anyone have a hard-plumbed brew rig...

and how do you like it? I just did some exploring under the house and found a bunch of copper piping sticks and thought....HMMM!

Thanks!!

love it

Not yet,but soon. As much as I love carrying all that water around......

I just use a camp burner and a brewpot, carboys and buckets. I hate to carry full buckets and carboys and an open system which is prone to infection. I want a totally enclosed brew system where no beer is exposed to the air after the transfer to the fermentation vessel. I do not want a hard plumbed system so I can't easily clean the mash tun, boil kettle and fermenter. I believe that if it is hard plumbed not using some sort of quick disconnect that you can not effectively clean in place (flat bottom) vessels with fittings on the side. I also believe that using propane is fine if you brew every other week or less but I brew 10 or more gallons every week and so I have a 150000 btu natural gas burner which costs a lot less to operate. If you can afford "Tri Clamp" stainless fittings then that gives you the best ease of use removable sanitary fittings you can possibly use. All commercial breweries use this "Tri-Clover" fitting. If the above Tri-Clover connected system is what you refer to as a hard plumbed system then that is what I want. I would use a magnetic drive pump to transfer liquids. If anyone has a good source for the Tri-Clover fittings then please pass it on.

Honestly, I think it's a little over the top for a home brewery. Hoses with quick disconnects give you the same/more flexibility for much less $$, especially if you're using a single pump for multiple uses and would require Ts and valves.

I considered harp piping my brewery when I upgraded but can't believe that I even thought about it. QD's are the only way to go. Rather than open and close four valves every time you want to redirect flow just move the fittings. Copper pipe does have its place though. See BierMunchers chiller

I'm thinking about hard plumbing a sculpture at some point. First, I need to make that mash tun I posted a few days ago.

I'm thinking that hard plumbing is going to be nice - less spills that way, cleaner design, etc.

Yuri_Rage said:

I'm thinking about hard plumbing a sculpture at some point. First, I need to make that mash tun I posted a few days ago.

I'm thinking that hard plumbing is going to be nice - less spills that way, cleaner design, etc.

Click to expand...

That's my plan to pipe all the water on my tower but I still don't like the idea of having to clean a closed system. So I'll stick with the good old gravity.

The system doesn't have to be closed per se. You could build an intake and output manifold and cap them off during normal operation and when it comes time to clean, just attach a hose to complete a circuit between your intake and output and cycle some hot PBW through it followed by a sanitation cycle and let your pump do all the work!!!

my system is mostly hard piped, single tier/single pump. I use valves to send flow the right direction. There is a schematic on my web page below. (hasn't been updated in quite some time)
I now have a plate chiller and see the need for a second pump now but with an immersion chiller there were no issues at all being hard plumbed, easy to clean, easy to use

good info to ponder...I like the QD and manifold idea, but it is all in it's infancy at the moment. I need to polish up my brewing a little more first, but I'll eventually come up with "The Brewrig Mama-Jama Deluxe", or something like that.

I can certainly appreciate the advantage to having a water line terminate above the brew house/rig. My garage freezes only about a few days a year, so draining the line in the dead of winter would be mandatory, but for the other 51 weeks a year, water available above the rig would be awful darn handy...as are the floor drains....

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