Compact Brew Tower

I worked for a bit on sketch up coming up with a compact moveable brew tower...Wanted to import a picture, but can't seem to capture an image from sketch up to post.

I was thinking about doing a vertical tower of two 15.5 kegs set up on a dolly.

Top keggle would be the kettle(want to do electric element)

Bottom keg would be mash tun

Top keg features:

electric element
cold water line at top
drain at bottom to sparge mash tun
line in at top from pump to return wort
tee on cold water line for fill and alternately into immersion chiller
tee on line in to switch it into immersion chiller for alternate use
to maintain mash tun temp

Bottom Keg features:
drain at bottom with false bottom for sparging to pump
gravity fed sparge arm at top from upper kettle

Other...
pump sits behind dolly base
upper keg will be removed for cleaning
fully as mobile as a dolly to store outside, yet brew inside, as I have no
garage and live in the rockies and do not want to brew outside
sight tubes and thermometers in both kegs
gravity fed to fermenter


I know that the conventional method is to a three vessel system, but doubling the kettles uses and doubling the immersion to act as a mash temp controller, I believe that I can consolidate my kit.

I hope to post some kind of image from sketchup soon

Make sure your pump is lower than the bottom kettle or you will have a heck of a time getting a prime. I would imagine with only two vessels you will be limited to batch sparging.

Sawdustguy said:

Make sure your pump is lower than the bottom kettle or you will have a heck of a time getting a prime. I would imagine with only two vessels you will be limited to batch sparging.

Click to expand...

Either that or he is thinking like a Brutus 20 only vertical.

Ben you have to have a certain threshold of posts to post a picture. Put the pic somewhere online like picasa (on google) and then post a link to the picture.

Consider using the floor as a platform. I built a compact, lightweight and easily movable wooden tower. Originally, my plan was similar to your concept. Ultimately, I wound up using two burners on the floor and my HLT cooler on the top platform of the tower. The middle platform serves as a convenient place to keep misc equipment while brewing such as refractometer, measuring cup, spoon, etc. I use the bottom shelf as a place to put the pump which is mounted on it's own small stand. I use two turkey fryer type burners. One for the direct fired mash tun and one for the boil kettle. I have my water filter mounted on the back side of the tower and a garden hose hanger on each side. The hose hangers are handy for storing misc tubing and hoses. I also have a power strip mounted on the back of the tower that I use for the pump and the bucket heater for the HLT. I also sometimes plug a floodlight into the power strip when brewing at night. I have a clamping type mop holder to hold my mash rake and various other hooks and holders. I have a potable water hose hooked up that bypasses the filter to supply cooling water to my CFC. The same hose is handy for cleanup too as I have a floor drain in my brewing area so it's easy to hose things down when necessary. So, my tower rig sort of evolved away from the original design as I discovered better ways to go about it. One nice thing is that all three shelves can be used to store much of the equipment. The tower weighs less than 50 lbs and I can transport it on the roof rack of my SUV. I designed it to be lightweight, yet strong. The top platform will support my full weight and it's very stable. I used only 1 x 3's, 1 x 4's, 2 x 3's and some 1/4" plywood for the platforms. No 2 x 4's or 4 x 4's used at all. The use of the lightweight lumber really cut down on the weight. A rig doesn't necessarily have to be an all-in-one integrated unit. Sometimes a modular design might better suit your needs. It does for me.

heres mine,, fairly small foot print adding a pump soon but I think I'll keep the MLT on top,, maybe
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/before-after-brew-stuff-169585/

I don't see why I would be limited to batch spargin...
Triple decoction would go along the lines of dough in at 95...45 min rest

Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel and boil and add back to mash to bring to 122 to rest for 15 min

Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel and boil and add back to mash to bring to 148 to rest for 15 min

Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel and boil and add back to mash to bring to 158 to rest for 15 min

In this rest I would add 5 gallons water to kettle and bring to boil...The final step of decoction would be to raise entire mash temp to 168 and this can be done by pumping mash through upper kettles copper coil that doubles as chiller and mash temp control.

I can then add fresh water to kettle to lower kettle water temp to 168 to sparge to bottom mash tun and pump back up to kettle after all water has left kettle.

Do you think this would work?

A simple batch sparge would merely exist of doughing in, and then circulating wort through upper copper coil until time to sparge and then draining in the sparge volume...

Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel and boil and add ba

to post a pic, just do a print screen, paste to a MS paint document, upload to your gallery here and link.

got a pic to upload into my profile pic...see if this works for now...

http://picasaweb.google.com/108488725530733315820/Rig?authkey=Gv1sRgCO2ym6f1vaWeSA#


This link seems to work...

You can see the sight tubes on the sides, the blue lines are water lines...The green is the water line in and out...The upper keg doesn't have the copper line like I would like to show, but imagine the long vertical tube to be a copper coil attached to one of the bulkheads. The red boxes depict valves that will be implemented practically, but are difficult to draw in sketchup. The upper kettle is electric. The pump is depicted in green.

benbradford said:

I don't see why I would be limited to batch spargin...
Triple decoction would go along the lines of dough in at 95...45 min rest

Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel and boil and add back to mash to bring to 122 to rest for 15 min

Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel and boil and add back to mash to bring to 148 to rest for 15 min

Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel and boil and add back to mash to bring to 158 to rest for 15 min

In this rest I would add 5 gallons water to kettle and bring to boil...The final step of decoction would be to raise entire mash temp to 168 and this can be done by pumping mash through upper kettles copper coil that doubles as chiller and mash temp control.

I can then add fresh water to kettle to lower kettle water temp to 168 to sparge to bottom mash tun and pump back up to kettle after all water has left kettle.

Do you think this would work?

A simple batch sparge would merely exist of doughing in, and then circulating wort through upper copper coil until time to sparge and then draining in the sparge volume...

Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel and boil and add ba

Click to expand...

You would not be limited to batch sparging with your planned setup and I didn't see where anyone said you would. What I do see as a potential problem is when you say, "Decoct x amount via pump to top vessel". I doubt you will be able to pump grain or even a grain/wort slurry. A typical decoction requires you to remove x amount of the thickest part of the mash to a separate vessel to boil. I just can't see being able to pump it.

It was in response to sawdustguys post...

I didn't know that the pump would have difficulty pumping wort... I guess I should look into switching the kettle and mt up to down?

benbradford said:

It was in response to sawdustguys post...

I didn't know that the pump would have difficulty pumping wort... I guess I should look into switching the kettle and mt up to down?

Click to expand...

A lot of times in decoction you take a slurry of grain and wort to heat instead of clear wort. Catt22 is just saying your pump won't push said slurry. You would be just fine doing decoctions with just clear wort as you described. Alternatively if you go ahead and heat your sparge water then instead of decoction you could just pump wort through the coil (a-la HERMS) to do the steps in the mash.

As long as your mash tun is big enough to hold all of your pre-boil volume of wort plus the grain your system should work as you are describing. Alternatively look at the two vessel BRUTUS 20. It only has half the total pre-boil volume of wort in the mash tun at any given time so you could keep the mash tun smaller (or do larger batches). Essentially yours is similar to a Brutus 20 except vertical rather than horizontal.