three_bags_full
Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2013
- Messages
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- 13
Well, assembly is a better word than build, here, since I haven't really fabricated anything.
For a few years now, I have trolled these threads in an effort to learn as much as possible about the appropriate gas valves, pipe size, stand materials, and temp controllers, etc. While deployed to Afghanistan over the last few months, I made the decision to build a Brutus-type stand, and began reading more ... and more ... and more (the war's not quite as busy these days), and the sheer amount of information began to confuse me. I bought the Brutus plans, which were not as detailed as I thought they'd be. Although I'm OK at basic wiring and plumbing, etc., the level of skill required to build something like I've seen on these pages probably escapes me.
But shortly before I came home, something pretty cool happened -- a buddy posted in the local brew club page that he was selling his stuff, including an already-built three-burner, single-tier stand. After contacting him, he sold me the stand -- 1.5-inch carbon steel -- a keggle MLT with a false bottom, some fittings, and a pump. For cheap! Let's say I owe my buddy several beers for the price he gave. Since I already had some burners from my cheap-o two-burner stand, a pump, and a plate chiller, things started to come together pretty quickly.
She came with all the plumbing, including several valves, but needed some cleanup, so I stripped it down and took apart all the plumbing. I was able to clean up all the valves, but wasn't able to get the pipe thread out of all the black pipe, so I chunked it into recycling.
After I picked up the stand, I started digging a bit deeper into the electrical and gas components and began to get a bit frustrated, when I discovered a thread where someone mentioned a Tower of Power. At nearly 600 bucks, I was a bit offput, but kept digging and began to understand that was probably the route to go. But I couldn't find them any cheaper than $575, and I wasn't about to mention that number to SWMBO.
This is where it gets interesting. Best I could gather, the parts to build the gas and electrical components of the stand were going to cost about $800 to assemble -- plus the time, effort, and cussing required to build it. So, I kept digging, and stumbled onto Blichmann's website, where I found the Tower of Power controllers on sale for $345 -- discounted nearly 50 percent. I gave Blichmann a call to ensure the deal I was seeing wasn't a factory recondition or a floor model with a defect. The sales rep assured me it wasn't, so I quickly talked to SWMBO and pulled the trigger.
Sensing an opportunity -- and with a few extra post-deployment bucks sitting in the "brewstand account," I found a decent deal at morebeer on Blichmann Hellfire burners and snagged them with the money I saved with the ToPs.
I had seen in a thread here where someone had mounted them by basically sitting them inside the stand, resting on the adjustable keggle holders, so I figured I could mount them in some similar fashion. The stand had some angle iron brackets to hold keggles, so those had to go. It also had some square tube mounted inside two of the supports. An hour or so in the garage with the grinder took care of all those.
I'm pretty adamant about keeping this thing as clean as possible -- I really want to keep all the plumbing and wires hidden as best I can, so I began searching for some aluminum tread plate for the bottom. A local welder hooked me up with a piece cut to fit for 80 bucks.
The tread plate fit pretty well after a little trimming, and I think with a little work it will go a long way toward helping me hide the wiring since the stand isn't drilled for internal routing.
As for the burners, you might be able to see in the picture above, they fit like the thing was built for them. When I opened the box, I thought they were going to be too big. As for mounting, they have a hole in the side of the legs that I presume is to mount the extensions. I believe I can heat and bend a 1-inch strap 90 degrees to form an L. I think I can tack weld that "L" underneath the top support in the corners, then drill it and use a bolt and some washers to hold the burners in place. They rest pretty well on the adjustable arms, but I want to ensure I can raise them up off the stand a 1/16th of an inch or so to enable adjusting them if needed.
That's it for now. I'll post more pics as things develop. I should have the burner and plate chiller (it'll go on the right side, vertically) brackets mounted this weekend. The next task will be to mount some sort of platform/box on the arm to hold the ToP controllers and some sort of power distribution center. Gotta do a bit more reading on how the ToP controllers work with my pump. I'm still a bit unsure of that one.
Thanks for reading. I'm certainly open to any suggestions.
edit: I can't figure out how to get the pictures to show anything other than the link. Any help would be appreciated there.
For a few years now, I have trolled these threads in an effort to learn as much as possible about the appropriate gas valves, pipe size, stand materials, and temp controllers, etc. While deployed to Afghanistan over the last few months, I made the decision to build a Brutus-type stand, and began reading more ... and more ... and more (the war's not quite as busy these days), and the sheer amount of information began to confuse me. I bought the Brutus plans, which were not as detailed as I thought they'd be. Although I'm OK at basic wiring and plumbing, etc., the level of skill required to build something like I've seen on these pages probably escapes me.
But shortly before I came home, something pretty cool happened -- a buddy posted in the local brew club page that he was selling his stuff, including an already-built three-burner, single-tier stand. After contacting him, he sold me the stand -- 1.5-inch carbon steel -- a keggle MLT with a false bottom, some fittings, and a pump. For cheap! Let's say I owe my buddy several beers for the price he gave. Since I already had some burners from my cheap-o two-burner stand, a pump, and a plate chiller, things started to come together pretty quickly.
She came with all the plumbing, including several valves, but needed some cleanup, so I stripped it down and took apart all the plumbing. I was able to clean up all the valves, but wasn't able to get the pipe thread out of all the black pipe, so I chunked it into recycling.
After I picked up the stand, I started digging a bit deeper into the electrical and gas components and began to get a bit frustrated, when I discovered a thread where someone mentioned a Tower of Power. At nearly 600 bucks, I was a bit offput, but kept digging and began to understand that was probably the route to go. But I couldn't find them any cheaper than $575, and I wasn't about to mention that number to SWMBO.
This is where it gets interesting. Best I could gather, the parts to build the gas and electrical components of the stand were going to cost about $800 to assemble -- plus the time, effort, and cussing required to build it. So, I kept digging, and stumbled onto Blichmann's website, where I found the Tower of Power controllers on sale for $345 -- discounted nearly 50 percent. I gave Blichmann a call to ensure the deal I was seeing wasn't a factory recondition or a floor model with a defect. The sales rep assured me it wasn't, so I quickly talked to SWMBO and pulled the trigger.
Sensing an opportunity -- and with a few extra post-deployment bucks sitting in the "brewstand account," I found a decent deal at morebeer on Blichmann Hellfire burners and snagged them with the money I saved with the ToPs.
I had seen in a thread here where someone had mounted them by basically sitting them inside the stand, resting on the adjustable keggle holders, so I figured I could mount them in some similar fashion. The stand had some angle iron brackets to hold keggles, so those had to go. It also had some square tube mounted inside two of the supports. An hour or so in the garage with the grinder took care of all those.
I'm pretty adamant about keeping this thing as clean as possible -- I really want to keep all the plumbing and wires hidden as best I can, so I began searching for some aluminum tread plate for the bottom. A local welder hooked me up with a piece cut to fit for 80 bucks.
The tread plate fit pretty well after a little trimming, and I think with a little work it will go a long way toward helping me hide the wiring since the stand isn't drilled for internal routing.
As for the burners, you might be able to see in the picture above, they fit like the thing was built for them. When I opened the box, I thought they were going to be too big. As for mounting, they have a hole in the side of the legs that I presume is to mount the extensions. I believe I can heat and bend a 1-inch strap 90 degrees to form an L. I think I can tack weld that "L" underneath the top support in the corners, then drill it and use a bolt and some washers to hold the burners in place. They rest pretty well on the adjustable arms, but I want to ensure I can raise them up off the stand a 1/16th of an inch or so to enable adjusting them if needed.
That's it for now. I'll post more pics as things develop. I should have the burner and plate chiller (it'll go on the right side, vertically) brackets mounted this weekend. The next task will be to mount some sort of platform/box on the arm to hold the ToP controllers and some sort of power distribution center. Gotta do a bit more reading on how the ToP controllers work with my pump. I'm still a bit unsure of that one.
Thanks for reading. I'm certainly open to any suggestions.
edit: I can't figure out how to get the pictures to show anything other than the link. Any help would be appreciated there.
