Utility Room Brewery Project

[deprecated]

My utility room was *made* for brewing. Well, I'd like to think so considering I'm wanting to make the jump to electric.

The utility room is in a walkout basement. In the attached picture the exterior/concrete walls are solid gray and interior walls are gray framed.

Existing stuff is in red and what I'm contemplating doing is in blue. I didn't draw in an exhaust hood but would put one in and try to duct it outside through the exterior wall or possibly into dryer duct.

Floor joists above are currently open so all wiring/circuits for downstairs and water/plumbing for upstairs are accessible.

Two questions:

1. Any suggestions on layout that differ from what I've drawn?
2. Utility room stays between 68-74 degrees year round so would a smaller refrigerator make more sense for the fermentation closet?

P.S - That laundry chute comes out in a hall/entry into the kitchen (I hate it) and I would like to say the dumbwaiter was my idea, but it was the wife's recommendation and approval at me taking over the utility room.

 

[oceanselv]

Do you plan on brewing lagers? How cold will the fermentation chamber get? If the temp does not come down into the 30's you may want to look at a chest freezer instead. Regarding your storage and supplies, if your are buying in bulk a freezer ay be warranted here as well. Hops should be stored in a freezer and storing grain in a freezer does not hurt it. Lastly, I know you are going electric and have no CO2 danger, but you may want a simple exhaust fan over your brew stand. Building up humidity from the boil can create mold issues just as the humidity from a shower can do so without the proper ventilation.

 

[deprecated]

I should have indicated in the original post that I currently have no plans to brew lagers. I'm barely patient enough to wait on ales

The only question or concern I have with the exhaust fan (mentioned in original post) is if I do have to run it into the dryer duct, will that be too restrictive for it to be effective.

Excellent point on the freezer. No sense in setting this up and then having to walk upstairs to get hops out of the kitchen freezer!

Thanks for the comments.

 

[SweetSounds]

Dude - there's one serious flaw in your design!

Where's the bar?!?

I love dedicated brewspace - I share a garage with a Sebring

 

[oceanselv]

I would go to the exterior wall if I could. A good rule of thumb when exhausting warm moist air is to keep the runs short. The longer the air stays in the duct the longer it has to cool and the water vapor to condense.

 

[deprecated]

Going to check out exhausting to exterior wall (as recommended) and see if I can't get the power run and wash stand in tomorrow.

A couple of pics attached. Doesn't look terribly promising but the room is larger than the pics make it out to be.

 

[kpr121]

Wow I'm jealous. Your plans look good. My SWMBO encouraged me to build a bar, but she hasn't given me any room in the basement for brewing. That has been relegated to outside, or I guess in the garage when it gets cold.

Is the second pic where your ferm chamber will go? How much clearance will you have for the fridge? Only reason I ask is it would suck if you were trying to cool your ferm chamber down but have heat from the fridge compressor battling the cold. Maybe have some ducting through that adjacent wall where the washer/dryer is? Just a thought.

 

[Stickey]

I would avoid venting into the dryer duct, condensation and lint combination concerns me. Also the dryer exhaust taking the wrong route into the brew space could be a problem. I wouldn't want any perfumes from the laundry making alterations. Good luck, keep us posted.

 

[deprecated]

Score!! (I think).

I was drinking my coffee and pondering what to do about that whole gfci/avoidance of electrocution thing. I suddenly remembered that when my brother helped me remodel the home theater room we pulled out everything that the previous owner had done to have a hot tub in that room.

Thats was 8 or 9 months ago. He handed me some electrical stuff and said "You might want to hold on to this.":

 

[deprecated]

In regards to the ferm chamber, kpr121:

The second picture is where I intend to put the ferm chamber. My thought was to put the fridge in the back of that area, build small insulated walls out to either side of it at the front of the fridge. Then from the front of the fridge out, put in a false ceiling and a door on the front of that area.

Probably doing a poor job of explaining it, but all but the front/door area of the fridge would be exposed for heat to go around or above the ferm chamber.

Oh...and apparently I'm not smart enough to post an inline picture attachment and then add more text after it.

 

[kpr121]

I understand you, so the top of the front of the closet will be open to the back of the fridge. As long has you have sufficient clearance around the fridge you should be okay and that heat should rise up and out of there. I thought you may have been walling off the fridge completely.

Very nice score on that GFCI thing-a-ma-bob.

 

[deprecated]

Ok, the fermentation closet is almost done!

I did leave about 5" between the back of the fridge and the wall. I also built up some partitions so the front of the fridge could still pull in air at the bottom.

Pics are here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/fermentation-closet-almost-done-190049/

 

[deprecated]

Hopefully there is no flaw in the design as far as the bar is concerned, SweetSounds.

If you look at the floorplan in my first post, the AV cabinet and bar are on the wall just to the left of the water heater.

I am hoping to put some kegs in the utility room with 3 or 4 taps on the wall that the bar butts into.

Also, the camera flash did awful things for the paint color in that room. The left side of the photo is a more accurate color of that room with its normal lighting.

Crap...I still need to get some switch plates. The one switch is actually behind the tv if you are sitting in the captain's chair.

 

[mattmauriello]

I'm guessing your brewing will be all-electric based on the breaker you showed us. since thats the case, venting through the dryer vent could work, just dont run the dryer at the same time, and see if you can put one way valves in, so you dont blow brewing exhaust in to the drier, and vice-versa. If you were doing propane or NG, I would absolutely vent out the wall, with a decent size hole. you can live with a little moisture in the air, not so much with CO.

 

[Randar]

I would not double up with the drier vent, but that is just me. You don't want moist vapor back-drafting into the drier and you don't want condensate forming in that pipe.

And I would definitely go for a vented hood or high volume bath fan. They make ones that are nearly silent and move a lot of vapor/air for bath (around 100 cfm on a 4" duct and as much as 400 CFM on a 6" duct).

 

[mlyday]

+1 for not venting through the dryer. With the miost air and the lint that would plug up really quickly.

 

[deprecated]

I really was leaning towards venting through the dryer duct since the other side of that foundation wall is the front porch (slab). I'm second guessing venting into the dryer duct now with the votes against it.

While I don't plan on moving any time soon, I was avoiding doing anything to the house that would cause a potential buyer to go "Huh??". I guess 30' of duct work running parallel to the dryer vent and a second vent on the backside of the house isn't that big of deal....

I can probably get a realtor to advertise it as a "Household Clothing Management High Availability Solution".

 

[mlyday]

We built our house about 6 yrs ago and our dryer vent has a 20+ foot run to the back of the house, so that it doesnt come out bu the front porch. The dryer kept smelling warm and it ended up giving us an error code, which was saying it didnt have air flow. I bought a duct cleaner that hooks to a drill, the duct was totally plugged in more that one spot. I end up pulling out enough lint to fill a king size pillow case. With the moisture im sure it would be worse. You might be able to run a separate line the whole way then have a "Y" right at the point it leaves the house. That way you wouldnt have to cut another hole in the house.

 

[deprecated]

This is going so slow I decided to do some soul searching (ok, I was really searching for the last bottle of homebrew in the fridge). I came up with a PLAN and tested the new whiteboard on the fermentation closet door at the same time.

I also got the ugliest brewstand in the world. It was free and took about 3.5 minutes to "build". :rockin:

 

[kappclark]

I like the electrical ..let us know how the wiring etc goes ..

I am going to learn sheetrocking to finish off a framed-out area in the basement ...ceiling is only 6' but I am short..I think a 22 circuit and an electrician is in my future

 

[SAMPLER]

Totally jealous..... I like my basement but it nothing compared to what you have to work with.

Good luck and continue to post pics.

Cheers

 

[iron_city_ap]

That sign is hilarious. I need to get me one of those.