Show us your sculpture or brew rig

OneHoppyGuy said:

In America, casserole is a dish (meal) made from throwing left overs in a baking pan. And in my house, a word not to be used. Bleh!

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Sorry for the confusion, actually I am Afrikaans speaking, so there will come out a lot of funny's in translation in the future.

bradjoiner said:

in america kegs are a dime a dozen on craigslist and cheap as can be. you can definitely use aluminum but you cannot clean the pots once they oxidize. stainless is much better.

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This is the problem here with us, Kegs are realy scares, and they are on the stock of all the major beer brewing company's, so they are not that willing to let a homebrewer buy it, because it damage there sales.

If I powder-coat the Aluminum pots D take note OneHoppyGuy) will it do the job?

Rivenin said:

Have any more pics? Looks like mine... only not ghetto lol. The bk is about the same height as mine

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I'll see if I can find some more.
edit: Found some.

FransReichert said:

This is the problem here with us, Kegs are realy scares, and they are on the stock of all the major beer brewing company's, so they are not that willing to let a homebrewer buy it, because it damage there sales.

If I powder-coat the Aluminum pots D take note OneHoppyGuy) will it do the job?

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powder coating is expensive look on ebay for stainless steal stock pot http://www.ebay.com/itm/35qt-Stainl.../270963044222?pt=Cookware&hash=item3f16a7ef7e

gailenjensen said:

Since I live in a small lot house, senior living, I needed something that doesn't take up any precious space in the house or garage.

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This is exactly the type of structure I'm looking to add to my setup. Nicely done. Too bad they don't sell these.

FransReichert said:

This is the problem here with us, Kegs are realy scares, and they are on the stock of all the major beer brewing company's, so they are not that willing to let a homebrewer buy it, because it damage there sales.

If I powder-coat the Aluminum pots D take note OneHoppyGuy) will it do the job?

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Ditto... powder coating typically has a minimum charge here in the states of about $150
I'm not too sure I would want to cook in a powder coated pot. You definitely can't put it on a burner.

Stainless really is the best choice. The money you save going with aluminum is made up by the various downsides (let the fray begin). Ask yourself: Is it really that big a price difference to buy something that will last 100 years?

We got a high end stainless cookware set for a wedding gift. With 26 years of heavy use they are still as solid and shiny. They will outlast my grand kids.
Oh, and as a trained chef, I firmly believe a sandwiched bottom is superior.

Okay, off my soap box... we return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

OneHoppyGuy said:

Stainless really is the best choice. The money you save going with aluminum is made up by the various downsides (let the fray begin). Ask yourself: Is it really that big a price difference to buy something that will last 100 years?

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Okay you convinced me! Of to the catering suppliers then.

What is the benefit of copper kettle's? Why was the old pots all made of Copper? Does it affect the taste of the beer?

I see a lot of nice equipment here, where can I get hold of plans to build something similar to the Brutus 10. And can somebody please direct me to a walk threw of the procedure of use for a Brutus10.

FransReichert said:

What is the benefit of copper kettle's? Why was the old pots all made of Copper? Does it affect the taste of the beer?

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Some copper is beneficial to the yeast when fermenting. I've seen some brewers add a bar of copper into their 100% stainless kettle setups when boiling but I doubt it really makes that much of a difference.

Historically kettles were copper because copper's a metal that humans knew how to work long before there was stainless steel or aluminum.

In the UK they often call boil kettles "coppers" for this reason. Even if they're no longer copper.

Kal

I can remember an old BN interview with Dr. Charle Banforth talking about when he worked at New castle and they installed a new all Stainless brewing system and they notices a difference in yeast health compared to there old copper system. Copper is also an excellent heat conductor, much better than stainless, but today it would be quite pricey to get a 15+ gallon copper stock pot.

Then agin I might be remembering this wrong.

I have a copper heat exchange coil in my HLT. It is a bit of a pain because before I brew I have to rinse it off and flush it out with an acidic solution to remove any of the green Copper oxide crystals off and out of the copper.

I was looking for copper kettles for a particular stand design and they are extremely expensive.

I made a copper side tube for my boil kettle that picks up the wort from the side so as to avoid the giant hop cone in the middle when whirl pooling.

I never get any green oxidization on it. It gets cleaned like the rest with a PBW CIP wash and the kettle usually goes about three weeks between brews.

ScottSingleton said:

I made a copper side tube for my boil kettle that picks up the wort from the side so as to avoid the giant hop cone in the middle when whirl pooling.

I never get any green oxidization on it. It gets cleaned like the rest with a PBW CIP wash and the kettle usually goes about three weeks between brews.

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The flux on my pickup tube turned a greenish shade, where as the copper has not. I've cleaned the balls off it, so I'm just leaving it as stained. Meh.

I was thinking of making use of some copper geysers that I have available. According to the "How to brew" book copper don't need to be cleaned intensively, it must have like a layer, he even say with new copper you must bake it in to form the layer.

Here is the weekend project. Almost done.

evandena said:

The flux on my pickup tube turned a greenish shade, where as the copper has not. I've cleaned the balls off it, so I'm just leaving it as stained. Meh.

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Dude! Green flux is deadly!! But you removed it's gonads so I think you're safe.
Barkeepers friend will clean it up and the first time you brew with it, it will come out shiny.

OneHoppyGuy said:

Dude! Green flux is deadly!! But you removed it's gonads so I think you're safe.
Barkeepers friend will clean it up and the first time you brew with it, it will come out shiny.

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You wouldn't believe the mess that the flux I used made. It's tinning flux, and turns into a liquid when heated. After a few seconds, it runs all over the piece and turns bright silver. It looks like a crappy solder job (I swear it's not though).

Brewing a red ale yesterday

Our new set-up, haven't used it just yet... we just took an all grain class a few weeks ago. (its not a sideways picture... not sure why it loaded sideways, can anyone help me fix that?)

Rancho Cordova has always been a little tipsy...

OneHoppyGuy said:

Rancho Cordova has always been a little tipsy...

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lol thats cause its such a ****hole... you have to be drunk to survive Thank god we have 2 new breweries!

Colleenali said:

[...](its not a sideways picture... not sure why it loaded sideways, can anyone help me fix that?)

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Bring it into any image editor, rotate it 90° clockwise, and save it.

Here ya go...


Cheers!

http://brew-shnickens.tumblr.com/

here is my wood, electric, herms sculpture

Alright, I'll bite. Can you let us know what the six switches are for? (Looks awesome by the way)

benbradford said:

here is my wood, electric, herms sculpture

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Dude, those are some of the most elegant looking kettles I've seen

switches control the heating elements (4) and pumps (2)

here is a shot of it configured for mashing

I got tired of it looking like a collection of frankenkegs and was inspired by The Pol's badass design.

Here's a photo of our current, vertical gravity fed setup with 10 gallon coolers. Nothing special really, but it's a huge step up compared to what we used to do - setting the HLT on top of a fridge, the MT on some random stand and the BK sitting on top of the Bayou Classic propane burner.



With this electric pump and the 50 foot chiller with recirc arm, we can chill 10 gallon batches to pitching temperature with ground water in less than 10 minutes! We are currently building a horizontal brew stand with 2 pumps and 3 converted kegs with 2 of the big Bayou burners and the smaller bayou burner for the direct fired mash tun.

benbradford, those are beautiful!

Posting might be a little premature as we still have a little ways to go to finish our new baby but she is getting close. 3rd big barrel on the way.

You can follow along as we complete it at the thread below.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/1bbl-stainless-single-tier-336098/

SA-WEET shining bling!!!

My rig I just finished. About $40 in lumber and hardware. The support arms come off and the tiers fold down, then the bottom comes off for easy storage.

Built mine a year ago or so, decided I needed some wind/heat shields and a fresh coat of paint! Just bought a BBQ cover for her too!

benbradford said:

switches control the heating elements (4) and pumps (2)

here is a shot of it configured for mashing

I got tired of it looking like a collection of frankenkegs and was inspired by The Pol's badass design.

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That is one amazingly nice system.

Upgraded to some Blichmann pots

duckredbeard said:

You can build quite a rig for a grand.

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Maybe the rig but certainly not with all the surrounding components.

I don't believe I ever posted mine up here - so just a quick action shot during mashing:


photo by brewerJP

The thread is here - although I haven't done a particularly great job at keeping things up to date.

Very nice build. I really like the dual burner shields. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks! That was absolutely a hindsight thing - I live in an area where there's always some wind to contend with. So it was either cap off the ends of the stand or shield the burners. I'm glad I did it the way I did it! It works. Only sucky part is it makes it difficult to see what's going on and my burners don't make a ton of noise.