Brew House Organization

[Lodovico]

I'm interested in seeing pictures of how others have their stuff organized in the basement or wherever your brew house is located. I don't mean your brewing rig but for those of you that are really well organized, I'd love to see your storage, shelving, and organizing ideas because I want to re-do how I keep all by brewing stuff and I know there are some good ideas out there.

I've found that being well organized really leads to better beer and less stress on brew day.

Show me your setup! Thanks

 

[WCrane]

Orginization helps me out a lot.

Well I don't have a picture on hand, but in my basement I have a room where the furnance/blower and water heater are. I have some of those white wire closet shelves left over as well as some of the erector set like metal shelves. The shelves are along one wall (I do have plans for a nicer set of 2x4 and plywood shelves for the futre)
The top shelves is home to my buckets, stored upside down, side by side and the lids too.

The second shelf hold my pasta roller mill, bench capper, and pots. Oh And I have all my small stuff in a plastic office carry all (aka teacher box). Thinks like air locks, my small jemewery scale, tubing, spoons, muslin bags etc. Makes it really easy to carry it up to the kitchen.

The metal shelve was split into two section (about 3ft tall each with two/three shelves), one is home to milk crates with clean empty bottles, the other has my cases of full bottles in beer boxes.

I have a bit of room on the top of the metal shelf (and below the wire shelf) to hold this and that as well. it works for me for now.

 

[chicagobrew]

I use wire racks in a small storage room/extra bedroom in my small Chicago apartment. Space is always a concern and if I want to keep SWMBO happy it needs to be nice and tidy. Right now, I can pretty much keep everything on 1 4' rack, but I'm starting to spill over. I also have my burner and a 55lb. sack in the closet nearby (see pics).

I second the call for "teacher boxes"/totes. These things are dirt cheap at HD and come in all different sizes. I have some large ones for tubing, tools, misc. junk, some grain, etc., and I have small ones for airlocks, thermometers, salts, etc. If you keep them organized by task you can easily grab one and have everything you need for whatever you're doing.

 

[CalmYourself]

I built a cupboard that sits outside and keeps almost everything except ingredients in.

Made out of melamine coated chipboard so I don't expect it's going to last much longer than a year or 2.

The whole thing (with before pics of my spare room) is here.

 

[Lodovico]

Those look like good setups. I was thinking something like that 4' rack.

 

[JetSmooth]

Organization?

You're so cute!

My stuff is shoved under the staris in my basement. I would KILL for a dedicated brewshed.

One tip I have picked up for brewdays is to pre-weigh out my hop additions into teacups and set them on my counter in order with Post-It notes listing the time, amount and variety. That helps me be spot on with my hop addition timings.

 

[mosquitocontrol]

Can't say its terribly organized by just looking at it. But its the best I can do with a 6ftx5ft closet.
-4 primaries in the pink fermentation chamber with hidden mini fridge
-4 batches worth of bottles
-shelf with bulk ingredients
- 4 secondaries (empty)
and all miscellaneous equipment. Keg's are in a separate utility closet next to the water heater.

I've found it easiest to have a milk crate or two with everything i need for brew day so I can just grab and go. I have another for the days I bottle (rare). And a toolbox for when I need to keg. Keeping everything in a dedicated bin means less trips in and out on brew day. I have all my ingredients on the lower shelves so they are easy to get to. Stuff used less often like empty bottles are far out of reach.

I've learned to maximize space by building up.

 

[brettwasbtd]

How does everyone handle all their different connectors, airlocks, spoons, funnels etc...a bunch of little crap! I have a plastic storage bin i end up tossing everything into but I feel like im not organized, just condensed chaos haha. Trying to be more organized and efficient

 

[BrewThruYou]

How does everyone handle all their different connectors, airlocks, spoons, funnels etc...a bunch of little crap! I have a plastic storage bin i end up tossing everything into but I feel like im not organized, just condensed chaos haha. Trying to be more organized and efficient

For smaller stuff like airlocks, corny QDs, etc., I just use plastic storage containers like THESE.

They stack well and I use some labels on the front.

 

[tre9er]

Most of my stuff is left to dry after cleaning and I rarely end up putting it all away. I have two large "hutches" that were given to me by a neighbor, one stacked on top of the other. They have large cupboards on the ends and 4 square drawers in the center. I put grain and a few bits in there, vac bags/sealer, misc kegging parts, etc. I have a shelf that I keep mason jars/flasks/bottles/bottled beer/gallon of starsan, etc. on. My hoses hang from a hook to dry and stay there. My kettle, HLT, and cooler pretty much live in their brewing position on my "sculpture" after they've been cleaned and dried. As I said, most of my other stuff like airlocks, thermometer, hydro, spoon, test jar, chiller, etc. are sitting on top of the hutch with towels under them, where I let them dry.

I feel like if I put everything away it would be harder to find it on brew day. I can just look over to my hutches and see half of my equipment sitting on the top, rather than fumbling through drawers and plastic tubs with lids.