First Brew Stand Build

[dfigravity]

I've been working on this for a few weeks now...all parts have been ordered, but since we live in Germany, shipping takes a minute. ALso, please forgive me because so far the only pics I have are cell phone pics...I'll get around to taking better pics soon.

So my setup will be a two tier, two burner, single pump RIMS system. The pump will be used to recirculate the water in the HLT while it is heated to strike temp. The water will be gravity fed into the MLT for the mash and the pump will be used again to recirculate the mash through my RIMS tube. After the mash, the wort will be pumped into the boil kettle, and finally it will be used to pump the wort out of the BK, through our CFC and into the fermentor.

Here is a sketchup of the rig, with dimensions: Also, that burner is in the wrong spot...it was just there for reference. The burners will actually be on the left and right sides...obviously.

We are using Unistrut as the frame for the rig. All of the unistrut has been cut and we're just waiting on our order from Strut Channel Fittings to arrive!

Here's my garage space, the cut unistrut and a sweet stainless steel table that I picked up for free...that's always a good thing.

A few parts for the RIMS box:

RIMS box in progress: I will follow up with a few better pics of the completed internals of the box this afternoon...

RIMS box complete, outside:

The first shipment of fittings arrived:

And the super cool CFC:

Oh, and a sweet little sign I picked up off of kleinanzeigen.ebay.de:

The kettles are still on the way and I'm pretty sure they're taking the slow boat...so it'll be a few weeks still. The Banjo burners arrived yesterday, as did the propane regulator. It feels great to finally start building after a few months of reading through the forums!

 

[ColoHox]

Building a stand is a fun project. Post your progress!

 

[chewse]

Looking good! Please post pics as the project progresses.....

 

[Stealthcruiser]

"Draft beer-Cooler room"............I like it!

 

[Natdavis777]

Looking good. Im digging that CFC

 

[dfigravity]

I just got the rest of my fittings in for the CFC and the strut channel fittings for the rig build. If I can get the stand built on Saturday morning, I'll heat up a pot of water and test out both the pump and the CFC. I'll have more pics up tonight of the additional shipment items.

Also scored a second stainless steel table that was getting thrown out...one man's trash...

 

[dfigravity]

Here is today's progress...I am realizing VERY quickly that this is going to be a real pain to tighten it all up straight.


Fittings

Unistrut sections

Workspace

 

[dfigravity]

Time for another update! We were able to get the stand to 90% last weekend...all that is left is finishing the heat shields and mounting the burners...more to come on that later. That is a 60qt. (15gal) kettle sitting on the stand btw.

And of course we pay homage to our brewing inspiration:

Here is the CFC with all fittings in place:

Also got the pump all set up and ready to go for a weekend test:

Here is the homemade stir plate with V-reg circuit:

Also, the finished RIMS control box:

With guts...

Speaking of RIMS, here's the tube!

And the outlet of the MLT

WHEW...that was a lot of pictures. We are still waiting on the kettles, which are on a ship, slowly chugging their way across the Atlantic as we speak. In the meantime, we'll run a RIMS test this weekend with water only, testing for leaks and seeing how long it takes to ramp up the water temp. We're also planning on brewing a weissbier on Memorial day (on our current system)...needless to say we're excited! We had a GoFundMe going that helped us purchase some of the big items...all in all, a really exciting build so far!

 

[dfigravity]

So I started working on the HLT today...who knew it was SO FREAKING HARD to drill stainless...

25min. worth of drilling = this:

Using a knockout...

A celebratory drink...

And the progress for this afternoon...

Should be able to get the sight glass installed tomorrow.

 

[dfigravity]

So we were brewing a small batch of weissbier today and decided to give the RIMS a test run while the boil was on...using only water of course, since we're still waiting on the other two kettles to come in

And it worked like a charm!

The RIMS tube brought tap water at 66F up to 155F in about 30min. I am very happy with how well it worked...the REAL test will be on a 10gal Imperial Stout that we'll be brewing on June 20th...

 

[DurtyChemist]

What is the plastic bucket for?

Why the 90 degree elbow leading into the bucket?

 

[helterscelter]

What is the plastic bucket for?

Why the 90 degree elbow leading into the bucket?

looks like a catch basin for priming his pump. open the valve leading to the 90/bucket in order to flood the pump head and let trapped air out of the line. This will/can cause a bit of a spill.

 

[dfigravity]

looks like a catch basin for priming his pump. open the valve leading to the 90/bucket in order to flood the pump head and let trapped air out of the line. This will/can cause a bit of a spill.

Exactly...that bleeder valve makes ALL the difference, and it definitely can make a mess. It just looks a little crazy because the pump isn't mounted yet. I'm on the fence whether to mount the pump underneath everything, or mount it vertically on the tall leg as pictured in my sketchup.