El behemoth brew tower

[green_bierz]

Ok guys. So first off I wanted to say thank you to everyone on this forum for being so helpful through the years. Recently I started looking into buying or building a brew tower. Seeing the prices and the materials used I decided to build one. My neighbor and close friend is a structural iron worker and just happens to like my brew so be was more than happy to help me out on this. What I didn't take into consideration is that him building sky scrapers and bridges would carry over to a brewing project lol. Will be posting pics and some description along this journey

 

[green_bierz]

I get off work and walk In his garage and this is the monstrous base that he has sketched out on the ground. I bout pissed my pants. Revised design lol.

 

[green_bierz]

So after telling him why we don't need legs that are damn near 6 feet long and able to convert my stand into a cherry picker capable of pulling a cat motor from a peterbuilt I showed him the design of base I wanted. We went with three inch sq. tubing for the main tower welded to 1/4 inch sq plate then to finish it off welded the 2" sq. tubing legs into place. Day one complete. On to burner modification.

 

[green_bierz]

Ok so last night I'm told that we are going to destroy my burners and "make em sexy" this used to scare me but the crazy redneck actually has some good ideas so I went over and came into the garage to my brand new kab6 that I'm using to fire my brew kettle looking like a sad version of the lunar rover. I could only imagine what he had planned. Turns out he remembered that I was talking about the kab 6 mod and dropping the height down a bit. So after a good couple hours of working on the sp10 for the hlt and the kab6 this is what we have. I'm a picture whore for this project for the simple fact that I have seen a lot of your brew builds with kind of limited pics so I want this to be a good guide of what to expect. Or a good guide to show that having two rednecks in a garage with unlimited welding equipment and a fondness for beer and good music could be a dangerous combination.

 

[green_bierz]

Don't blame him for drinking **** beer. When he works. It keeps him happy and working. Plus keeps my cost down. Thank god he dosent guzzle iipa's like that bud crap. I'd be bankrupt.

 

[snccoulter]

Nice. It is a great help when you have a friend that is talented. Buy him all the bud he wants it is well worth it. Just limit the intake!!!

 

[green_bierz]

Nice. It is a great help when you have a friend that is talented. Buy him all the bud he wants it is well worth it. Just limit the intake!!!

I think I'm the one that is drunk at the end of our builds every night. All I see is my equipment turning into hot slag and ash. He keeps me calm by feeding me alcohol and explaining what he's thinking. When I see that is going TOO FAR in the over engineering side I put my 2 cents in and we reevaluate the situation. I think this'll be a nice tower once she's done. The base looks great. Tonight is leveling feet and castors.

 

[Setesh]

Maybe it's just me, but I find the most enjoyable part of making beer is making the equipment to make beer! My wallet and my wife may disagree

Wife "You're making another brew stand? What was wrong with your last one?"

Me "I was bored with it!"

Wife "how much is this costing us"

Sound familiar?

 

[green_bierz]

Ok. Last night stopped and grabbed up two more castors. We mounted the castors behind the leveling feet so we have as much leg as possible supporting the weight of the tower. Castors are going to be awesome for moving this around the garage and driveway!

 

[GoodDogShelby]

3" x 3" x 1/4" has to weigh a ton!! I made my stand out of 2" x 2" x 1/4". It was great because I could drill and tap any mountings that I needed. I quickly grew tired of having to get two people to help load and unload it out of the truck for brew outs. I did a redesign and cut about 40lbs of tubing.

I did something similar with my burners. I cut the legs off and used the windscreen and mountings. Much easier.

Do you plan on hauling that thing around to brew outs?

 

[green_bierz]

3" x 3" x 1/4" has to weigh a ton!! I made my stand out of 2" x 2" x 1/4". It was great because I could drill and tap any mountings that I needed. I quickly grew tired of having to get two people to help load and unload it out of the truck for brew outs. I did a redesign and cut about 40lbs of tubing.

I did something similar with my burners. I cut the legs off and used the windscreen and mountings. Much easier.

Do you plan on hauling that thing around to brew outs?

Probably not. And yes it's very overbuilt but I would rather have it to big and overly strong as opposed to not strong enough.

 

[green_bierz]

Ok so the tower is all done. Sorry I haven't been on and posting updates. Tomorrow morning is the first fire up. Mounted burners and after a night of drinking Irish whiskey we decided to go straight up mechanical with this and make it look like the burners are straight up floating. We accomplished that well. I was worried about the mlt shelf holding weight at first..... Welder decided to test it haha. Ran a 20 psi reg. to a t fitting and then valves for my two seperate burners with a needle valve inline. Copper tubing to my burners. All in all I am very proud of this and my neighbors think me and my welder are nuts... Will upload pics tomorrow during brew day.

 

[Setesh]

That's shaping up really well! I like the weld testing. If it will hold ol' boy up it will hold any of your brewing equipment up.

 

[green_bierz]

Lol that ain't no lie. Heating up strike water as I type this. Sight glass and thermometer are absolutely needed for next brew session on the hlt.

 

[jhoyda]

Probably not. And yes it's very overbuilt.

To say the least.

I suspended a 4000 lb piece of equipment 20 ft up using 4 x 4 x 1/4" tubing. Four legs with cross bracing is good up to 50,000 lb if I remember the calculations. So even that was overbuilt!

 

[green_bierz]

Look on the bright side. After nuclear war. This will be the only brew tower surviving afterwords. Yep. Alien archaeologists will ponder at the use of this crude looking instrument of human kind haha. Just mashed in. Dead nuts. This is turning out well!

 

[green_bierz]

First brew day all done. This thing is amazing and shaved a ton of time off my session. Everything went perfectly minus a small hiccup at the end of boil getting my hot wort through my plate chiller (damn you hop sacks and stone ipa's). All in all doing a 10 gallon batch of my house cream ale was an absolute success. Hope y'all enjoy the pics!

 

[Setesh]

The quilt ties it all together nicely!