Brew stand from two kitchen sinks

[BikerMatt]

Yep you read right

I managed to come into posession of two discarded ~65 liter stainless steel sinks. Never used but a bit dented so they got tossed into a skip at one factory where I fished them out of and can bang out those dents (not that I'd even need to). My main concern is they are only something like 1mm or so thick so don't know how will they respond to being heated with a flame. I guess we'll going to see. They are so big (45x60cm) that I can use both the inner and outer burners of my paella burner and hence utilise it's full 9kw heating power to quicken up the warm up time. I'm planning to weld a kind of a two tier setup so that when I mash I can use one as the kettle after I weld the drain hole shut, and the other inverted as a lid. Then when I drain my BIAB bag I can toss on the rig the second frame and use the lid part as a sort of a strainer to sparge the bag, and when I boil I can remove it and use the upper as a lid again. Or maybe just weld up a frame over the lower to hang a spaghetti strainer from. Hope I'm making any sense here. I have detailed plans in my head so trying to draw them out for you guys to see as well. Or just go buy a few right angle stock rods and just weld it got zero euros on the project as is and the total bill will be somewhere around 15eur so don't really care if the sinks won't last forever.

 

[madscientist451]

I don't know what a paella burner is, but applying a flame to the bottom of the sink where the drain comes out could cause some issues with leaking.
I guess the only way to know is try it, but if there is a threaded fitting and it gets hot
it could get warped and not function any more and that would lead to more problems.
Any wort trapped in the drain area would probably get scorched and then be difficult to clean out.
Maybe seal off the bottom drain and put an outlet in the side?
Any way to use an electric element as a heater?

 

[BikerMatt]

There is nothing more than a punched out hole in the bottom which I intend to weld shut with a round plate. Sits in a nice indentation so I should be able to weld and polish the inside pretty much flat. Haven't decided yet if I'll make a drain or not, making this up as I go along

Paella burner is a two ring low flow burner, basically just two tube rings with holes in them. Meant to heat up a large pan (mine is 35cm)

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I'm confused but intrigued! Can't wait to see the plans, really can't wait to see what you end up with. And I thought I had a Frankenrig!

 

[BikerMatt]

Two mahoosive sinks plus angle stock...

Paella burner...

Imagine a frame holding the lower sink up (probly not gonna use the upper as a lid, too frikkin big...)

Was thinking to use them like this when sparging but then figured why not just weld a frame that goes over the lower to hold a spaghetti strainer, that way I can cut up one and keep the other, gonna get the plate that will plug up the bottom hole from the other one. But then I'm gonna need to make a big lid at some point. Don't have a sheet metal brake yet but planning to buy one. Until then gonna rig up something...

Probly gonna be all over this the coming weekend, probly don't have time before that. I'll make your frankenrig look like it's bought from a store

 

[TANSTAAFB]

OK, makes more sense. I would definitely consider going electric BIAB with this! I actually really like the idea of using one as a strainer for the other...BUT if you can weld stainless and need a lid, why not cut the bottom off one with enough left of the side to bend for a lid and then weld the bottomless sides to the other to make a taller/ bigger kettle. Or if going electric isn't an option-- instead of making a lid, weld it to the bottom of the other to make a double thick bottom (giggity!) that can handle the direct flame a little better. Looks like fun!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Wait, why not weld them together like in your 3rd pic and cut the top for a lid? MY head's running through a million options, yours has to be spinning with possibilities! Measure (think through plan) twice, cut once!

 

[BikerMatt]

Probly gonna just stare at it for a few days and see what comes up. Going to keep it gas powered because got an 11kg gas bittle with no other use and to get SWMBO off my back with the electric bill. 65liters is plenty more than I think I'm gonna ever need so no need to enlarge further, also going to have to keep in mind I gotta store this thing somewhere when the motorbike's on the table! Weld stainless... well I have a MIG rig and SS wire, all I really need is the skill also my shielding gas isn't ideal (wrong tri-mix) but that's the best I can get in a non-rental bottle. Also when doing food grade welds the seam should be gas shielded from both sides which I find hard to achieve ..

Just took the dog for a wee and came up with this while walking: cut up the damaged upper so that I keep the lip and the bottom, shove the bottom through the lip, weld together to form a shallower lid with a short skirt that goes into the lower to keep it in place, and use the leftover part to cut the round disc to plug the hole from the lower. Then possibly later add a drain tube with threads to screw on a spigot.

 

[BikerMatt]

I tried plugging the hole from the sink today. Well, it does hold water but...

Had a chat about the project with a few welders at one factory I regularly deliver stuff to and they warned me about a few things. The same things I did run into, bad...

First off thw sink is pressed from a 1mm stainless steel sheet which means the bottom, and especially the area around the drain hole, is stretched to it's limit and only about 0,6-0,7mm thick. The only piece I had to plug it with was 2mm thick which causes some problems...

First off at least with a MIG welder and a 0,8mm wire it's pretty much impossible to weld point six stainless without it pulling like heck into every direction. It CAN be done, you'd just have to let it cool to touch temperature after every tack wich would mean plugging that hole, provided you only have about an hour a day to do this, would take about three weeks... no matter it can be banged straight and TBH it wont even matter if it's wavy. So I managed to warp the bottom pretty bad, and not gonna lie had a few blow throughs as well but could plug those enough to be watertight. Probly going to be needing to do a few plug tacks after I clean up the weld.

The second problem was, as I anticipated, that if I'll be burning the ring burner at full rock n roll setting with both burners it's gonna radiate enough heat downwards to peel the paint off my motorcycle lift! So either I'll be needing to

A) boil n mash outside (out of the question)
B) buy a concrete tile big enough to slip under the burner (and store it somewhere the last 350 days of the year I'm not brewing)
C) build the whole rig on stilts to have it about table height (and figure out where to store THAT).

At the moment option C is looking the most plausible. Going to have to restrain myself and really figure out a battle plan before I'll start building this. Oh and one other thing, the water does heat up pretty quick but the entire sink gets incredibly hot so would probly be a good idea to add heat shields around it as well.

Dunno starting to have a few second thoughts... the sink is really really thin for heating purposes and frankly way too big fo my needs... just thinking about where the *** am I going to store it when I'm not using it...