55 gal drum mash tun - false bottom ideas?

[Pangea]

Update: I bought a 21.5" diameter false bottom from Jaybird here on HBT. Will post again when the thing is installed!

 

[BrewBeemer]

Wow talk about some surface area with 363 sq/in of area. You must have a stainless ring for a full contact support of the perimeter as well legs added thru the screen to prevent it from collapsing from your large grain weight.

 

[Pangea]

I'll use a high temp (silicon, probably) gasket around the perimiter and support the middle with some small stainless bolts or screws threaded through a perforation. No big deal, really.

The tough part will be getting the grain out. I may rig up a tilting somethingorother later, but for now I plan to scoop out 60+ lbs grain, plus water weight.

 

[BrewBeemer]

What about a thin strip of stainless the same thickness as your sealing gasket with 1/2 circle or notches cut facing the bottom edge then rolled into a hoop half the barrels diameter to support the screen? Add four short stainless 10-32 screws and nuts to hold the ring centered. Drop it in and the grain would hold it in position. If there ever was a time for a tippy dump system you need one with those wet grain volumes to make life easy.

 

[Pangea]

Nope to the stainless strip. Too much trouble and $$$ when you have no metal working skillz or capability. My removable gasket can be either 1/2" silicon tube, ends connected. Cheap. Easy. Effective. I can secure the gasket to the FB if I want or just lay it loose on the bottom and then put the FB on top.

You're right - this is a situation begging for tippy dump. Just need to figure out the best way. I'm going to focus on getting the system working first, then try mods to "tip" the MT and dump grain down the road.

Also, if anyone's curious, I ordered a 60 gallon fermenter yesterday...whoohooo!!!

 

[ajwillys]

Also, if anyone's curious, I ordered a 60 gallon fermenter yesterday...whoohooo!!!

Nice! Let me know what you think about it!

 

[Pangea]

Nice! Let me know what you think about it!

Will do Andrew. Thanks for the drums! I'm building the stands for them today as a matter of fact.

What are you guys doing for brewhouse heating/control? Decided yet?

 

[mikefromcu]

I am curious!
Actually getting ready to pull the trigger on a couple of these two. Are you putting them in a big fridge or cold room for temp control? You did by the FD (full drain) version, right? Have you already worked out what fittings you're going to use for the bottom drain? Are you going to put in a racking port too?

Awesome!

 

[Pangea]

No, no idea on the racking port yet. I was thinking maybe just a through-wall fitting and ball valve at the right height. If you find a good racking arm / fitting for something like this, let me know. I will be puting in a temp controlled room. Too big for a fridge!

 

[ajwillys]

For heating, I was thinking the wok burners, probably the 32 tip. Not sure if we will be able to use NG, but that would be preferred. If not, we will go with LP.

http://www.cpapc.com/store/32-Tip-Round-Nozzle-Jet-Burner-P470C244.aspx

For temp control, we actually are using a big fridge (well, a REALLY big fridge). It's 12'x12' and we are thinking about separating into a cold side and a fermenting side. I'm most concerned about special beers that may fall without the typical fermenting range we plan on employing in the fermenting side. We may supplement a fermenter by wrapping it in coils and pumping cold liquid around it or something.

 

[Pangea]

Cool, cool. I'm going all electric. I've got the parts on order and will be installing in a few weeks. It will be an immersion heater hot water tank, immersion heater boil kettle, and a drum belt heater for the mash tun. The MT and HLT will have thermocouples controlling heater output through PIDs. The boil kettle will be controlled by a potentiometer dial to vary output. Here's what I built today... I'm pleased.

 

[MultumInParvo]

Cool, cool. I'm going all electric. I've got the parts on order and will be installing in a few weeks. It will be an immersion heater hot water tank, immersion heater boil kettle, and a drum belt heater for the mash tun. The MT and HLT will have thermocouples controlling heater output through PIDs. The boil kettle will be controlled by a potentiometer dial to vary output. Here's what I built today... I'm pleased.[/IMG]

I am not sure what that all means. But it sure looks pretty!

 

[BrewBeemer]

Nope to the stainless strip. Too much trouble and $$$ when you have no metal working skillz or capability. My removable gasket can be either 1/2" silicon tube, ends connected. Cheap. Easy. Effective. I can secure the gasket to the FB if I want or just lay it loose on the bottom and then put the FB on top.

You're right - this is a situation begging for tippy dump. Just need to figure out the best way. I'm going to focus on getting the system working first, then try mods to "tip" the MT and dump grain down the road.

Also, if anyone's curious, I ordered a 60 gallon fermenter yesterday...whoohooo!!!

To allow for the same amount of crush use your silicone tubing on the outer edge as well another ring 10" in diameter. The grain weight should give you an even compression of the tubing with full FB support. This is the easy one, the tippy dump will be a the project to design and build. I would roll a hoop out of angle iron to support the bottom of the barrel with another loop just above the halfway location up the side with with flat stock like 1/4" x 1 1/2" between both loops. Add trunnions to the top ring with gusset supports. This mounted on pillow bearings on top of a "A" frame. I mentioned pillow blocks vs a "V" or "U" slot for a reason, to prevent the trunnion pins and top loop from bending with that massive weight your dealing with. Gussets are your friend.

 

[Pangea]

Here's the gasket I made from a length of silicon thermoplastic tubing with a stainless double barbed tube coupling to hold the ends together. Sorry for the poor pic quality, was taken on my phone. Fits nice and snug around the perimeter of the drum bottom. I should get my big azz false bottom tomorrow and we'll see how she fits.

 

[ajwillys]

Hey, that looks really nice. Looks like it will work well.

 

[BrewBeemer]

Play big or go home, your unit looks great. looks more like a winery project, you trying to fool the Feds calling it three wine presses instead? I would rather see a smaller diameter silicone tubing as the connector vs that stainless barb you installed as the weight of your grain will compress the silicone tubing and not that stainless connector. This might add a little hump in the FB. As mentioned before add a smaller hoop in the center for added support as that is a lot of area relying on just the perimeter silicone seal. How many pounds of grain will that puppy hold? Your talking some weight there when done with wet grain to be dumped a tippy dump will save your back, time plus labor cleaning it after the brewing session. Great for making bread, doggie treats of feeding the deer.
Oh horses love it as well flat bier but takes 3-4 gallons to get a horse looped. Don't ask been there done that and my sister called the horse doctor.
I got the ranch doctor visit for a drunk horse. Funny as hell to see a "******* of a horse" with a bad attitude that kicks people down and drunk.

You'll hit your states maximum "by law home brew limit" rather fast. Throw a big brewing party everyone chips in and takes home a piece of your brewing party.
Looking good my friend. Keep those postings coming.

 

[Pangea]

Well, here it is. I posted on Jaybird's false bottom thread as well. Fits nicely. I may bring the diameter of the gasket in a bit. The false bottom from Jaybird is beefy. It seems strong enough to not even have a support in the middle. It flexes, but I cant make it touch the bottom of the drum pushing with all the weight I could put on it. I think this is gonna be a winner and wasn't terribly expensive!

 

[lehr]

The wood work looks very nice on this project but do you think it will be strong enough to support all that weight when those drums are full ?

Pat

 

[MultumInParvo]

Wow, that thing is massive. Massive, Massive. Well crafted too. Very cool!

 

[ClaudiusB]

The false bottom from Jaybird is beefy. It seems strong enough to not even have a support in the middle.

For my combination mash/lauter tuns I put supports on the bottom.
The picture shows the 50 liter false bottom, for the 200 liter I have a different arrangement for the supports.
The diameter is 25" for the 200 liter version.

The flexing would interfere with the mixer blades without support during grain removal.
During mashing the grain floats.

Grain removal

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[Pangea]

The wood work looks very nice on this project but do you think it will be strong enough to support all that weight when those drums are full ?

Pat

They actually have more support now. I added some diagonal links on the sides and back. It's sturdy. The boards are 2x4 studs, so they're strong. The angle of the photo shows the vertical studs on their thin axis. It feels very sturdy when I jump all over it. I think it will be fine when filled with liquid. Thanks for the concern though, I did think of that too which is why I added crossmembers.

 

[lehr]

They actually have more support now. I added some diagonal links on the sides and back. It's sturdy. The boards are 2x4 studs, so they're strong. The angle of the photo shows the vertical studs on their thin axis. It feels very sturdy when I jump all over it. I think it will be fine when filled with liquid. Thanks for the concern though, I did think of that too which is why I added crossmembers.

Good I'm glad to hear that I can't imagine 150 gallons of boiling wort and water falling over on you.

Pat

 

[Pangea]

Good I'm glad to hear that I can't imagine 150 gallons of boiling wort and water falling over on you.

Pat

Thanks. In reality it would never be more that about 80 gallons of liquid at a time, plus grain weight. That would be about 700 plus lbs. A lot, for sure. The thing I'm most concerned with is the casters. There are 8 of them, each "rated" to 150 lbs. 4 of them can support 600 lb in theory, so I hope they'll be ok.

 

[MultumInParvo]

Thanks. In reality it would never be more that about 80 gallons of liquid at a time, plus grain weight. That would be about 700 plus lbs. A lot, for sure. The thing I'm most concerned with is the casters. There are 8 of them, each "rated" to 150 lbs. 4 of them can support 600 lb in theory, so I hope they'll be ok.

Eh, I think you'll be good on the casters. They're normally pretty under rated when it comes to weight capacity. I just wouldn't move it around much when it is full.

 

[MikeRLynch]

Cool, cool. I'm going all electric. I've got the parts on order and will be installing in a few weeks. It will be an immersion heater hot water tank, immersion heater boil kettle, and a drum belt heater for the mash tun. The MT and HLT will have thermocouples controlling heater output through PIDs. The boil kettle will be controlled by a potentiometer dial to vary output. Here's what I built today... I'm pleased.

Gonna need some specs on that stuff when you get around to it.

Boy am I glad all you guys are doing this before I try to! Saves me a lot of trial and error

 

[BrewBeemer]

You must be at 685# without adding the grain, three drums, valves and all that
wood. I bet your nearing 800# if not higher in weight. Add a "tippy dump" your adding more to those rather small looking caster wheels. As mentioned do not move it around when it's full. Wood sure makes it look warm.
Keep those pictures coming.

 

[leboeuf]

Compression strength on a 2x4 is really high. I can't seem to find anything (2.2seconds of search ) on the actual numbers though.

As long as you keep them from twisting/bending they can take a lot of longitudinal force.

SWEET build btw

 

[StAnthonyB]

I have a 25" diameter false bottom in my 200 liter (52 gallon) combination mash/later tun.
Beer Beer & more Beer made it to my specifications a few years ago.
They have always done a great job for me.

The only change I would do the next time, make a two or three piece design.

What type of efficiencies are you pulling with this baby?

 

[riartwork]

i use a 15gal keg for my mash tun and heat the water to about 165 and mash in after all the grains are in i have a box i build with no bottom and put that over the mash tun, it has 2 100 watt light bulbs inside of it and after 5 mins the temp in the box is about 130. i have left the grains in the box for 90 mins and only lost 2 degs of temp and it was only 40degs outside. i am very happy with this, in the past i have pulled my hair out trying to keep the temp in the mash tun.

 

[brewingmeister]

i use a 15gal keg for my mash tun and heat the water to about 165 and mash in after all the grains are in i have a box i build with no bottom and put that over the mash tun, it has 2 100 watt light bulbs inside of it and after 5 mins the temp in the box is about 130. i have left the grains in the box for 90 mins and only lost 2 degs of temp and it was only 40degs outside. i am very happy with this, in the past i have pulled my hair out trying to keep the temp in the mash tun.

Wait. You are using light bulbs in a box to heat your mash tun?? Sounds like a short waiting to happen.