outside exhaust port:

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Attaching the exhaust port to the hood:

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Finished with semi-rigid flex pipe due to the unusual angles. The entire vent run from hood to exhaust (outside) is only 2.5 linear ft. I don't suspect that this will cause too much trouble due to the extremely short length of my venting run:

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Annnnd, I wrapped up the evening with a Hopslam and hanging the brewery panel. For all my pre-planning, I unfortunately didn't quite leave the space I needed for the panel. With that being said, I found a suitable spot which still allows easy access to the controls and detaching the accessory wires, without causing too much issue.

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That's all for this evening!
 
Love the build, looks awesome. I have one little concern with the venting. It appears as though you are using a 6" vortex, 440 cfm fan and 4" ducting for the intake and the exhaust.....is that correct? Any reduction in duct size or the discharge port can create back pressure on the exhaust side of things.....not sure about the intake side. This back pressure can reduce the amount of air flow discharge and increase the sound of air movement. A 6" duct has over twice the area of a 4" one, so reducing down at any point, especially on the exhaust side may hurt the performance of the fan. I know that you cut a 4 1/8" hole through the bond of your house for a 4" vent, where did you reduce on the exhaust side? It's hard to tell is you used 6" flexible venting and reduced down at the actual louvered vent or if you reduced down at the discharge side of the vortex fan and used 4" flexible venting. Just curious. Anyways, great build.....you should be very proud of your work!
 
Good thoughts for sure, and certainly some concerns I had myself.

It's all 4" venting. I had some reservations about starting with the 6" duct due to the extremely tight area where I needed to install the fan. On the output side of the fan, I used a long smooth transition from 6->4" which I believe will improve the flow as compared to the cut-down intake side.

We'll see if that impacts the performance to the point where it needs to be adjusted. If it turns out that this causes trouble, I'll likely revisit the ventilation. I had some conflicts with the vent position due to our upstairs walkout that really hindered my ability to install it in an 'optimized' configuration that I would have liked.
 
I ran into very similar clearance issues as well, but was able to squeeze the 6 inch ducting into the joist space after removing some bracing for a gas line and then reinstalling the supports. I had a b*tch of a time trying to fit the 6 inch vortex (440 cfm, almost identical to your's) into the joist space, so I had to cut the 6 inch intake hole into the top of my vent hood and set the vortex fan on top of the vent hood vertically instead of horizontally in the joist space. I then used a 6 inch 90 degree elbow off of the top of the exhaust end of the fan into my 6 inch ducting, which travels straight out the side of the bond of my house (about 25 ft.). I wasn't thrilled about cutting a 6 hole into the bond of my house, but with that long of a run, I didn't want Bernoulli's Principle to haunt me for the rest of my brewing days. All I can say is that after a few batches through my new brewery, the vent has worked fantastic. There's no doubt that the performance of your 440 cfm fan is going to be hindered, but by how much can only be determined by trial and error. As long as your run isn't excessively long and the fact that you used flexible ducting to create a gradual turn to the fan instead of a rigid 90 may work in your favor. I'll be curious to see how it works. Good luck!!!
 
Was gonna' ask........How does that vent fan sound.....upstairs in the house?

Just curious, what with "telegraphing" through the floor joists and whatnot.


On mine I haven't turned the fan on and then came upstairs to see how loud it was but even in front of the kettles the fan noise is not overly loud.
 
I wasn't thrilled about cutting a 6 hole into the bond of my house, but with that long of a run


My sentiment as well as it's a huge hole and dryer duct on side of house but did it anyway. What speed controller did you use for your fan? I have tried 2 of them and neither worked on the two lower speeds.
 
Wow, a whole bunch of replies that I missed from yesterday!

Looks awesome but that 2 tap dorm fridge looks way too small beside it. Better get a keezer going too!

When I was doing straight steep/extract batches I'd end up with about 5gals which would last well over 6 weeks in the fridge. I just put that together recently, because I got tired of bottling (same ole' story). I have seriously considered upgrading to a stainless model since I started this project though!:tank:

Looking at the hood (very nice and shiney), are you planning on draining the drip edge? Are you worried about it?

Good question. Taking the wait-and-see approach on the drain. I noticed Kal mentions on his ventilation pages that he doesn't *really* need to drain his, so I'll likely see how much water accumulates the first couple of brews and simply remove with a sponge/towel. If it's significant, I'm not opposed to plumbing a drain!

Was gonna' ask........How does that vent fan sound.....upstairs in the house?

Just curious, what with "telegraphing" through the floor joists and whatnot.

Very good question as well. The simple answer is: While I have fired up the fan on the bench (It's reasonably loud) I haven't tested it mounted in the currently location. I suspect that we'll be able to hear it from the kitchen (which is directly above the joist you see the fan mounted too). The upside is that I usually brew during Saturday/Sunday afternoon, so it's not likely to interfere with anyones sleep. ;)
 
I pretty much have the same vortex fan as you (same stats, just a different manufacturer) and it's directly under the kitchen. Granted, mine is mounted to the top of my vent. hood, not to the joists, but the hood is mounted to the wall, which ties into the joist above. Here is a pic of my vent setup before running the ducting, but you should get the idea. Not pretty and shiny like yours, but it does the job. In the kitchen, there is a subtle hum, but not bad at all. Granted it is directly below the kitchen cabinetry in the kitchen, so that may be dampening the sound as well, but my wife does not find the noise offensive thus far. I'm not sure if I mentioned or not here, but I am working on my drop ceiling tomorrow and over the weekend in the brewery. I plan on insulating the joist space above the fan and framing a box around the sides of the fan itself, so that I can wrap insulation around that as well. I'm still going to get noise from the fan from inside of the hood, but even without insulation, it's not that bad. I figure that with a little insulation and the drop ceiling in place, the noise should be minimal. It was much louder on the work bench when I plugged it in than it is up high over the hood. Here are few somewhat recent pics of the brewery from a few weeks ago if your interested in taking a peek.

Roadie......to answer your question, I do not have my fan hooked up to a speed control switch. It's all or nothing! I get minimal steam from my HLT and MT, so I really don't use the hood until I get to the boil anyways. I have a new flat screen down there as of last weekend, and a stereo system soon to come, so that will take my mind off of the fan noise. :mug:
 
Bit of a slow go of things mid-week here. I got the extension cords in for my pumps yesterday evening, as Chuggers pumps come with a dismally short 3.5-4ft cord from the box. Also started staining the 'Pump Tray' which will have the two fitted pumps bolted down to it for transferring liquid. Couple quick pictures, I went with two of the Center-Inlet Stainless head chuggers:

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Planning on getting the 'pump-tray' finished up this weekend and finally plumbing these kettles so I can get my first brew going.
 
Spent yesterday afternoon assembling the pump-tray and hooking it into the panel:

Installed some rubber feet on the tray and predrilled the pump mount holes:
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Attaching the Chuggers to the tray:

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All the hardware to plumb out the pumps:

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Attaching the elbows and ball valves:

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Finished Tray assembly:

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