The Incredible, Invisible, AG Sculpture (Picture Heavy)

OK, so not really "Incredible".

I think this is a first here, but I could be quite wrong....(also, please excuse bad grammar....been brewing all day, have had a few )

So here was my problem. I wanted to go AG, but didn't have the room to store a sculpture. I didn't have the money for a compact, pump powered unit. What I needed was an invisible gravity powered AG system.

I realized that I only ever needed ONE height difference, (not two, as is given by a permanent 3 tier system) Since I don't fly sparge, I never need to be transfering from one kettle to the next to the third at the same time.

So I bought one of these: A 2000 lb Winch. I could have bought one of these: (an actual hoist), but it was more money, and I got the winch for cheaper. The winch is NOT rated for hoisting, but it's rated for 2000 lb of winching, and I figured 200 lb of hoisting wouldn't be too bad. Sure enough, I can hang my fat butt from it, and it doesn't budge, and I don't use it to suspend loads for any amount of time, so I'm OK with it.

I rigged up my winch as such:


I attached some threaded rod, nuts, chain links, hooks, etc. as such:


Making this:


The hooks can hook onto the handles of my HLT (5 gal pot), my MLT (7.5 gal pot), or BK (15.5 gal keg).

Finally, I have a dolly I can put everything on, as such:


(wheels of dolly)


So, first stage, I heat up my MLT with water in it, then use my hoist to lift it off the burner, then move the dolly to center the table on the dolly under the MLT, then lower, and wrap in a sleeping bag to hold in heat, (I lose 1 deg F per hour)


After the mash, I transfer the 1st runnings to the BK.


Then, I pour in my sparge water:

 

Finally, after draining in the sparged wort, (or whatever it's called, I lift the keg up, move the dolly over, and set the keg down on the burner. Time to brew!!!




Cooling the wort:


Sterilizing the oxy stone:


Yay Oxygen!


The best part is, everything folds out of the way, and I STILL HAVE A 2 CAR GARAGE!!




The dolly + winch combo is the key. I can lift up hundreds of pounds with the touch of a finger, and the dolly means I can move everything around easy. No more back breaking effort!

Oh, and just to illustrate, the command center:


My home made sink, from a rubbermaid tub, some PVC, and some holes into my laundry room:


The 6 keg kegerator (the light down below keeps it from freezing):

 

A bit of hop porn:


I have a NG heater to keep the garage warm, and use an LP burner for heating kettles, so I have one of these to be safe:

 

Dude, re-size some of those pics.

 

My bad. See drunk disclaimer at top! I think they are all correct now, looks like I missed two in my initial upload.

 

Fap fap fap to the hops man! That is pretty sweet. Do you ever get lightheaded in there? LOL, I saw that the door was closed!

 

Wow that is a great idea, might have to steal it if I ever get a garage and can move up to larger batches.

 

I dig the ghetto sink.

 

Thanks for the comments folks...

Nope, no lightheadedness, except due to imbibing. It was about 75 degrees in there, and rather humid, (30 degrees outside). I use my NG heater to warm up the garage first, (visible on the right side, mounted to the wall, in both the "transferring 1st runnings" and "cooling the wort" pictures), then just my burner heat and humidity was enough to stay warm. I worried about CO, but the CO detector has never beeped on me, and the NG heater has a safety interlock that shuts it off if it detects too much CO2.

The sink has been my best addition to date, I think. You can't really see it, but I just T-ed off of my washing machine connections in my laundry room, and ran RV hose out to the outside, where I hooked it up to the sink for hot and cold water, (laundry room is directly behind the garage, and 1/2 level lower, since I have a split level house). For the drain, I just used 3M Marine Sealant to seal in my $4 drain into the bottom of the rubbermaid, and rain PVC drain pipe through the wall. The PVC drains directly into the laundry sink. I didn't have to cut into any piping, or mess around with any sewer stuff, and I have full hot and cold running water! Faucet was free on CL, the fittings cost around 30 bucks, OSB to hold the rubbermaid was $5, and the rubbermaid was essentially free, as I had already destroyed it by punching the skeg of my boat motor through the bottom during spring tune-up. It just so happened that the hole punched by the skeg was perfect in size for a drain.

Also, my hot water comes out at about 144°F, so I'm almost at mash/sparge temps right out of the faucet!

When I'm done with my brew day, I just disconnect the RV hose inside the laundry room, open the tap in the garage, and all the water drains by gravity/siphon into the laundry sink, so no worries about anything freezing outside, (the garage is only heated on brew days).

 

That setup looks medieval! I like it!

 

im jealous.. i want an electric wench in the ceiling.. i only have a 3ton chain hoist to mount. how do the hops fair in the fridge? vacuum sealed? co2 purged?

 

That is plain awesome. Superb.

 

Nothing wrong with a chain hoist!

Hops have faired quite well so far, they are in the freezer part of the kegerator, so nice and cold...No CO2 purging, but I use this setup to vacuum seal them for cheap:
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Alvin-Vacuum-Sealer/

 

If I had that a sink in the garage, my SWMBO would pay me to brew. That way she could watch whatever she wanted to on TV. The way it is now I am running into the kitchen several times, she don't like brew day.

 

yes, there is one: the mechanical advantage makes it so i can only raise 1 link of chain per stroke.. so to remove an engine takes a fair bit of pumping...

i can't wait to get a mason vacuum adapter for my hops. so you use a hand vacuum pump correct? do you vacuum until the adapter lets the lid go?

 

Ah, I see about the chain lift....yeah, that wouldn't be so hot for brewing.

Yup, I just use that brake bleeder pump, works great. The adapter never lets go, it just sucks on tighter and tighter and tighter. I've found that the brake bleeder from Harbor Freight can only pull ~23-24 inHg, so I stop when I hit that....I can keep pumping, but the vacuum gauge on the brake bleeder never goes past that point, so it's wasted energy after that. Once you have the vacuum you want, you just yank the nozzle out of the adapter quickly, and it seals. Then, the adapter lifts right off, easy as pie.

 

Great idea!! I had planned on using a winch for the BIAB design.

 

Your idea is great but we are not the first once
Our concept is similar, you move a dolly under the winch and I move the winch.
You use your winch to help you with brewing and I move full kegs around.

You did a great job

Homemade winch





Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

That's a pretty awesome application! I was interested and went to Harbor Freight to look at the winch. I noticed in the instruction manual that it recommends pulling out the cord manually. However, seeing how you mounted it to the rafter, do you just leave the clutch engaged and use the remote solely or do you ever disengage the clutch?

 

Ha, yeah, it was too simple for me to be "the first".

Very nice! Yeah, I wish my winch moved, but it was too tricky to rig up for cheapies, and I'm afraid of it binding when I try to pull it around if I don't do it right. How did you set up that rail system?

 

I just glanced at this thread for a picture, and realized I never saw your question! So, 1 month late:

I just use the remote. The weight of the threaded rod and other hardware is enough to allow it to pay out smoothly. Disengaging the motor and pulling the cable out manually is possible, but IMHO its more of a, "if you are going to pull out cable, first disengage the clutch" warning, not a "you must pull on the cable to pay out cable, do not use the motor" warning, (does this make sense?). If you were paying out cable to winch your ATV out of a mudhole or something, (which is what this is meant for), it would take forever to pay out 30' or whatever....but for me, paying out 5 feet only, it's nice and quick.

In any case, all is still working well. I love my winch, and with my auto-keg/carboy washer now, almost all the backbreaking effort is gone from a typical brewday...

 

Thats sweet! I love the sink!

 

As someone who is involved in rigging operations on a usual basis, that sling scares me. Please do yourself a favor and make a proper sling. You are going to burn yourself or crush a foot with that I am sorry to say.

 

What's a sling?

Edit: wait, you mean my threaded rod setup? What's dangerous about it? The hooks are 2000 lb rated, the chain links are rated at 500 lbs I think, (or more....dunno). The cable is rated at 2000 lb. I have no idea what the yield strength of the threaded rod is, but it's solid as all hell....oh, and the pulley at the top is 500 lb and is lag bolted into the stud.

Are you worried about the hooks slipping off the rod?

I set it up this way as this is how many hoists I've worked with are set up. Central (balanced) lifting point, movable hooks/straps with either detents or pegs to arrest movement and lock a position. In my design, although not clear from pictures, the chain links are smaller in diameter than the nuts on either side, so they can't slip over them. Those nuts aren't just speedbumps, they are walls, for all intents and purposes.

 

Sorry Shortyjacobs for taking so long to answer, just coming out of hibernation.
I am currently reading all the February posts.

The rail system is made out of 8020, 2010 extrusion screwed into 2x4's.
Winch motor is mounted on DELRIN® blocks, machined to fit inside the channels.
The power cable hangers are made the same way.




Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

Magic. Got it.








Just kidding, although I honestly have no idea what you just said, I know how to Google, so I'll know soon. Nevertheless, I'm envious of your winch's mobility. I have to move the ground to match my winch...you just move your winch. Regardless, hot damn is it great to not finish up a brewday unable to use my back!

Edit: Now that Sir Google has educated me, holy crap is that cool.

 

I would not worry about the winch saying not for lifting, AFAIK if they were to "rate" it for lifting they would have a whole lot more hoops to jump through/responsibilities and since it is meant to just pull things there is no point for the company to go to that effort/expense.
I too would like to know Lundvarr's reasons for being sceptical of the lifting beam.

 

Those were my thoughts too...I figured that since it can winch a 2000 lb car, it should be able to lift 200 lbs of dead weight. After all, if you are winching a 2000 lb car on a slight uphill and let go of the button, that sucker won't freewheel back towards you....

In any case, in spite of my personal assurances, I still am careful to not stand anywhere where I could get hurt if it let loose. I only use it to lift sparge/mash water, so the water isn't really boiling. I'm sure I'd still get 1st degree burns with a splash, but I'd live.

 

Is the winch wholly supported by those delrin blocks? Seems somewhat perilous to be lifting so much weight supported by such a small area, if that is the case...

 

Yikes. Pretty soon you guys are gonna use a Gantry crane for your brewing.



BTW, I use a winch, too. I have a hand-crank boat winch mounted on my brew tree.

 

Brew tree..... really... seriously a tree to be used for brewing.
Gotta see a photo of that?

 

Yes
The support blocks are 5" long and inside both channels.

200# is not a problem

Here is the side view.



Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

shortyjacob, nice system! Reminds me of the auto manufacturing plants i've been in with the winch and everything lol. You could get some siphoning hoses rolling so all you have to do is lift one vessel instead of lifting it and tipping it.

 

Yeah, not sure if you can see it, but on the bottom of the pot that I'm tipping is a ball valve. It's actually what I hold on to to tip the pot. I spent like $20 putting the stupid thing in, then realized that it drains SLOWLY, (I was losing multiple degrees of strike temp!) and it's far easier to just tip the pot .

 

lol i see. Makes a lot of sense. How big is it? Maybe you need a bigger one. Might be a huge pain to replace though.

Also, you could get one of those keg glove type things off the net and throw a little insulation on your rig fairly easily. Might keep you from losing so much temp.

 

It's a 1/2" full bore ball valve....The pot itself isn't that heavy...and I only batch sparge, so it's just way easier to dump it in I just wish I hadn't wasted the money!

 

that sink is bad ass.

 

Sweet setup!
The only thing that catches my eye is the one point lifting. It would be safer to hook two points from the winch hook to the handles of the pot/keg. But that can go on your list of 'what can I pimp out more?'

B

 

Thanks! What do you mean by two points? I currently have the winch hook attach to the threaded bar, which has too hooks to hook the handles of the pot/keg. Do you mean I should just have cables going from the winch hook to the handle hooks?

It's actually VERY stable. Since the pots are full of water, the center of gravity is down in the middle of the pot, so even if the hooks WERE imbalanced, it doesn't show up much with the pot, as the pot just weighs everything down. I actually copied this movable hook system from what we use in many of the plants I work in for huge loads...

 

Might have to steal the idea. Very cool!!