Building a brew shed, any advice?

[dtbritt]

So...I may have gone overboard a bit in my planning. But the wife gave me clearance and I'm going to build this sucker. The idea here is to have a garden shed-sized outdoor closet that opens up into a nice, covered brew space. I've drawn up some elevations of what I want to do, and would love any input y'all might have. Three things to keep in mind:

1. The upright freezer in the elevations is the maximum size I can fit. The actual freezer may be smaller, but for planning I just made it as big as possible.

2. The plumbing involving the chiller pot and kettle may look odd, but the idea is to fill the chiller pot with ice, dunk my old (small) wort chiller into it, and hook up the chiller's input to the spigot and the output to the hookup. The chiller's hookup will then run to the kettle's spigot, to which I'll then attach the input to my new (large) wort chiller. The output from that will be attached to the kettle's hookup, which will run out to a drain. That way I can chill larger volumes much more quickly.

3. This isn't intended for brewing with the door closed. The idea is to open the door (it'll have a support that the far edge "lands" on to support the weight) into an open air room while brewing.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Dave

 

[dtbritt]

I should also point out something not described above...When the mill door is closed, the outer portion of the shed will have a sort of garage door, hinged on the top edge. This will close over the mill door. When it's time to brew, this will raise up, and when the mill door opens the garage door will rest on top of it, providing a roof.

 

[TyTanium]

Very cool. I applaud your planning.

If you overplan, well, you overplanned. That's it.
If you underplan, you have to re-work, re-build, kick yourself, scratch your head, endure general discomfort and uncertainty.

My only comment would be to not have the milling station adjacent to the kettle & chiller pot. Grain dust is full of lactobacillus. I guess if you swing the door open for brewing it should be ok.

 

[dtbritt]

TyTanium - thanks for the comments. The plan is to have that thing open while milling. I assume that as long as I clean out the hopper and catch bucket pretty well after use, and the kettle before use, I shouldn't have to worry about the grain getting into the wort, right?

 

[TyTanium]

Sounds like a good plan to me. Great build, should be fun.

 

[kellanv]

You will need a pretty beefy hinge on the swing-out portion but pretty cool idea! Good luck.

 

[dtbritt]

Kellanv - yeah, I'd thought about ways around that. My plan is to use 3 heavy duty gate hinges, but they only need to support the weight while the mill door is in transit. When it's fully closed, the right most door support will rest on the floor of the shed. When it's fully open, that same support will rest on a landing pad (a short section of 4x4 that's been posted into the ground). I figure that'll keep it sturdy, without stressing either the hinges *or* the studs supporting the door.

 

[kcolby]

For weight/torque reasons you may consider moving your milling equipment to the door. You should be able to reverse the door layout which would move the bulk of the weighty items to the hinge side which might help reduce the stresses on the hinges. Otherwise make sure your hinges are solid and your door is as well braced as possible.

 

[dtbritt]

kcolby - that's a good point. Plus, it helps with what TyTanium was saying by getting the mill a little further away from the kettle. Of course, that also means that when I'm milling the dust will be more likely to invade the closed in brew space. Maybe I put it in middle?

 

[ajwillys]

I wouldn't worry to much about malt dust. As long as you clean up decently and don't mill near the end of your boil before you go into fermenter, it shouldn't be a problem. I mean, I mill in the same spot I brew every time.

As far as the door, the real "heavy side" will be the side with all the stuff on those shelves! I agree, those need to be strong hinges.

 

[FirstStateBrewer]

Could the weight of outer side of the mill door ride on a wheel?

 

[ajwillys]

For support of the door once its open/closed, you could use a trailer tongue jack to prop it up. That wouldn't really support when in motion though.

For the wheel, I imagine it would be hard to level a track for it to run on.

 

[Boar Beer]

Three thoughts
1 put double 4 foot doors on. that would cut the strain a great deal.
2 put a 6 foot door in the middle
3 add 2 feet to the width (4 would be even better) and just a 4 foot door in the middle.