Apartment project: Beer storage closet

Check out this awesome shelving I built in my broom closet a couple weeks ago. For background, I live in a small city studio (~450 sq ft) so I have to use the space very efficiently. With my first 10 batches under my belt, I’m now building up my pipeline to about 5 to 6 batches bottle conditioning at a time. I read a couple threads on HBT about other people’s storage solutions in small apts, but I wasn’t able to find an efficient way to stack cases of bottles (the milk crates I found weren’t big enough for 22’s, and most other containers didn’t look strong enough). I was quickly running out of floor space in my closet, so I decided to convert the closet to a beer shelving closet.

I did this with track shelving from Home Depot, using dry wall anchors. Total cost was about $100, mostly because the shelving arms are rather expensive (~$8 each and I needed 8). The closet is fairly deep (25” deep, 20” wide) so with 5 levels (4 shelves + the floor) I estimate I have enough room to store 6 to 7 batches.
I calculated that 6 to 7 batches would equal 250 to 300 pounds of weight, which is a little scary, but fortunately track shelving with dry wall anchors is pretty strong.

Ironically, my shelving is now pretty much full, and I'm going to have to find some more space for the barleywine I have coming up in a couple weeks. I think I'm going to put that in the building's garage behind my car. 40 or so people have access to the garage but they're not likely to go snooping - and just in case, I'm going to put a sheet of paper in the boxes saying "possibly infected?" That should scare off any potential thieves.

Getcha one of them bio-hazard signs for the "infected beers"

Looks really nice but I think sooner or later you will want to switch to kegging and will have to take the closet apart and store your unused kegs in it .

I am a fellow apartment brewer and recently got a kegerator. A more experienced member of this forum is supposed to help me connect everything. I am just afraid of making a newbie mistake and spilling 10 gallons of beer on my floor.

Pivzavod said:

Looks really nice but I think sooner or later you will want to switch to kegging and will have to take the closet apart and store your unused kegs in it .

Click to expand...

Nah, in my current apartment there's no way I'm switching to kegging. With ~400 sq ft there's just no room to store an extra fridge. Plus I actually prefer bottling even if I did have room for a kegerator. With bottling I get to have as many varieties of ready-to-drink homebrew on hand at one time as I want. I like variety, so having 10 different beers in my fridge is awesome. A 10-keg kegerator would be huge and expensive.

Thats true, my apartment is 1 bedroom but its 830 sqf. For me having a kegerator is actually better in terms of space than to keep cases of bottled & empty beer bottles.

Looks like the more experienced member just wasted my time and not coming thru. Wasted a few days because of that.