building brew sculpture

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Well I have plumbing, now I need a frame for my 3 converted kegs.

How high off the ground do most of you have your kettle in order to still be able to transfer into your carboys?

Trying to figure out the best way to run 3 burners off of one propane tank and how to mount the burners.

I'd like to have a frame that can be easily broken down in case I have to move, which is very likely near september. Wood vs Steel?

Any ideas boys.

Might do a brew on monday by placing the kegs on some scafolding since I'm impatient to try the setup out if I can shake this damn cold. Yes a Cold when it 40+ celcius outside!

 

[homebrewer_99]

Since you're using burners I would not opt for wood.

If you use angle iron you can always make some sort of couplings to help you in disassembly.

Tubing, round or square, can be coupled using sleeves with bolts through them. Remove the bolts and the sections. Easy.

You could even use that telescoping tubing (comes complete with pins) that's used in older houses to hold up basement ceilings. Get longer pins and cross members can use the same holes. This way the shelving heights can be adjusted.

Other than that...I can't think of a thing. Sorry.

 

[Grimsawyer]

Well I have plumbing, now I need a frame for my 3 converted kegs.

How high off the ground do most of you have your kettle in order to still be able to transfer into your carboys?...............

...Any ideas boys.

Might do a brew on monday by placing the kegs on some scafolding since I'm impatient to try the setup out if I can shake this damn cold. Yes a Cold when it 40+ celcius outside!

What size carboys? Will they sit on the ground or do you want to set them on a potentially softer surface like maybe a 12 inch square piece of wood? (concrete/tarmak might be bad with glass)Are you going to use a counterflow wort chiller? (like the one on this system http://www.concentric.net/~vsabbe/portabrew.htm or one like this http://hbd.org/jdbrown/chiller.htm or just one you submerge in the boil kettle?) When I make my sculpture I am going to use a CF chiller (maybe with an immersion wort chiller before that soaks in a salty ice bath) so I'm going to start with the height of my carboy on a wood plank plus about 4 inches and work up from there. As for being able to break it apart one idea i've read is to use angle iron with holes in it so all you have to do is screw it together, not weld, so in september if you move all you have to do is get out some wrenches and de-construct your sculpture. I havn't built one yet, not sure if I want to use coolers or keggles... but I have put alot of thought into it. HERMS vs RIMS vs anything else someone has come up with. Heat exchangers and coolers or Kegs with flame under them and a pump... :cross:
By the way, how hot F is 40 C? I suck at that metric stuff, tho it does make sooooo much more sense.... just never use it

 

[Duke145]

I plan on building a system some time in the futurre. What I have been doing is brewing with various setups to see what works. Like this.



With trial and error I am getting the size that I need. I saw somewhere that a guy use a bunch of bed frames for the metal frame he made. That is what I plan on doing.

Good luck!

 

[david_42]

Industrial adjustable shelving. Just replace the particle board with expanded steel mesh. I paid $60 for my shelving and I can adjust the levels in about 3 minutes, counting removing burners & pots.

 

[drost]

Industrial adjustable shelving. Just replace the particle board with expanded steel mesh. I paid $60 for my shelving and I can adjust the levels in about 3 minutes, counting removing burners & pots.

Can you post some pictures of your setup?

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Well, currently I have 5 gal glass carboys and 13 gallon plastic carboys. Probably sit them on the ground on a rubber mat.

I know a guy that made his frame out of wood with heat shielding, but his venture seemed more permanent and costly. Trying to keep the price down.

I'll be using an immersion chiller for now though I might build some sort of heat exchanger later on.

40C is 104F. Supposed ot go up to 45/46 (115F)

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[D*Bo]

Use a round tube (3-4") as your center stand and square or round tubing (I'd lean towards square, but it may be cheaper to purchase one piece of round tubing) for the mounts for the burners & kettle stands. Cut the tubing for your mounts with a hole saw the diameter of the upright on one end, and at a 45* on the other so that another short piece cut at a 45* welded together will point up allowing you construct your stand. Drill a hole thru the upright tube and the mount you just fabricated. Then you can run a long bolt thru the mount and the tube.
Easy disassembly.
Not sure if you can picture what I'm saying here.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Ok a little confused on the mounts.

 

[D*Bo]

All right..
If you took the square tube and cut a 45* and put the 2 45's together to get a 90*. You would have an "L" shaped piece if one side of the tube was longer.

If you placed it so the shorter tube pointed up, you could notch the horizontal tube to the diameter of the center tube of your stand.
Then if you drill the verticle tube so you can run a long bolt thru the horizontal tube and drill a hole straight thru the center tube of your stand, you can now run that long bolt thru your stand.


You could also weld a short section of tubing to the center tube of your stand, and build the mounts out of a tube that will slip over the pieces welded to the center tube and secure it with a bolt.

 

[brewhead]

How high off the ground do most of you have your kettle in order to still be able to transfer into your carboys?

3 tier brewstand

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Thanks! After my brewing semi-disaster, which I'll post pictures of tomorrow, I'm definatley building a stand very soon.

Here's the post: http://homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=11638