Brewing Architecture Taxonomy

I'm looking for a table of all the configurations that homebrewers have used to brew beer, with references to canonical implementations. If such a table doesn't exist, I'd like to try to compile one.

I realize that there are potentially infinite configurations of brewing systems, but I'll bet someone could make some reasonable categories that cover the major examples. I'm primarily interested in all-grain brewing, but the list doesn't have to be limited to that.

A system has many dimensions to categorize. For example, a system could be single-tier or multi-tier. Transfer can be via pumps, gravity, or a combination. You can achieve and/or maintain mash temperatures using direct fire, insulation, RIMS, HERMS, or decoction. Sparge can be batch or fly. Fuel can be electric or gas. Cooling can be passive, immersion, or counter-flow. Plumbing can be quick-release, hard-plumbed, or ad-hoc. I can go on.

I think you could make a table of designs, with system dimensions heading the columns (e.g. "tiers", "transfer", "mash temp", "sparge", "fuel", "cooling"). The rows of the table would be the representative system names (e.g. "brutus", "brewmagic", "b3", etc). Anyone's system could be listed in the table, but if multiple rows had identical entries in every column, they would be considered members common to a "class". The table would be sortable by class or by column.

Does anything like this exist already?

Haven't seen one and doubt it exists. May I ask why you're looking for it? Pure beer geekdom?

Sounds like an opportunity to make this idea into a lot of cash... DO IT !
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BillyBroas said:

Haven't seen one and doubt it exists. May I ask why you're looking for it? Pure beer geekdom?

Click to expand...

You got it. I get warm fuzzies from sortable tables. Especially if they are online and have links. They have to keep me away from the databases at work because I tend to stick things in there that ain't oughta be stuck.