The adventures of a complete noob and a brew rig

[Tomtanner]

Wow most awesome!! A great thread!! Good job on the first brew! I dont start drinking until i'm done with my MLT and it's clean....once the boil gets rocking....so do I

I'll be interested in the first use of the hop spider, and if it's a PITA to clean!

We shall see with the spider, I'm hoping that the use of the jet stream on my hose can get it clean quickly.

Regarding the mash tun, I can say that I need a better way to get the grains out, it was a bit of a PITA. Looks like I'll need to build a tippy dump soon.

 

[rekoob]

Awesome job! Will give you many years of enjoyment.

 

[shoreline99]

Awesome job! Will give you many years of enjoyment.

Looks great!

 

[BraxtonBrewery]

Tomtanner - any chance you can post the dimensions of this bad boy? I'm starting my build within the next week or two, and I want to see if what I have designed will work or not. The top piece will look identical to yours, I just need to overall length, width, the space between the middle support posts, and I guess the size of the 45 angle support pieces in each burner "hole." Any hep would be great!

 

[Tomtanner]

Tomtanner - any chance you can post the dimensions of this bad boy? I'm starting my build within the next week or two, and I want to see if what I have designed will work or not. The top piece will look identical to yours, I just need to overall length, width, the space between the middle support posts, and I guess the size of the 45 angle support pieces in each burner "hole." Any hep would be great!

Sure can. I'll be back home on Tuesday and I'll post them up for you.

 

[sarsnik]

We shall see with the spider, I'm hoping that the use of the jet stream on my hose can get it clean quickly.

Regarding the mash tun, I can say that I need a better way to get the grains out, it was a bit of a PITA. Looks like I'll need to build a tippy dump soon.

You can use a shop vac to vacuum out the grains.

 

[user 108580]

Well done! I really like your setup.

I'm building my stand right now... well, I'm having a friend build it haha. As soon as hes done welding it up though its in my court.

Congrats on a great job! Sucks you had to sell some of your instruments though.....

 

[BraxtonBrewery]

Thanks for the help man, I look forward to getting my steel - I ordered my pumps and plate chiller!

 

[Tomtanner]

Just to update. My rotating sparge arm was a total fail. It never worked well from the get go. I have replaced it with thus much more simple and more efficient design. I literally just cut the cross arm off and stuck this two dollar attachment to the bottom. Worked 100% better and was a lot more fun to brew with. I'm now four batches in on this system and loving it. First brew session took about 8 hours. This last batch was a nut brown ale and took 4 hours start to finish including cleanup.