BrewMehr
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 26, 2015
- Messages
- 46
- Reaction score
- 11
I got a chance to start my new brew stand today. It's nothing revolutionary but it's going to make brewing a lot more fun and mobile for me.
Here is a picture of what I am replacing.
Yes, that is an old door and saw horses holding it all together. The HLT is actually sitting up on an old table saw stand I had laying around. And here is what the new stand looks like so far.
It stands 27" tall by 2' deep by 6' wide. I made it a little longer than necessary to accomodate larger pots in the future. The material is all 2"x2"x0.083 square tubing. It's super strong and yet I can easily still lift one end of it. I'm not sure if I will every move up from 10 gallon batches but I know I'll be increasing the size of my MLT to 20 gallons soon to accommodate the larger grain bills. I also wanted to leave plenty of space between the HLT and the burners. I'm thinking of adding a sheet of stainless under the HLT to allow a place for setting those random items like thermometers and refractometers that never seem to have an ideal place on brew day.
The 2 chugger pumps are just sitting on the beam for now. I'm not sure where I will mount them yet -- I'll probably take care of that tomorrow.
It was a fun project. I have about 10 hours into it so far and I got to fire up the old Bridgeport to cut the bolt patterns for the casters and pumps. It's been quite a few years since I ran it so that was fun. I'll likely prime it for now until I'm 100% certain everything is where I want it.
My old setup was completely gravity feed so this will be my first experience with pumps. I'm not excited about it but I do believe they will make life easier in the long run.
The new burners will allow me to swtich to natural gas eventually. I'm really tired of the high cost of propane but I'm not overly excited about draping a natural gas line, water line, and power cord to my stand every time I want to brew. If I leave it in one place all these can be hooked up permanently but part of the attraction to this new stand was the fact that I could brew in the driveway as easily as I could bre in the garage or back yard.
I'm doing all of this with the thought that I will eventually add a HERMs coil to the HLT. Tomorrow I'll run up to the paint store to see if I can find some high temp paint for my HVLP.
Here is a picture of what I am replacing.
Yes, that is an old door and saw horses holding it all together. The HLT is actually sitting up on an old table saw stand I had laying around. And here is what the new stand looks like so far.
It stands 27" tall by 2' deep by 6' wide. I made it a little longer than necessary to accomodate larger pots in the future. The material is all 2"x2"x0.083 square tubing. It's super strong and yet I can easily still lift one end of it. I'm not sure if I will every move up from 10 gallon batches but I know I'll be increasing the size of my MLT to 20 gallons soon to accommodate the larger grain bills. I also wanted to leave plenty of space between the HLT and the burners. I'm thinking of adding a sheet of stainless under the HLT to allow a place for setting those random items like thermometers and refractometers that never seem to have an ideal place on brew day.
The 2 chugger pumps are just sitting on the beam for now. I'm not sure where I will mount them yet -- I'll probably take care of that tomorrow.
It was a fun project. I have about 10 hours into it so far and I got to fire up the old Bridgeport to cut the bolt patterns for the casters and pumps. It's been quite a few years since I ran it so that was fun. I'll likely prime it for now until I'm 100% certain everything is where I want it.
My old setup was completely gravity feed so this will be my first experience with pumps. I'm not excited about it but I do believe they will make life easier in the long run.
The new burners will allow me to swtich to natural gas eventually. I'm really tired of the high cost of propane but I'm not overly excited about draping a natural gas line, water line, and power cord to my stand every time I want to brew. If I leave it in one place all these can be hooked up permanently but part of the attraction to this new stand was the fact that I could brew in the driveway as easily as I could bre in the garage or back yard.
I'm doing all of this with the thought that I will eventually add a HERMs coil to the HLT. Tomorrow I'll run up to the paint store to see if I can find some high temp paint for my HVLP.
