All-In-One BIAB Brew Stand

Here's the initial drawings for my BIAB brew stand. It includes:

Pully system for bag, collapsible for storage
March Pump
Motorized grain crushing station
All-copper CFC (seen here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/show-us-your-diy-wort-chillers-176757/index3.html )
In-Line O2, also used to purge CFC

I have a welder and would like to make it out of square tube steel. The galvanized no-weld bars are also an option.

The burner will be a SQ-14 bolted to the frame.


Any comments or improvements?

 

Change #1:

Move in-line O2 airstone to bottom, and use a quick disconnect.
Add another quick disconnect at top to purge the lines.

 

Looks nice. My questions/concerns:

You will have a lot of weight on brew-kettle side of the stand and not so much weight on the side with the grain mill. So as long as won't tip over because of the weight distribution... then it should work.

My personal preference would be to not install a grain mill on a brew stand like that. I'd rather have the grain mill be separate so I can stash it away somewhere after milling the grain.

Be sure to let us know how the build goes!

 

Good points, thanks.

The grain mill will have some sheet metal around the sides of the bucket to keep dust at a minimum. I'd still rather have it as part of the system so I dont have to pull extra equipment out every time I brew.

As for the weight issue, some slide out stabilizer arms from the brew side would fix that. Even around 3 feet extra on the brew side should take the balance of the grains hanging off the arm back to normal. They would slide in and out and lock with ball-detent pins just like the grain arm.

In that case I'd have to go with the tubular steel, but thats that better option anyways.

 

Im leaving next month for my 1 year vacation to Afghanistan, so maybe somebody will build this first and let me know how it goes. At least I'll have plenty of money to drop on the project when I get back.

 

I would not advise milling the grain anywhere near where you plan to fill the fermenter. Milling the grain creates a lot of very fine dust and the dust will be loaded with lactobacillus and friends. The risk of contamination is very high even with a dust shield of some kind. The fine flour dust will be floating around in the air for a long time after you mill the grist. I actually take the mill outdoors to do the milling for just this reason. Sometimes weather conditions prevent this, but when that happens I do the milling in a separate room. I don't even like to do that, but sometimes it is unavoidable.

 

I'll be brewing outside, and I'm not going to buy into the "dont mill where you boil" stuff.

The same can be said for hot-side aeration, leaving beer on the yeast cake will give you off flavors, doing full boils with an extract kit will mess up your hop utilization, ect. Obviously, there is a shred of truth in all of it, but with proper technique any off flavors can be avoided. There will always be some room for mistakes, and you can still have great beer. If you accidently splash some hot wort around, it's not immediately cardboard-beer. Leaving the beer on the yeast cake for 5 or 6 weeks instead of 4 wont give you dead yeast-beer.

This is a good thread: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/bacteria-grain-dust-105517/index3.html

Anybody who says they've had an infection due to grain dust is usually reluctant to describe their chrushing/brewing technique, where as people who crush/boil in the same room can describe exactly what they do(and it usualy involves good sanitation and common sense).

As others have mentioned, of course there is tons of bacteria in grain, but I bet theres a lot more floating around outside while im brewing, or in my garage if I brew in there.

Keeping a clean, sanitized fermentor closed and sealed untill the moment before you siphon wort, clean tools, and a clean CFC will mitiagte almost all risk of infection.

On my first all grain I actually milled my grains directly into my fermentor, then just rinsed it with clean water and a good rinse with Star-san before racking. Great beer! Will I do that again? No, but it definately didnt hurt anything.

Sorry for the rant on bacteria, but im a fan of RDWHAHB.

 

What I wouldnt advise is milling near an open flame. Now that is a bad idea.

 

You know this how? Sounds to me like you just made up that statement out of thin air. Do you skip washing your hands after you use the bathroom as well? I mean if you have no concerns about infection, then why bother. I prefer not to tempt fate and so far, it's been working out very well.

 

Wait...wash your hands AFTER using the bathroom? It makes so much more sense now!

 

[Note: Grain dust consists of 60-75% organic materials (cereal grains) and 25-40% inorganic materials (soil), and includes fertilizers, pesticides, and microorganisms.]

from : http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0305.html

You've heard the expression - don't sh*t were you eat !

 

This cdc page is in reference to grain dust in a agricultural context and really doesn't relate to malted barley at all.

 

I researched my statement by reading every thread I could find on here about bacteria on grain, infections from grain, lactose from grain, where to crush grain, ect. In general, members that HAD infections, possibly from grain, gave less information on their process than members that didn't and also milled grain nearby. Am I going to cite EVERY thread I went through? No. You spend the 3 hours searching the forums like I did.

 

Also. I'm not tempting fate. If you read my previous posts you would see that even though I made the mistake of milling grains into my primary fermentor before I mashed.....because it was my FIRST all grain batch.....I still followed up by using proper cleaning and sanitation procedures and the beer turned out fine.

If you dont want to tempt 'fate' then you can rub yourself with lotion like that jackass on YouTube.

 

I was only being a dic* because I did my research, posted a comment on said research, and I get a dic* comments back about making up statements out of thin air.

I also obviously stated that I wasn't going to buy into the grain milling, and other, myths. So instead of starting arguments about said subjects, and proposing that I make up lies, I will gladly accept other advice from experienced brewers about the intended subject.

 

Not calling you a liar really. It's just that I don't believe you. You can decide for yourself if there is a difference or not. Oh yeah, don't forget to wash your hands dickwad!

 

Apparently you didn't get the message the first time.