Suggestions for brew sculpture if you can't lift?

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badun

badun

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I had back surgery a year ago and it was so successful I rapidly fell back (no pun intended) into my old bad habits. These include lifting and moving around full brew pots and mash tuns. As you may have guessed I ended up in the ER this past weekend and had emergency surgery! I'm OK, but I was way too close to permanent paralysis to take any further chances. Seeing as how I still have half my life ahead of me (barring accident, fatal illness, or a complete lack of common sense) I would like to continue to still brew. Gravity based systems are pretty much out of the question. I have friends who will be glad to help but I like to brew often and I often can't predict when I will have time to get it done.

Therefore I'm contemplating the build or purchase of a brew sculpture similar to MoreBeer's pump-fed flat system (found here). But I really can't spend that much. Ideally I would like to convert my existing equipment (I have two kegs operating as brew pots) into a portable system that with the exception of loading the grain and emptying spent materials (I have kids to provide unskilled labor) would not require lifting on my part.

Does anyone have a setup or an idea for one that they can show off?
 
Get a shop vac with as large a diameter suction hose as possible. strap the SOB to a cheap two wheel dolly. that will greatly reduce the burden on clearing out the draff.

Get some good pumps for the rest of the burden.

I have a spot of new bonme growth on my L4. Not something that leaves me bedridden but, if I push myself too hard it'll talk to me so, I take it as easy as I can while brewing because I'd rather have the strength to lift my 3 year to my shoulders than kill myself emptying a mash tun.
 
Take of that back, GilaMinumBeer!

I'm always amazed at the simple things that elude me. I never even thought of using a shop vac for cleanup! Good advice.

Anyone have a rig that can show pictures of plumbing and pumps?
 
Even with all sorts or precautions, pumps, single tiers, etc. I still find myself in a lot of pain after a brew day. I had someone helping me last time and she pointed out several things I was doing that was killing my back. . . it is tricky to brew with a bad back!
 
badun said:
Take of that back, GilaMinumBeer!

I'm always amazed at the simple things that elude me. I never even thought of using a shop vac for cleanup! Good advice.

Anyone have a rig that can show pictures of plumbing and pumps?
Click to expand...

Look in the DIY for show us your brew structure. A bazillion of them
 
Bad back I hear ya with two surgeries this year alone and on the slow road to recovery. This spinal B/S takes a year not like a broken bone with quick healing. I will build again but this time have another single tier with a 3 tipping system on this build. It's easy to go past the backs limit and pay with more pain later, 24/7 is bad enough.
 
badun said:
I had back surgery a year ago and it was so successful I rapidly fell back (no pun intended) into my old bad habits. These include lifting and moving around full brew pots and mash tuns. As you may have guessed I ended up in the ER this past weekend and had emergency surgery! I'm OK, but I was way too close to permanent paralysis to take any further chances. Seeing as how I still have half my life ahead of me (barring accident, fatal illness, or a complete lack of common sense) I would like to continue to still brew. Gravity based systems are pretty much out of the question. I have friends who will be glad to help but I like to brew often and I often can't predict when I will have time to get it done.

Therefore I'm contemplating the build or purchase of a brew sculpture similar to MoreBeer's pump-fed flat system (found here). But I really can't spend that much. Ideally I would like to convert my existing equipment (I have two kegs operating as brew pots) into a portable system that with the exception of loading the grain and emptying spent materials (I have kids to provide unskilled labor) would not require lifting on my part.

Does anyone have a setup or an idea for one that they can show off?
Click to expand...
I am knocking on 70 so I can't handle the loads I once did. A few years ago I put this thing together from surplus and a couple pumps. It has helped the old back.
 
Badun,

Here is a link to a thread in which I show off my rig.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/brewstand-build-finished-1st-brew-today-117290/

It is a single tier with two pumps. I think I show most of the plumbing.

It is fairly easy to operate, but it does involve a bit of bending over to connect the hoses.

I'm 55 and haven't had any back problems, yet (knock wood).

I used to brew professionally. Having to unload 20,000 lbs of gain by hand from a semi in the middle of a Colorado winter and shovel out a half ton of hot grain from a mash tun all in the same day gives one a great appreciation to simplify materials handling.

I have tried to make things as easy as possible with my home brew rig. Nothing electronic whose brains might get scrambled.

The one fail point for this system right now is having to move the fermenter from the deck to the basement for fermentation. A long hose and a nearby drain could solve that problem.

Good luck on your build and take care of your back. Please let me know if I can help in any way.
 
I don't quite understand why a gravity based system is out of the question but,

Here's what I did:

I got 2 folding metal scaffolds from Home Despot ($99 each). On the top rung
of the first scaffold sits a turkey fryer with the HLT (Hot Liquid Tank). There's
a bridge between the 2 scaffolds made of 2 each 1"x8"s at the mid level rung
that holds the MLT (Mash Lauter Tun). On the lowest level of the 2nd
scaffold sits the banjo burner and boil pot. Which is just high enough to allow
gravity flow into the fermenter (4 level) which sits on the floor.

I use several drinking water quaility hoses to get the strike water into the HLT. I never have to lift anything until I take the fermenter to the basement.
I use a handtruck to move the fermenters to the basement.

Something that I thought about but have yet to try is moving to boiled wort to the basement in Corny kegs via handtruck then using compressed air to move the wort from the corny into fermenters that sit up on shelves. This would help aerate the wort in addition to moving it up high so I could start the gravity flow process again.

On the minus side this set up takes up more room than a dedicated brew stand when its in full operation. On the plus side the scaffolds fold up to store in a very small space and are easily portable, they have lockable wheels which also affords a great deal of portability and they are useful to me for a variety of other functions. Additionally there is also enough room to add another HLT, MLT and Boil Pot so I could double what I’m doing now if I wanted to.

You could make a 3 level out of 1 scaffold by making a bottom shelf out of
2 each 1x8’s and count the floor as your 3rd level
 
You shouldn't have to lift much with a gravity setup, using water pressure to fill the hlt, and gravity to do the rest. Emptying the MLT with a shop vac would help as others have mentioned.
 
My gravity system is nothing more than a microwave cart. I've got a camp burner on the rack for the MLT, the mash tun sits on the counter top. The tun is just high enough to clear the top of my kettle when it is sitting on the burner. The burner, in turn, is high enough that I can put the fermentation pail on a set of casters. The cart is also on casters, so I can easily move it outside. To dump the tun, I roll my garden cart over and tilt the tun.

 
Thanks for the collective food for thought! It's too soon for me to even think about brewing (well, I think about it all the time but it's too soon to do anything about it) but this will help me down the road.

As to why I excluded a gravity fed solution, my assumption was that I would have to manually move pots to clean them. It never occurred to me to use a shop vac. :)
 
I use a big measuring cup (4 cups?) and scoop most of the grain out for dog treats and the compost pile, the rest is easy to lift.
 
I'm a fan of single tier, good back or bad. One thing I would note is that with a bad back, even empty converted kegs can be heavy. Without proper lifting technique and a conscious effort not to twist or move the wrong way, you can tweak yourself pretty good. Believe me, I've learned the hard way (and unfortunately, continue to occasionally learn the hard way). Single tier eliminates much of the lifting, and really has minimal expense in two pumps, which in the long run aren't that expensive (especially if they save you injury).

Here's my simple single tier. Direct fire, three independent burners, and two pumps. There's not much I would change on my system. After looking at one of the early pics in this thread, I like the idea of lowering the whole thing. The less height to lift (even empty kegs) the better. You might also consider a tippy tun to make disposing of spent grain a little easier.

brewstand.gif
 
I use a small digging shovel about the size of a folding camping shovel it was probably made for a child. And just shovel the spent grain into an old 5 gal. bucket that I roll out to the compost pile on my handtruck. I have to use a ladder to fill the HLT, empty and stir the MLT. I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I also use CO2 to move beer around. But I leak test my cornies with compressed air before any beer goes into them, doing that is what gave me the idea of moving wort into a fermenter with compressed air rather that doing it mechanically. I figure a pump(s) is one more thing I'll have to clean and or sanitize. And I don't want anything else to clean and sanitize.

Hope you get to feeling better soon. It sux when your back hursts :mug:
 
I am feeling quite a bit better now, thanks! I just have to be careful that I don't mistake feeling good for "I can do anything I want to again!" That was the trap I fell into after the last surgery and if I have even an ounce of sense left in me I will enjoy the lack of pain and never abuse my spine again!
 
I have to do a writeup of mine. I'll try to take pics next time I brew.

I built a 12v hoist into my garage, with an adjustable arm that can grab onto any size pot.

The pots and burner sits on a dolly I built.

No bending, no lifting (none!), gravity transfer, and no sculpture to take up space! The dolly leans up against the wall when I'm done, and the hoist retracts up to the ceiling.

Hoist was around $100 with everything, dolly was around $20. Pots etc. I already have.
 

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