1 - 3.5 BBL system

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alexnphillips

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I'm trying to find some very detailed specs on a 1-3.5 BBL system. My father in law is a machinist and is looking at possibly getting in to making kettles/fermenters/MLT whatever. I am having trouble finding details specs that I could show to him for design purposes. Any suggestions? Also while we are at it I was telling him that there was a shortage of hop pelletizing machines and he was interested in making them as well. Any specs on those also would be great. Thanks!
 
Yeah, probrewer.com is probably your best bet. Are you looking to go pro or just going for really big batches?

Probrewer is great but I am really looking for complete specs as he would be building from the ground up. I am thinking about going pro in the next couple years but for now he just wanted to try his hand at making a large set up. I was telling him that there are not a lot of company's making nano set ups and it might be a good opportunity for him and us.

I am going to take him to a local micro brewery's tour next mouth for him to get a good idea of how it all works. I've been running him through the process on a smaller setup but I think he needs to see it first hand to get a better idea.
 
I would be curious to find out how much demand there is for new nanobrewery equipment. A lot of the folks that jumped into the brewpub craze went belly-up and are unloading their slightly used equipment cheap. Combine that with the fact that the restaurant industry is struggling and banks aren't lending.....that would make me very cautious.

I don't mean to be negative....
 
I'm definitely with you on this. I just figured we could make a 1bbl system that I could brew on and use it as a test system. If we were going to sell anything down the road it would be custom work. I'd love to see him making systems for people on here maybe 1/2bbl systems. He does amazing work but is very far from internet savvy.
 
Alot of people (myself included) are making HERMS type systems in the 1-1.5 BBL size using Stainless Steel 55 gallon barrels as the vessels. Some get really fancy but ours will be a very simple system utilizing an external HERMS heater (a 10 gallon hot water heater) rather than the more typical design of putting the HERMS coil in the HLT. This will free up the HLT for more tasks as we plan on using this system for back to back brews for a 3 BBL fermentation. We made the brewstand ourselves using steel angle and we are using 32 tip Natural gas burners for the HLT and BK.

http://www.cpapc.com/32-Tip-Round-Nozzle-Jet-Burner-P470C244.aspx

Our initial build will have only the bare minimum valves and ports in the vessels, relying on old school methods such as "sticking the hose in the HLT" to get the water out. I know, shocking. The MLT will be the most exotic with a port on the bottom, a false bottom, and will be mounted to a tippy dump to get the grain out. We will also have a grant that doubles as a hop back that I plan to fabricate from an old keg involved in the system.

For pumping, we're using a three station peristaltic pump and silicone tubing. This will allow us to have up to three things pumping at once (think fly sparging), or use all three in one vessel to increase the speed of the overall transfer for the bulk transfers.

Let me know if you have any additional questions. You might also try joining the HBT group in my sig, Going Pro.
 
Alot of people (myself included) are making HERMS type systems in the 1-1.5 BBL size using Stainless Steel 55 gallon barrels as the vessels. Some get really fancy but ours will be a very simple system utilizing an external HERMS heater (a 10 gallon hot water heater) rather than the more typical design of putting the HERMS coil in the HLT. This will free up the HLT for more tasks as we plan on using this system for back to back brews for a 3 BBL fermentation. We made the brewstand ourselves using steel angle and we are using 32 tip Natural gas burners for the HLT and BK.

http://www.cpapc.com/32-Tip-Round-Nozzle-Jet-Burner-P470C244.aspx

Our initial build will have only the bare minimum valves and ports in the vessels, relying on old school methods such as "sticking the hose in the HLT" to get the water out. I know, shocking. The MLT will be the most exotic with a port on the bottom, a false bottom, and will be mounted to a tippy dump to get the grain out. We will also have a grant that doubles as a hop back that I plan to fabricate from an old keg involved in the system.

For pumping, we're using a three station peristaltic pump and silicone tubing. This will allow us to have up to three things pumping at once (think fly sparging), or use all three in one vessel to increase the speed of the overall transfer for the bulk transfers.

Let me know if you have any additional questions. You might also try joining the HBT group in my sig, Going Pro.

Thanks so much for the info and especially the link to going pro group. I'm in and will be getting active on there.
 
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