Hoppo's E-Brewery Build

Really nice room. I agree with staining the concrete floor. Good idea not seal it until you know how much water vapor is percolating through it.

Trimming out with pine instead of plastering the joints was a good idea. The pine will mellow down to a warm pumpkin color.

 

Sorry the thread turned into a Jenny Craig commercial for a minute there. DAMN YOU homebrew calories!

Thanks for the compliments guys. I am in the process of opening another PT practice, so what little free time that I had to work on this project has been a little occupied. I did manage to find 1 1/2 hrs today to work on the trim, but still have about 30% more of the room to do. Hopefully this weekend I can find some time to finish off the trim, then onto flooring.

 

Very nice build so far!

 

Thanks man!

I did manage to get about 90% of the trim done and should be able to finish it off tomorrow. Slowly, but surely it's coming together.

 

awesome build man! wish i had the space,talent and money for something like this!

 

Thanks man, I appreciate it!

All trim is complete in the brewery, just need to clean up the space and apply the clear coat. Just have flooring, keg polishing, and controls left. I'll post some pics when I get a chance, but am getting my a$$ kicked at work.....not enough hours in the day.

 

Wow...

 

Fantastic build. Very jealous.

I do have one concern. I don't like have the milling station so close to the brewing station. Grain dust is very bad for cooled wort. And even though the dust will probably be minimized with your design, it's still going to get into the air. If you are extremely careful during the transfer of the cooled wort, you will probably be OK but I personally do all of my milling as far as possible from where the brewing and fermenting is taking place. You might want to relocate the milling station to another part of your house.

 

It's the first time I hear anything like that about grain dust. and after a couple hours of mashing and boiling and the exhaust fan running I wouldn't worry that much.

 

That is the basic hot side / cold side separation issue, given that there are all sorts of wild yeasts and bacteria that can be on the grain. It's not a problem until you end up with an unanticipated sour, lol.

 

Sorry guys.....it has been a long while since I have been on HBT. I am opening up another private practice PT clinic and have been elbows deep in that project. I haven't made any progress on the brewery and I haven't brewed at all in months.

To answer your questions about my system. I am taking the necessary precautions to prevent any rouge yeast or baterial from contaminating my wort after the boil. I typically mill and bag my grains the night before my brewing sessions. As indicated, the grain drops down a chute and into a bucket in a completely closed and sealed compartment build within the cabinet of the milling station. To this point, I have experience minimal dust from the top end of the mill. I keep a shop vac in an adjacent utility room and vacuum out the cabinet and wipe down the hopper and cabinet top after each use.

I have designed my system such that after the boil, the wort is pumped through a plate chiller and directly into carboys already sitting down inside of my fermentation chambers. My fermentation chambers have 2 lids each, one insulated lid that creates an air tight seal and a decorative tiled lid over that. My chambers are never left open or exposed to any particulate that could be floating in the air. The only time they are opened is to insert or remove carboys. I have been milling grains down there and using my chambers for quite some time without incident. Once I'm doing the entire brewing process down there, I honestly feel that with the precautions that I have taken, the risk of contamination will be minimal. Thoughts?

 

It sounds like you take fairly good precautions, and it is working for you, so don't fix what is not broken. If you ever have an issue, then take it from there.

 

Can anybody see any of the pictures on this thread at this point. I have received several PM's indicating that ALL of the pics on ALL of my threads are absent. I left a message for the HBT administrators to see what the deal is. I just combed through several of my more popular threads and cannot find any of my uploaded pics.

 

Sorry Hoppo.... I don't see any pictures either.

 

There is an issues with pictures not showing. It is being looked at.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/i-cant-see-photos-here-405911/

 

Here are a few updated pics with the last little bit of the remaining trim complete. Please let me know if you can or cannot see these pics. Obviously all of the other pics are missing throughout all of my threads, but I wanted to see if freshly posted pics show up. Let me know!

Thanks for for the info BigHefty and MrSaLTy. Glad to see I'm not the only one experiencing issues.

 

I see them.

 

Oh yeah, I see them and got wood.

 

Yup, I can see them and damn man... that's marvelous.

 

Jealousy. She's a bitter mistress!

 

I appreciate it fellas! Sounds like HBT has fixed their issues, as I just received a PM from the administration stating that the problems have been fixed. Although I haven't had time to comb through my threads I'll take their word that the pictures are viewable once again.

 

OK....so I had a lengthy discussion with my wife and she is comfortable with me purchasing controls for the brewery after my next profit sharing draw. In the meantime, I want to knock out the ventilation. Obviously the vent hood is build and installed. Now I need to order the fan to create the ventilation. I have found multiple vortex in-line centrifugal fans on Ebay. I would prefer to drill the smallest hole as possible out of the back bond of my house for venting. I have found many 4" and 6" versions of these types of fan. The 4" fans range from 170 to 200 cfm and the 6" fans are around 400 cfm. The distance from the ventilation hood to the back wall there the vent will terminate is about 20 ft. Would a 4", 200 cfm vortex fan be sufficient or should I go with the bigger? I would much prefer to drill a 4" hole through the bond, as I alread have the hole saw, but want the venting to work properly. Any suggestions??????

 

I can tell you that I have an in-line fan (designed for hydroponics) that is 4" 165cfm. It pulls from about 8 feet away and exits (after fan) about 4 feet through dryer vent and creates enough suction where I can "stick" a kettle lid to the duct input. Never have any kind of heat/steam/condensation problem in my brew room. However, the fan sometimes drips when brewing in the winter.

http://www.discount-hydro.com/active-air-in-line-duct-fans/

It says quiet operation, but when it's on it sounds like you are in a wind tunnel.

 

Thanks for the information! Yes, I have heard that the vortex fans (even the little ones) are pretty powerful. I am leaning towards the 4", but just wanted some feedback. I plan on installing drop ceiling in my brewing room and will go with panels that are rated higher for noise reduction. I have heard that these fans are a little noisy, so maybe I can tone it down to a dull roar.

I have also heard others mention that at times they get some condensation buildup that causes dripping from the fan. I will certainly take that into consideration when determining how far upstream to place the fan. thanks!

 

4" wasn't enough for my basement brewery. I ended up upgrading to a 6" in-line. I got a 440CFM model on ebay for $75 with free shipping. works great.

 

I basement brew with a woefully undersized fan. On the plus side - it still pulls enough moisture out to keep the whole room from getting muggy or anything. On the down side, the inside of my hood gets soaked, and it's clear that more moisture is condensing on the hood than is being pulled out.

I'll give you a little saying that I remind myself of, regardless of whether the project is small or huge (especially when it's huge...) - No one ever looks back at a finished project and says "damn, I'm really glad I cut corners". Sure, you might save yourself a little headache and expenes by using the 4" saw you already have, but with the distances you're going and the quality of your work thus far, it may be worth the extra few bucks for a bigger fan and a bigger hole saw.

-Kevin

 

Thanks guys....you talked me into it. I'm going with the 6", just gotta do a little shopping around.

 

Sorry it's been a while, but I have been busy with another new business venture. Now that my time is gradually freeing back up, I have started to make a little more progress. I ended up going with a 6" vortex centrifugal exhaust fan. It's a Truite 2910 rpm x 440 cfm, which I found on ebay for $69 with shipping included, so not a bad deal at all. Should do the trick!

 

Did yours come with a lighter with a pot leaf on it like mine did?

 

This fan is fickin' enormous! Much bigger than I expected, so I ran into some clearance issues. I already have existing duct work for my HVAC, water lines to my kitchen, a gas line, and drains throughout the joist spaces above the ventilation hood, so my placement isn't perfect. I ended up having to locate is futher back on the roof of the hood and slightly off centered to the right. I have a little OCD when it comes to symmetry, so although it bothers me, I have not choice because I only have one joist space that will work to run the 6" duct work out of the back of the house. Thankfully, the BK is located to the right side of my setup, so I guess I can justify it. I was going to install some kind of a duct supply into the top of the hood and mount the fan upstream a ways, but decided to mount it directly to the top of the hood. I will come up with a way to trim it out.....maybe with a decorative HVAC supply vent.

 

No....mine came in "Discrete Packaging". However, ever since I did the search for vortex fans on ebay, I'm constantly being bombarded with advertisements for grow lights, carbon filters, etc. Maybe that will be my next venture?

 

OK....a couple of final pics. I already had wired in a light switch on the backsplash over my Ale Chamber that feeds an outlet up high next to the ventilation hood. Now with the flick of a switch on goes my exhaust fan and some LED lighting for a little added touch. Just need to drill another big a$$ hole through the bond out of the back of my house and get the venting in. Ultimately, I am going with drop ceiling in the entire brewery, so you won't be able to see any of the mess (utilities, wiring, etc.) in the joist space above.

P.S. The vortex fan is a little loud, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I am going to do some sound proofing around the fan housing and once the drop ceiling is in place, I shouldn't be terrribly annoying.

 

I went with a 6" 400CFM ActiveAir fan, reduced to 4" duct through a glass-block window because 6" diamond hole saws are frickin expensive and the glass block was 5x7. The fan is attached directly to the rear of the hood, not the top. My hood is 12" tall, 32" deep, and 72" wide and about 20" off the top of the kettles. The fan doesn't pull enough air to exhaust all the steam from my 20" diameter kettle without a flare I built on the bottom of my hood (think Darth Vader helmet-type flare). Possibly due to the 6->4 reducer, which might restict the CFM too much? There's only 12" of 4" duct though, it's a straight short run out the window.

Also, during the winter, water condenses quickly right inside the fan, and by the end of a brew session you hear the fan blades sloshing water around. I removed a screw from the fan casing to let the water drip out, but of course the inside of the fan is pressurized, and the water sprays out while the fan is on.

All in all, I think the ventilation is the only piece of my brewery that hasn't worked out well so far. So plan yours well if you dont want to be disappointed

How tall is your hood, how far is the edge above the kettles, and are you going with a 6" hole or a 4" hole in the house wall?

 

I'll take some measurements. I am not reducing to 4", going 6" all the way straight out of the back of the house. In the meantime, could you post a pic of your setup, so I can get an idea of exactly what you are talking about. Thanks for the feedback.

 

Wow, that thing is HUGE. I would feel bad for helping to talk you into the 6" option, but I still think it's the way to go.

 

It's all good.....I think it is going to work out just fine. Once I get the duct work installed, I'm going to run a few experiments to see how effectively the updraft draws in steam. Hopefully the 440 cfm will do the trick.

 

The hood is 12" tall and 32" deep; about the same size as Kal's hood described here except 72" wide instead of 67". Kal also says there is about 15" between the top of the kettles and the bottom of the hood, which is about what I've got.

The fan is behind the vent on the left side of the glass block window, and the run is right out the glass block so pretty short, but of course 6->4 reduced to fit through the block.

After a few brew runs, I built a flare on the sides and the back about 8" long, coming down at a 45 degree angle from the bottom of the hood. That does help contain the steam in the hood where the exhaust fan can pull it out better, but some still escapes out the front of the hood. I just don't think the fan is strong enough to actively pull all the steam out without some escaping around the sides. I have no idea whether that's because the fan is not powerful enough, whether the 6->4 reduction is killing the CFMs, or what.

 

Thanks for the pics......nice system you have there! It has been many years since I have taken physics, but I do recall learning about Bernoulli's Principle. In your application, as the steam is pushed through the duct work by the fan and comes to the reduction point (6" down to 4"), a couple of things occur. Through the 4" port there is a considerable increase in pressure created due to the reduced volume within the duct, which increases the velocity of the steam as it exits the exhaust port. However, this in turn causes a considerable drop in pressure in the larger 6" duct, which considerably slows down the velocity of air flow. I guess you can thing about it as back pressure, which reduces your fan's ability create an adequate vacuuming effect to pull air into the fan. There are formulas to figure out exactly how much of a drop may be occurring, but I would guess that if you didn't reduce down your duct work, your system would be far more efficient at drawing the steam into the hood. Again, I am certainly not a physicist, I'm a physical therapist, but I do think that this may be the case. Make sense?

 

Well, I got the green light from my wife to purchase a control panel for the brewery. I really only want to spend about $1500 on it total, so I'm really torn at this point. For about this price, I could order an already assembled 30 amp., 2 element, BCS control panel from www.ebrewsupply.com, which comes with lots of goodies like the power cord for the panel, locking plugs for my chugger pumps, 4 temperature probes, etc........OR I could order the unassembled control panel from Kal, which is pretty damn cool and has more of the bells and whistles, but all of the items such as power cords, plugs, probes, etc. are not included. I would also have to spend who knows how long assembling this thing.

What's the concensus from those who have researched both panels? Any and all feedback would be fantastic!

 

I sourced and built my own. For me, having something I made was worth the time and effort. There were times wiring / trouble shooting that I wanted to throw it out the window... but I'm glad I did it now. On the one hand, you strike me as the kind of guy who likes the DIY life (not sure where I got that idea...) but on the other hand, it's already obvious that you've DIY'd the bejesus out of your brewery, so an OTS control panel wouldn't be the end of the world.

30 amps - would restrict you to one element at a time, which means not using the BK to help heat strike or sparge water to get to temp quicker, and no back-to-back batches. If that doesn't bother you and the lack of bells, whistles, and "I made that" factor isn't a concern, go with the ebrewsupply one - I bought some stuff from them (not a full blown CP) and they were easy to work with. I don't think you'd be disappointed.

-Kevin