Aluminum 3-Tier?

Where I work we got a mfg area that uses aluminum & steel material to build framework for various things. I can get the aluminum real cheap since they buy in bulk and have the boyz in mfg put this base frame together for me in the matter of hours. The material we bantered around was 1" square hollow pieces to build the image below. Thickness of the aluminum square is I believe 1/4" but I need to verify that. What I like about the aluminum is later its easy for me to work with for hole drilling etc. Opinions? Strength; "Should be good?!?"


I'm not done with the plan below yet but commentary on that would be nice as well. It's friggen high (Dude, how high is yours?) and I have to verify spout height on the keg and best height for the bottom tier to get a decent flow since this is all gravity fed.

The image isn't showing so I can't see how it's engineered, but 1/4" aluminum tubing seems awfully small to me. I made mine out of 1" square steel, 1/16" thick. It has just a little bit of flex to it.

Edit:

Sorry, misread....you said 1" square.

Image adjusted to be hosted. Showing now?

I can see it.

Looks really good. That 1" should be strong enough, and at 1/4" wall thickness, you'll be able to drill and tap holes to mount lighter equipment, and piping.

Looks good for a system that doesn't need a pump. You will need a ladder or step stool to see inside of your HLT. I would havfe two connections on the HLT so you can add water via hose. IMHO.

I'm going to squeeze it lower wherever I can find but you're right, a hose was the intent on the HLT. And if I ever buy a pump, I'd hack off the top tier...

Heading home, need to measure some crap.

I am in the process of designing a sculpture too... what FUN!!! Hey, okay, looks great to me, I am adding a sight glass to the HLT so that I can see what is in it even though it will be 7' high. Garden hose for filling, for now!

Brewpilot

Aluminum has poor strength as it gets hot. How are you positioning the burners ?

I'd go steel and weld it. For the price difference between steel and aluminum, you could get it dip galvanized. It will look pretty close to SS then and it will never rust.

One big reason I'd like to do the alum is we have enough that they have to scrap from their projects that it'd be free less buying the guy lunch & a beer or 6. It'd be welded as well and all welds would be horizontal where it can so the load would be on the solid pieces.

Haven't worked out the means to attach the burners yet and if I'd want to raise the kettle a bit so it wasn't resting on the aluminum. I figured I'd run a test by assembling one burner assembly onto some alum framework and see how it fairs heat wise. As long as I can keep the heat away from the frame so it doesn't get hotter than hill I believe it should be fine. Or, use the same design with steel and pay for it.

Fun project anyways

Thats just like mine and I love it....

desertBrew said:

Where I work we got a mfg area that uses aluminum & steel material to build framework for various things. I can get the aluminum real cheap since they buy in bulk and have the boyz in mfg put this base frame together for me in the matter of hours. The material we bantered around was 1" square hollow pieces to build the image below. Thickness of the aluminum square is I believe 1/4" but I need to verify that. What I like about the aluminum is later its easy for me to work with for hole drilling etc. Opinions? Strength; "Should be good?!?"


I'm not done with the plan below yet but commentary on that would be nice as well. It's friggen high (Dude, how high is yours?) and I have to verify spout height on the keg and best height for the bottom tier to get a decent flow since this is all gravity fed.

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Looks nice Jeff! I can't comment on the aluminum--I'm not sure on that--but your design is sturdy, I'm positive of that.
I attached a pic of my final design so you can get an idea of the dimensions. I would change 3 things on it--the lowest tier (brew kettle tier) could be almost all the way to the ground, and subsequently lowering the other 2 tiers about a foot as well. I have a hook on my garden hose that hooks over the HLT so I can fill the thing and not bother with ever lifting it. I have a sight glass on it to let me know how much is in it. It works just fine the way it is though. It is a beast.

Thanks Beermaker (saw your setup).

Dude, I gotta chew on your setup there a bit. So the boil kettle is directly under the HLT then? I'll prowl your gallery... and am sure I'll have additional questions.

I've a hell of a time getting through the CFC and why I had mine up so high. I went to petsfart to try and get that tank filler thing you use to push the wort through but didn't find it. Maybe that's ultimately what I need to do is get that process handled so I can get this puppy lower.

desertBrew said:

Thanks Beermaker (saw your setup).

Dude, I gotta chew on your setup there a bit. So the boil kettle is directly under the HLT then? I'll prowl your gallery... and am sure I'll have additional questions.

I've a hell of a time getting through the CFC and why I had mine up so high. I went to petsfart to try and get that tank filler thing you use to push the wort through but didn't find it. Maybe that's ultimately what I need to do is get that process handled so I can get this puppy lower.

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Just an fyi: The wort wizard requires a glass carboy. better bottles can't handle negative pressure.

olllllo said:

Just an fyi: The wort wizard requires a glass carboy. better bottles can't handle negative pressure.

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Thanks and I live dangerously with glass currently so that's a good thing. I ought to just buy the wort wizard since I can't seem to find the goods to make one myself...

I''m not sure what Dude's using but I'm using Visio. Not that cheap but it's on my work PC. Pretty easy to use as well. I just did a quick look and it's $200 for standard and $400 for pro.

desertBrew said:

I''m not sure what Dude's using but I'm using Visio. Not that cheap but it's on my work PC. Pretty easy to use as well. I just did a quick look and it's $200 for standard and $400 for pro.

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LOL...I use Powerpoint.

Check out Gimp. It's a good program but has a pretty steep learning curve.

Mine is just like that but made of angle iron :
Like Dude said you can run a hose or pvc to fill the HLT. If you look to the right side you can see that I made a remote filler for the HLT with a water filter and pvc. The water is hooked up by a garden hose then thru the filter and a pvc union is used on the upper leg and I make a J hook out of pvc that goes thru the lid on my HLT that way I can remove it when needed.

Nice Brewbiz, thanks for sharing. I think I'm going to continue with the longer design like you got there as opposed to the boil under HLT version like Dude's. I do plan to get a pump someday and want to be able to remove the top tier when that time comes.

The angle iron works well it appears for drop in shelving. If the alum thing doesn't go over for some reason that'd probably be my direction with iron. What's your height's roughly there?

Here are some better pic's:

Now you can see how I did the pvc for the incoming water:

Finished product, but still undergoing new modifications:

alemonkey said:

Check out Gimp. It's a good program but has a pretty steep learning curve.

Click to expand...

Gimp is more for image manipulation than drawing things.

Check out OpenOffice, which has a decent drawing package in it. QCAD is also available. Its a full 2D AutoCAD clone.

Alum is fine for the main structure, however you may consider putting a couple heat sheilds around the alum where its near the flame, & I'd also suggest using angle iron or steel for the cross support under the keggels.

As far as free cad software you could always try googles sketchup, its free..

I paused on this project so I can finger out how "low I can go" on the 1st tier. Dude, I went to both Petsmart and Petco and couldn't find the part to do my own wort wizard . They sold them but in a big old package with hoses and other crap for $29. So, I ordered the Wort Wizard to be done with it. Brewing two batches this weekend and can't wait to see how it works! It better arrive as scheduled...

Ok, I've said it in other posts, but wort wizard's rock! I've been able to lower my 3-tier design a good 12-18" because of the wort wizard. Here it is. It's still going to be welded aluminum and we've run some tests and the strength will be fine. The guy who's building this has to do it on lunch hour though so it may take a couple weeks to complete.



I may also be adding chrome diamond board shelving since we use that stuff at my work in abundance as well but I gotta look up what our cost is for that. Pimp my tier .

The link below is interactive (Visio has some cool web export tools).
http://www.imajininteriors.com/ajb/3-tier/3-tier%20v5.htm

desertBrew said:

Ok, I've said it in other posts, but wort wizard's rock! I've been able to lower my 3-tier design a good 12-18" because of the wort wizard. Here it is. It's still going to be welded aluminum and we've run some tests and the strength will be fine. The guy who's building this has to do it on lunch hour though so it may take a couple weeks to complete.



I may also be adding chrome diamond board shelving since we use that stuff at my work in abundance as well but I gotta look up what our cost is for that. Pimp my tier .

The link below is interactive (Visio has some cool web export tools).
http://www.imajininteriors.com/ajb/3-tier/3-tier%20v5.htm

Click to expand...

Holy crap, that is wicked cool! It will make brew day so much more enjoyable!

Cool interactive link too!

Well, that took a while longer than expected. We got way too busy at work. Not all the burners/gas lines in yet but it looks awesome. Just brought it home today. Very sturdy as well. More when I'm done.








Weighs in at only 65 lbs too! :rockin:

Most Ausgeseichnet! (most excellent)!

Please report on the maiden voyage of this beautiful virgin!

Most Ausgeseichnet! (most excellent)!

Please report on the maiden voyage of this beautiful virgin!

Shiny!!!!!!!!

VERY, very awesome Jeff!!!!!!!!!

Very cool!!!!

All plumbed in. Don't have my boil keg finished yet but am taking it for a ride (IPA) today. Still need to figure out shelving on the bottom & middle section.

Very NICE!!! You're going to love it.

And my propane plumbing looks almost identical to that.

Lil' Sparky said:

And my propane plumbing looks almost identical to that.

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Yea, it was pretty much plagery from you. Thanks!

Cool. So let's hear a report about how it went.

1.) What size Al did you use?
I noticed at the start of the thread you mentioned 1x1x.25 but I wasn't sure if that was the final result.

2.) I'm assuming that you have used it, so if you could change anything about your design would you, and if so what would that be?

3.) Do you have any detailed parts list/lengths/assembly/etc that I could look at?

Hey Harv,
The Al is actually 1x1 hollow and 1/8" thick welded together.

I have used it and it works great. A little bit of a pain still since I only have the 1 keg currently (still waiting on my buddy to finish my other 1/2bbl.) Nothing at this point that I'd change up. I do intend on getting some diamond board shelving and raising it up with 1/4" steel spacers so it is not flush on the frame. It gets a little warm near the burners surrounding the frame but nothing different than steel would do I'd gather. If you can see them in the pics, I have very heavy duty wheels on it. We had these at work as well and they carry a 1000lb load in the equipment that we build. Invest in nice wheels with brakes on the rear. The lower tier height will not work for you if you intend on gravity to the fermenter. I use a pump (wort wizard actually) that allowed me to lower it.

As for specs and all; the dimensions are verbatim to what is shown on this hotlink below. The red lines signify the pieces and their orientation as it butts up against the other pieces / where the weld occurred. I think the middle pieces are of a different configuration (reverse what you see there). We thought about it and decided it'd be more sturdy the other way. I could validate that if you want me to when I get home. Also, the top sections laying across the burner area ended up being 3" wide by 1/4" thick Al. I'm no welder; the guy at work who does this for a living did that part for me... The welds aren't around all sections; just where he "knew" it needed to be.

http://www.imajininteriors.com/ajb/3-tier/3-tier v5.htm

After the frame, if you want more info on the other parts (plumbing, burners) I'd be more than happy to provide where I got that stuff as well but frame is your starting point...

This is very nice dB.

Has anyone else made theirs out of aluminum?

Wow...not one fight between AL and SS users. Impressive.

foppa78 said:

This is very nice dB.

Has anyone else made theirs out of aluminum?

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I'm sure someone out there has since wood, copper and steel has been leveraged. Just haven't heard about it from anyone at this site. Not many are going to have this al laying around though like I had available to me.

Cheesefood said:

Wow...not one fight between AL and SS users. Impressive.

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The SS kegs and Iron burners throw some trash talk at the AL frame.