Building a garage brewery

[jrhayes147]

Hi,

I am going to be building a Home brewery in a few months and wanted to get ideas or advise from you all. I have a single car garage that the Wifey is letting me do whatever I want with. I will have a plumbed in the space with but unfortunately the builder was not able to put in a floor drain for me. The ceiling height is 9’6” and the overall space is 12’6” by 20’3” my system will be a 20 gallon 3 vessel HERMS, I have a 48” hood with 1000cfm motor. I want to have this as close to a nano brewery as possible.

 

[homebrewer_99]

I have an oversized 2 car garage attached to the house and a single out at the back of my 2 acres...it "houses" a couple mice from the farm fields in the winter time.

I'm just pointing out that you might acquire some unwanted guests too...

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

My garage brewing area measures 20 x 20 with a 10-foot ceiling. I brew on a 240 volt 15-gallon eBIAB system using a 780 cfm exhaust fan and hood to clear out boil vapors and aromas. It takes 5 minutes to completely change the air in the brewing area. Using this formula; (20 width x 20 length x 10 height = 4000) total cubic feet. Then divide the total cubic feet by the rated cfm of the fan (4000 / 780 = 5.128) minutes.

A natural gas-fired system requires an exhaust fan rated at least 12 times higher than an electrically powered system. The higher capacity exhaust is needed to safely vent carbon monoxide produced by burning gas. Keep in mind that any air exhausted from the room will need to be replaced by fresh makeup air.

 

[mongoose33]

Can you pour a raised platform into which you install a drain? If I went through all the trouble of putting in a brewery in a garage and didn't have a floor drain......

 

[jrhayes147]

Can you pour a raised platform into which you install a drain? If I went through all the trouble of putting in a brewery in a garage and didn't have a floor drain......

I am playing with the idea building up the floor with 2x4 and sloping it to the middle. Only concern with that is making sure that it is water tight. right now it will slope towards the garage door. I am going to see how well that works before i go through the project and expense.

 

[jrhayes147]

My garage brewing area measures 20 x 20 with a 10-foot ceiling. I brew on a 240 volt 15-gallon eBIAB system using a 780 cfm exhaust fan and hood to clear out boil vapors and aromas. It takes 5 minutes to completely change the air in the brewing area. Using this formula; (20 width x 20 length x 10 height = 4000) total cubic feet. Then divide the total cubic feet by the rated cfm of the fan (4000 / 780 = 5.128) minutes.

A natural gas-fired system requires an exhaust fan rated at least 12 times higher than an electrically powered system. The higher capacity exhaust is needed to safely vent carbon monoxide produced by burning gas. Keep in mind that any air exhausted from the room will need to be replaced by fresh makeup air.

I brew on 240 volt currently it does not get to cold here so I will be able to open the garage door a bit to allow for make up air. Do you have any pictures of yours? I am also thinking of building in a HLT and CLT, I work for a plumbing supply company and can gat all the tanks, valves, and pipe super cheap, I already have a glycol chiller and spare plate chiller.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

Here are two articles that walk through the brewroom build in detail.

www.thescrewybrewer.com/2014/09/high-gravity-ebiab-brewroom-build.html

www.thescrewybrewer.com/2014/10/the-ultimate-electric-brew-in-bag.html