Tax Season Brewery Upgrade

Tax season was good to me and I got the go ahead from SWMBO, so I made a few upgrades to the brewery. I am still waiting on some parts for the eHLT, plate chiller, and new brass heads for the pumps (cross threaded them after the first cleaning...) but other than that I think I am good to go. I am going to try a 2 vessel SMaSH tomorrow (Marris Otter/Fuggle/Nottingham). Anyway, here are a few pics, if you have questions or comments let 'em fly.

Here is the front of the brew rig. On the far left is the (future) eHLT. It will have a 1500 watt element and is controlled by the Ranco ETC on the wall. The home made IC (below) will act as a heat exchanger when the eHLT is done and will be fed by one pump controlled by the other Ranco ETC. I know there are cheaper ways to go (PID, SSR) but I'm still swimming through how all that works and I figured I could always use the Ranco's in the future for controlling ferm chambers.



Here is a pic of the IC/exchanger. The QDs allow me to switch it from mash control to cooling pretty easily. I've got a Keg Cowboy plate chiller ordered so when that gets here the IC will no longer be multi-purpose. I thought about using it as a pre-chiller, but ground water here in AK is about 40F so it shouldn't be needed.

What's up with the random bungee cord holding your stir paddle? It looks good. Where did you get the black steel stands from?

Very nice, my tax return went toward a Disney World Vacation.

I owe money on my taxes, luckily I saved enough money to upgrade my brewery too, most of which should be coming in soon. I'll pay the tax owed on the last day possible.

Scut_Monkey said:

What's up with the random bungee cord holding your stir paddle? It looks good. Where did you get the black steel stands from?

Click to expand...

The random bungee cord was just there because it was holding a bike up before the brew stand was there. I was about to take it down and thought what the hell, I always need a place to put the spoon so why not there, right next to the MLT.

The stands are from Lowes. They ran me $50 each and are totally adjustable. They come in various sizes and are even stackable.

ruffdeezy said:

I owe money on my taxes, luckily I saved enough money to upgrade my brewery too, most of which should be coming in soon. I'll pay the tax owed on the last day possible.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I know that getting a tax return is just giving the gov't a interest free loan, but it makes for a nice bonus in March. Plus we have a rental home in another state and I never know how much we are going to gain/lose on that so it is really a guessing game.

Nice! You have the same brew pot that I do. I also have some of those stands from Lowe's and they are awesome. I don't use them for brewing. Mine are the really big ones. I have three of the 6' tall ones in my garage. They each have about 1,000 pounds of stuff on them. They're solid as a rock. I also have a small one in my entry way that we use to put our shoes on. They're awesome shelves. They range in price according to size. The one I have for the shoes, was less than $20. The ones in the garage were about $90 each if I remember right. Definitely worth the money though.