Grossy's Garage Brew Pub Build

[Grossy]

Grossy's Garage Red-Brick Brew Pub

Well this is it, my garage to Home Brew Pub build. The Northfarthing Brewery is under construction. I have been preparing for this for over three years now. Below I will be posting photos and comments about my build.

This will be a 20 gallon all-grain system, using 30 gallon kettles from Glacier Tanks.

Everything will be in Oak cabinets and I will try and hide all things like plumbing, pumps, hoists, fans, ect... It will be a brew pub, not just a brewery.

Thanks in advance to all the people whose ideas I shamelessly stole.

Unique/rare ideas that will be built.

1. Red Brick Brew Station
2. Wort Chiller/Fermentation Chamber Combo, post #25
3. Grain Chute
4. 100 Gallon Water Tank Sink
5. 3 Tap Sink Faucet
6. 5-Tap copper water manifold, with swivel pot filler
7. Clean-in-Place Fermentor washer
8. Removable Bar Top

On this post I will always try and keep the latest pictures up to date.

The brick work is finally. I never imagined how hard it would be to do the brick work, 3 months!!!

The Brick Brew-Stand is finished.
The keezer and Sink are finished.
The 5-Tap water manifold is installed.

 

[ChefRex]

Great start, subbed!

 

[Grossy]

Here are the floor plans and front view of the brew station.

The kettles and burners area will be lined with red brick.

 

[Grossy]

I’m basically a lazy person trapped inside a procrastinator’s body.

I love brewing but hate the more mundane tasks, like cleaning, sanitizing, chilling the wort, ect… So the enjoyment of brewing can be killed by what I call “death by a thousand paper cuts”. No one chore in brewing is particular hard or unpleasant, but together they can be overwhelming.

So my goal is to remove as many of those “Paper Cuts” as possible. To accomplish this I took a systems [FONT=&quot]analysts [/FONT]approach to brewing, by eliminated, streamlining, combining and simplified every process I hope to achieve my version of brewing nirvana.

I have put together in this build all that I have learned from this community, my own experience, and I think quite few of my own ideas. I hope you find them useful.

 

[Grossy]

Before any work could be done I had to tackle the floor. This required removing everything from the garage floor.

I decided to go with a 100% solids epoxy floor covering, which requires that you acid etch the floor first. My advice to everyone is if you do this first remove everything from the garage, I left my tools on the wall and the acid vapors put a fine layer of rust all over every one.

This was a three week long project, 2 weekends of prep work, and one day to do it.

I went with hunter green, the smudges you see are just dust from foot prints, they sweep up.

 

[Grossy]

The kettles arrive, had to go down to the freight company and pick these up at their dock:

4x - 30 gallon kettles, all with tri-clamp fittings.

 

[Hello]

My god, I have garage floor envy.

 

[Roadie]

Floor looks great.

You are zoned for a brew pub in your garage?


Almost Famous Brewing Company

 

[Hammy71]

Floor looks great.

You are zoned for a brew pub in your garage?


Almost Famous Brewing Company

I'm assuming it's a brew pub in name only....like friends and such.

 

[Grossy]

Floor looks great.

You are zoned for a brew pub in your garage?

Absolutely, Just say say "Friend", after that the beer is free.

 

[Ramitt]

Love the floor and shiny kettles

 

[mwill07]

curious to see how the sink goes in. Looks like you had a utility sink before hand - is that something you installed yourself?

My garage is almost identical minus the sink HW heater in same location, and there is a clean-out port for the sewer stack roughly where your utility sink is shown. I've been dreaming of installing a sink there, curious how that works.

 

[Roadie]

Absolutely, Just say say "Friend", after that the beer is free.

As usual I'm too literal. Friend!


Almost Famous Brewing Company

 

[MathiasMicrobrew]

Sub'd

 

[FoxPaw]

Got to see how this comes out. Hobbits Rule!
Brew on, Sub'd, David

 

[jeffxmck]

Sub'd - cant wait to see this finished!

 

[Yesfan]

Love the floor and shiny kettles

Me too! Now I know how women feel when they buy a new pair of shoes!



Sub'd

 

[Grossy]

curious to see how the sink goes in. Looks like you had a utility sink before hand - is that something you installed yourself?

My garage is almost identical minus the sink HW heater in same location, and there is a clean-out port for the sewer stack roughly where your utility sink is shown. I've been dreaming of installing a sink there, curious how that works.

Yes I installed the old sink, my father found it at a garage sale for $20.00. The garage had a sewer connection at the location that you see the old sink.

There is 12" of fall from from where the new sink is and where the sewer connection is located. Thats plenty of downhill.

 

[Grossy]

The outside of the keezer is about 90% done. The top "lid" is going to get another layer of oak planks across it, which will surround and hold in place the drip tray.

The back of the "Tower", where all the taps are placed, will be completely open to the keezer below. A couple of fans will blow cold air up into the tower to keep the taps cold.

 

[nebulous]

Nice work I cant wait to see more and I want that sink

 

[rekoob]

Okay, you have my interest!
I love the floor. Would love to do that in my garage.
Eventually will have it the way I want it, for now I'm watching and dreaming.
Oh... FRIEND!

 

[Grossy]

Well it's has been a long year and I never thought that this build would take so long, but I am starting to see daylight at the end of the tunnel.

As I see it there are four main areas for a brew station.

The Brew Rig (burners)
Fermentation Chamber
Storage
Dispensing (aka Taps)

The Taps are done, the fermentation chamber and brew rig are 90% done, storage is a closet in the house.

So I am real close to being finished, a month or two.

Here come more pictures.

 

[Grossy]

The finished keezer.

 

[Grossy]

The fermentation chamber solves a problem we have down here in Arizona, 90 degree tap water.

I think I went through every type of chiller system imaginable. I wanted a chiller that was "work" free.

To chill wort you don't need ice, you need cold water, ice is just how you make lots of cold water. This means you have to make ice or buy ice, then haul ice, set up pumps and prechillers, ect... I tried them all. I wanted something easier, something automatic.

May I present the Grossy Wort Chiller-Fermentation Chamber 3000. (patent pending)

This is a 100 gallon chest freezer that keeps 100 gallons of water at 33 degrees Fahrenheit, all the time. This mass of cold water also chills the fermentation chamber above.

 

[Grossy]

To make 100 gallons of cold water I use a STC-1000 temperature controller hooked up to a chest freezer, this is set to 33 degrees.

The only "work" required for chilling 20 gallons of wort is turning two valves on and off. Everything is hard-plumbed into the chiller.


How the Chiller works:

To chill the wort, I use a heat exchanger or as we call them a Counter-flow Chiller. Wort is pumped through the CFC and back into the kettle. How this all works:

1. 15 minutes prior to the end of boil, I circulate the hot wort through the CFC to sanitize it.

2. When the boil is done, I turn a valve and 90 degree tap water flows into the CFC. The plumbing lines are hard plumbed to the CFC, the water flows through the CFC chilling the wort and then out of the CFC and into a sewer drain.

After 15 minutes, the 20 gallons of wort is down to 140 degrees.

3. I then shut off the tap water.

4. Flip on a switch to a pump inside the chest freezer, turn another valve, and 33 degree water is now flowing through the CFC, 15 minutes later all 20 gallons of wort is at 65 degrees.


How the fermentation chamber works:

There are two additional pumps inside the chest freezer, these pump 33 degree water through two transmission-coolers (heat exchanger) located in the fermentation chamber above the chest freezer. These transmission coolers have fans on them to chill the air. The pumps inside the chest freezer are regulated by STC-1000 temperature controllers.

Final note. my first attempt at producing 100 gallons of cold water failed. A huge block of ice formed inside the chest freezer all around the inside of the freezer. This acted like an insulator and the water would not drop below 45 degrees for days on end. I solved this by hooking up another pump to the same STC-1000 controller that runs the chest freezer, so whenever the chest freezer turns on the 4th pump turns on and circulates the water, preventing the block of ice from forming.

Refilling the chest freezer:

The chest freezer is refilled automatically, I never touch it. I hooked up a toilet valve and float, and set it to slow drip. This will fill the chest freezer up in two days.

The reason for the slow drip is that it takes about 60 gallons of water to chill the wort, that leaves 40 gallons of 33 degree water to chill the fermentation chamber above, the slow drip refills the freezer, but the water stays at 33 degrees.

 

[Grossy]

The Grossy Wort-Chiller/Fermentation Chamber 3000.

The front and side doors have not yet been made.

 

[Grossy]

The chest freezer under construction.

 

[Grossy]

More Phases.

This will soon all be in Oak.

 

[atoughram]

Way cool!

 

[nhwrecker]

Very interesting. I like how you're using the chest freezer. Did you have to caulk and seal all of the seams inside before proceeding?


Are you using a lift or pulley system to move your 20 gallons of cooled wort into the fermenter, and then are those rollers that the plywood with the kettle slides on to get it all the way to the right on the fermenter?

 

[Grossy]

Very interesting. I like how you're using the chest freezer. Did you have to caulk and seal all of the seams inside before proceeding?


Are you using a lift or pulley system to move your 20 gallons of cooled wort into the fermenter, and then are those rollers that the plywood with the kettle slides on to get it all the way to the right on the fermenter?

Yes, I used 100% silicone caulk (the same thing you would use for an aquarium). I caulked every seem, waited a few days, and then re-caulked every seem again.

It's been filled for over 6 months now and no leaks.


I will be using a hoist to lift the brew kettle, then I will have to make some type of "bridge" for the rollers to go on and into the fermentation chamber. The rollers will then convey the kettle to the far right. Yes a piece of plywood will be used, the one in the picture is just a piece of scrap to test the idea.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Awesome build!

Your ferm chamber idea is similar to what I did on a smaller scale, I just have a cornie filled with water in my serving keezer and use pumps in the water cornie to chill my ferm chambers up above when needed.

I'm Looking forward to watching your progress!

 

[kpr121]

This is awesome… love the simplification (or is it overdesign?) of fermentation chamber and chilling water multipurposing. Subscribed, excited to see the progress!

 

[jdubdvdt]

This is great. I agree with all the minor "paper cuts" and I hope to do something similar when I get solidified after graduation. As of now, I will continue drooling over what you have and what I want! Great work. I am very impressed.

 

[Paps]

Way to think outside of the box on the ferm chamber / wort cooling assist freezer thingymabob.
My hat is off to you sir.

 

[philipCT]

Gees. You've done so many things here that I've never seen before I was certain you were a lunatic when I first started reading this thread. But as it all comes together it's really some wild kind of genius going on!

Great work.

 

[Grossy]

There is a lot more coming.

I needed to know where the kettles would sit in the brew stand, so I had to take a break from finishing the fermentation Chamber/Wort Chiller .

Here are some beginning pics as the brick work proceeds:

 

[SnakeRidge]

Wow, you must really like beer

(Sorry, couldn't help myself)

 

[hunter_le five]

subscribed

 

[jschein]

Subscribed