Show Me Your Wood Brew Sculpture/Rig

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Long time lurker, getting ready to brew again after a few years. Not pretty but I think it'll do the job.
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How have you guys treated the plywood tops of your stands to keep spillovers from staining and soaking into the wood? And do you also coat it to protect it from the heat of the kettle?
 
butterblum said:
How have you guys treated the plywood tops of your stands to keep spillovers from staining and soaking into the wood? And do you also coat it to protect it from the heat of the kettle?
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I have mine covered with 1/2 inch of tile backer .it can take some heat and its designed for use in high moisture applications. I'm not eating off of it so right now its not sealed. Might cover it with tile some time for cleaning ease and appearance.
 
I'm liking the spar urethane idea, and then I can just use a 12"x12" silicone mat under the kettle to help protect the surface from direct heat.
 
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all I did was stain my whole sculpture and used cement backerboard wrapped in aluminum flashing between the burners, nothing on the tops, and havnt seen a single issue. I have ran 2 hour boils before as well with no issues, this is using both a blinchman as well as an edlemetal burner. I liked the idea of being able to take everything off and spraying it down or scrubbing it with a little bit of dawn if I have a boil over.
 
How did this end up...did you add casters? Its has given me several ideas along the same type of design.
Mike
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joshstokes122 said:
Just built mine today. Most of my inspiration came from harten74's rig in this thread. I still need to add casters.

I don't use a separate burner for a lauter tun, so I didn't feel the need to make the third tier permanently fixed. Plus, I was able to make it a little smaller for storage.

The angled braces for the third tier simply pull out from some dowels allowing the whole tier to collapse.

View attachment 76667

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here is my ghetto set up...I've just always made one on the fly every time I brewed...just grab whatever is around to make everything flow by gravity...it has progressed from 3 to 4 levels to go from HLT to fermenter w/o moving anything.

But I will be making a stand of some type this weekend...probably a half stand to sit on the wood spool pictured...

BTW...I always hear about "3 tier" but don't we really need 4 levels? or does "3 tier" mean 3 levels "above"?
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Updated version of mine. Added a stainless mashtun, sight glass and recalibrated my PID. Just need to shorten the hoses and we’ll be ready for the next brew day!
 
My quickie carpentry project...the platforms have a plywood top that didn't make the pictures...The kettle wasn't intended to fit under the HLT but I found that by widening the platform a little it fit right in, but probably not how I'm really gonna use it

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this rig has treated me very well for the last 2 years. i've done a couple little updates here and there, like adding priming ports on the pumps, but all in a all, not much more than that. i took the route of having lots of ventilation and moving air around the burners vs mounting them on a solid flat surface. after a full 90min boil, the wood isn't even warm to the touch. all the rising heat pulls cool air through the bottom of the burner and keeps the stand cool without doing anything. this works great for me!
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My rig that I designed and built a couple years ago for my electric brewing system:

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Currently working on the following upgrades:
Stainless steel or liquid poly covered countertops (still undecided)
HDPE for HLT shelf and bottom shelf
Underside mount for new counterflow chiller
Remote water supply hookup behind kettle for Steam Slayer(TM) -available at brewhardware.com

Shout out to bobby at brewhardware for all the valves, camlocks, tubing, and knowledge!
 
phillip_h said:
Here's the latest revision to my brewing area. I used to have a multi-tiered stand, but I bought a pump so I don't have to rely on gravity anymore. I'm planning to christen it with a brewing session on Saturday.

View attachment 385298
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This is also what I came down to and this is exactly what I am in the process of building. I have an old Sten unit from Ikea (they don’t make those anymore) with one additional shelf underneath for the pump. I have one of the Anvil burners and their pump. I figure for a small scale system like this with (2) 5 gallon Gott coolers I really only want the pump for recirculation and sparging. I can heat mash water and dump it in manually. Everything else is pretty much gravity. This is all you need.
 
First I noticed this thread. I got a chain trencher attachment about the time I started brewing again, so I screwed some scrap lumber to the pallet it came on. was supposed to be temporary, but has been in regular use for over two years,,even kept it when I went electric. Probably will keep until the day I go indoors, since it works OK
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Dland said:
First I noticed this thread. I got a chain trencher attachment about the time I started brewing again, so I screwed some scrap lumber to the pallet it came on. was supposed to be temporary, but has been in regular use for over two years,,even kept it when I went electric. Probably will keep until the day I go indoors, since it works OKView attachment 644658
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You do electric brewing outside?? Why?? For most, coming inside is the main point for going electric.
 
^^^Easy clean up, hose everything down, no vapor in house. Break the rig down and put in nearby shipping container. Besides, outside behind the shop building is nice and peaceful, plenty of room. I also have a pop up vendor tent I can use in snow & rain. A little snow is not bad, but have been more careful about rain since I went electric.

Someday will move indoors if/when I upgrade to heavier/larger gear. I do have some garage space under main house I'm eying for brewing, but is in use for work right now.

Have considered moving it into a shipping container too, sort of a compromise but since they are not heated or insulated, I'm not sure what the point is. Though I have considered buying a reefer container, which are insulated, but they start at around $6K.
 
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My rig in the brew haus. The stand the fermenter is on gets removed and replaced with my coleman mash tun during brewing. After the boil the stand goes on and into the fermenter.
Eric
 
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Spartan1979 said:
It's from Northern Brewer.
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Question for you regarding the CFC: Do you find that your flow rate is throttled much when pumping through it, or is it not an issue with the pump you have? I have the Topsflo DC pump and it doesn't seem to have enough power to get a nice whirlpool going in my kettle during cooling. I am able to get a fast flow rate through a plate chiller (less restriction) with the Topsflo.

Also, have you compared its performance to a plate chiller?
 
J_Bones said:
Question for you regarding the CFC: Do you find that your flow rate is throttled much when pumping through it, or is it not an issue with the pump you have? I have the Topsflo DC pump and it doesn't seem to have enough power to get a nice whirlpool going in my kettle during cooling. I am able to get a fast flow rate through a plate chiller (less restriction) with the Topsflo.

Also, have you compared its performance to a plate chiller?
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Yeah, the rate is throttled. I probably have too many elbows in use which probably cause back pressure. The whirlpool is okay, but not what I'd like.

I have not compared it to a plate chiller. I'm not confident about being able to get a plate chiller clean. If I had my choice I'd rather use an immersion chiller, but I haven't figured how to do it with the steam condensor and the hop spider and the BoilCoil.
 
Hi Spartan1979.
Looking for large hose clamps like you have on your CFC hoses. Do you have 12mm hose clamps?
 
Spartan1979 said:
Yeah, the rate is throttled. I probably have too many elbows in use which probably cause back pressure. The whirlpool is okay, but not what I'd like.

I have not compared it to a plate chiller. I'm not confident about being able to get a plate chiller clean. If I had my choice I'd rather use an immersion chiller, but I haven't figured how to do it with the steam condensor and the hop spider and the BoilCoil.
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May I ask, which pump do you use? And in your experience, how long does it take for you to cool your wort from boiling to pitching temp with the CFC?
 
I'm using a March 809 pump with the upgraded impeller and a SS chugger head.

Chilling times are hard to say because I started using it the summer when ground water was pretty warm. 25-30 mins? Just a guess. I'm brewing Friday and I'll try to time it.
 
J_Bones said:
May I ask, which pump do you use? And in your experience, how long does it take for you to cool your wort from boiling to pitching temp with the CFC?
Click to expand...

I brewed this morning and recorded some data. Tap water temp was 67 F.

to 180 - 1 min 15 sec
to 140 - 3 min 40 sec
to 100 - 10 min 30 sec
to 80 - 17 min 20 sec
to 75 - 21 min 20 sec

At which point I switched to recirculating ice water. At 42 min I was out of ice and the temp was 46.4.
 
Spartan1979 said:
I brewed this morning and recorded some data. Tap water temp was 67 F.

to 180 - 1 min 15 sec
to 140 - 3 min 40 sec
to 100 - 10 min 30 sec
to 80 - 17 min 20 sec
to 75 - 21 min 20 sec

At which point I switched to recirculating ice water. At 42 min I was out of ice and the temp was 46.4.
Click to expand...

The temperature you recorded was the temperature of your wort in kettle or of the wort exiting your CFC? I have a thermometer built into the exit of my CFC and plate chiller (whichever i choose to use), and i have had occasions in January where I can pump into the fermenter at 60 degrees with almost no initial re-circulation back into the kettle. This will be the first winter coming up using the CFC so i hope to have similar performance.

Have you used your CFC with very cold tap water, where you didn't have to re-circulate ice water or wait 40 minutes?

Also, were you brewing a lager?
 

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