Using a bottle jack for a sculpture... totally asinine or genius?

I'm about to brew my first AG this weekend and am still working out of the kitchen. I would like to skip the turkey burner phase and go straight to a sculpture, I would like to use a quick disconnect fitting to tap into my house's NG so I don't have to mess with tanks.

I was looking at the 3 tier and single tier systems, to me messing with pumps/hoses/disconnects seems like a PITA where the height of a 3 tier seems its downfall. I was thinking of doing a single tier where the HLT and MLT would sit atop a platform mounted to a long throw bottle jack. With a 15" throw it would easily raise one enough to gravity feed into the next pot, assuming I get 60qt megapots (14 1/4"H). Harbor Freight even has one with a 20" throw. You'd only have to raise and lower them a coupe times per brew day. The BK would just drain into a fermenter on ground level.

Problem is that I'm just doing my first batch and don't know the in's and out's of AG so I may be totally overlooking something.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200312709_200312709

I thought of doing the same thing...but then I ran the numbers. Instead of a gravity sculpture, it was cheaper to just buy a march pump to move liquid around. Sculptures are great, but in my case I just couldn't justify all the work and money it would take to build it. If I were a welder and had extra material on hand I'd jump on building one in a heartbeat!

My setup:


You could easily build/buy a couple NG burners instead of using propane. I like single tier brew sculptures the best, but to fly sparge you'll need two pumps. If you want to cut cost, a two tier sculpture is a good way to go.

I remember reading about a guy who did his rig using a large threaded rod type lift system that he vultured off a piece of industrial equipment. He actaully put a pneumatic gun to it and rased the kettle up to gravity feed the fermenter. Worked great I guess.

You mean like one of these?



- Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

Meh.......doesn't seem to help to much.......not enough weight to make it worthwhile. Maybe with 10gal batches.

You can get hydraulic tables as well. The bike jack is only a bill, and goes up to 3ft.

Eric

I was thinking of something like this



I would build it into a single tier sculpture and make a platform for the HLT and one for the MLT. I don't know if it would be worth the hassle, a 2 tier may be better. And I will definitely be doing 10g batches with the sculpture.

If you make a rig with hydraulics, I think you're required to put spinning rims, fuzzy dice and a horn that plays La Bamba on it too.

I used a simple block and tackle to lift the containers were I brewed in California. Or you could use one of these:



1000 lbs, it's ready for that 2 barrel system you know you want.

maybe a little over kill???

Not an overkill at all......totally genius!!

Devil's advocate here... The bottle jack is 2/3rds the cost of a march pump and it's a one trick pony.

This thread seems familiar somehow.

menschmaschine said:

This thread seems familiar somehow.

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Lol, I guess great minds think alike. I think I'm leaning toward a 2 tier now with one pump. This way the only thing I have to pump is HLT water to the MLT, everything else would be gravity fed, would also keep the height reasonable. Probably 24" to the bottom of the BK, 38 1/2" to the top of the BK/HLT and about 62 1/2" to the top of the MLT cooler, probably short enough to not need a step.

Why not put the BK near the floor, just high enough to get a burner under it? Once you have a pump, you can pump the wort UP to the fermenter.

Bobby_M said:

Why not put the BK near the floor, just high enough to get a burner under it? Once you have a pump, you can pump the wort UP to the fermenter.

Click to expand...

Would I end up having to use quick disconnects so I could just have one pump still?

Yes. One pump with two hoses makes the "from" and "to" completely flexible between any pumping operation you come up with. You're talking about an initial outlay of only $18 or so for two hose end QDs and two males. Add another $2 for each from/to you need to add.