Ground Up Brew Room Build

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

In the summer of 2016 I built an 8x16 enclosed exterior porch on my place, intending to eventually turn it into a brew room. I've done a bit here and there between other big projects but am now focused on getting brewing in this room this summer. I'm proud that I've done everything outside of the concrete work for this project myself. A few photos of my project are below. I'll update as I make progress towards the finish of this project over the next few months.

this is how things looked after my first day of construction

Getting up some of the walls.

I love this photo of me and my son (3 at the time) after a long day of framing I just crashed here and he came to chill next to me.

Almost framed in.

Room is finished on the exterior fall 2016

I did the electric fall 2016

I did an offset off the wall where i'll do tile for brewing to allow heat to better escape

After hanging the drywall I was able to close out my permit which was great, I also did a big deck and roof cover over the deck that summer. Where the backerboard is will be a tile wall.

I did the drywall finishing winter 2018

Now this spring I put in the vents for my exhausts, i'm running natural gas.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

A few more photos to bring this up to date to how things stand today:

I have my stands welded, a dual burner stand for boiling split batches, and a single stand for my HLT

In April this spring I did the cool wood accent wall with reclaimed wood from my place (old redwood decking) as well as some old barnwood.

I made my exhaust hoods from some 55 gallon drums just a few weeks ago. You can also see the cabinet i'm building to serve as a stand for my HLT as well as my coleman extreme cooler mash tun.

The wood plank ceramic tile flooring was finished last week.

I worked on the subway tile on the walls this weekend, just finished it Monday night. Now I just need to grout it, doing a darker grey grout.

So thats how things stand for the moment, once the walls are grouted I can move my cabinet back in, work on finishing that in place, there is now some more trim wood work that can get done in the room now that the tile work is done. I am then going to do an epoxy pour with some coasters on that long shelf under the wood accent wall. I'll update with photos as I make more progress this summer and get closer to brewing in here.

 

[Jag75]

Man that's pretty cool ! Nice job on the work . Cool photo of your boy just hanging out .

 

[mongoose33]

I really hate that long curtain.....

...but the rest I like.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I really hate that long curtain.....

...but the rest I like.

Hah! Yeah thats temporary for the construction phase. I'm going to do a small collapsible shade I can pull up and down when the window is trimmed out.

 

[Calfj60]

Looks awesome, looking forward to more updates. What’s on the other side of the old window?

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

A bit of progress to update: The wall grout is now done, so I was able to put my rough-framed cabinet back in and my hoods. With the cabinet in place I was able to trim out the shelf that is going to be poured epoxy below the wood accent wall this weekend. I'm heading on vacation for a few weeks now but plan to finish up the epoxy shelf when I return, i'll share photos when I have it finished.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I was away a few weeks on vacation. Now that i'm back i'm trying to get my epoxy pour shelf done. I spent a few evenings this week getting my coasters set and coated with mod-podge for the epoxy compatibility. last night my wife helped me set the caps into a thin layer of epoxy to get them sealed in for the bigger pours to come. Tomorrow i'm going to do three epoxy pours spaced 4 hours apart to get my 3/8" wood trim filled up over these things. i've never worked with epoxy before but i've read alot about the product i'm using and watched their tutorial videos. I'll post some photos next week showing the great finished product or my miserable failure. Wish me luck!

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

So I got the epoxy down this weekend without incident. I was pretty stressed doing this as I never worked with epoxy like this before and all this stuff I was embedding was one-of-a-kind mementos from my time living in Germany on the Belgian border. I did three coats on Saturday, a thin seal coat at 6AM, a first thick pour at 11AM, and a last thick pour at 5pm. This filled up the 3/8" space to the edge of the wood trim piece I used. The epoxy I used (from bestbartopepoxy.com) worked great and I'm super happy with the results, it really is super clear and looks amazing.

Next step is to rip the last board for the accent wall to fill that last space down to the epoxy, then I will start to work on finishing the cabinet which will double as my mash tun/HLT holder. That will likely take me some time to get finished.

 

[Tartan1]

Your brew room looks great!! Working with epoxy for the first time, you did a fantastic job, mementos sealed for a lifetime, and something to share with the young lad when he gets older.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

With the epoxy finished last weekend I spent a couple hours ripping the last boards for the wood accent wall and got those in place now. It looks great in this room now, I can start to envision the finished room even better and it's got me excited. This weekend we're doing our big annual Oktoberfest party, I've brewed 30 gallons of beer for about 30-50 people. After that this fall it's back to working on the brew room. I'll post an update when I have something worth sharing about.

 

[Valve1138]

Love the accent wall.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

So a small amount of progress to update: I got the tile up on the side of the cabinet which will face the burners. I also got my barrel-hoods almost ready to rock. I got them cleaned up and painted on the inside and out with spray paint to prevent rust, and I got the hole cut into them for the ducting which will connect to the vent fans. The weird sized hole in the big one was a PITA to cut, I made a mockup of the ducting from some thin carboard and trimmed that to fit the barrel, then I used that to mark a template onto the barrel and cut the hole, or course it needed to be hung/trimmed a bit 5x times to get perfect. I plan to bend the little tabs I made in the ducting to hold in in place then seal with the good aluminum ducting tape. I didn't do that step yet as I may need to take the barrel down when I trim out that window behind the big white curtain at the moment. Right now i'm working on cleaning up some rustic hardwood to use as a face of the cabinet which will hold the mash tun, then I can grout that tile on the cabinet side. Lastly, I moved my little two-tap setup back into this room, at the moment I have a Saison and Brett Saison I just tapped pouring from there.

 

[Cyclman]

Beautiful job.

 

[jamorgan3777]

Very nice. Can wait to see it ready to brew! Looks like the perfect amount of space!

 

[RoguePixels]

So a small amount of progress to update: I got the tile up on the side of the cabinet which will face the burners. I also got my barrel-hoods almost ready to rock. I got them cleaned up and painted on the inside and out with spray paint to prevent rust, and I got the hole cut into them for the ducting which will connect to the vent fans. The weird sized hole in the big one was a PITA to cut, I made a mockup of the ducting from some thin carboard and trimmed that to fit the barrel, then I used that to mark a template onto the barrel and cut the hole, or course it needed to be hung/trimmed a bit 5x times to get perfect. I plan to bend the little tabs I made in the ducting to hold in in place then seal with the good aluminum ducting tape. I didn't do that step yet as I may need to take the barrel down when I trim out that window behind the big white curtain at the moment. Right now i'm working on cleaning up some rustic hardwood to use as a face of the cabinet which will hold the mash tun, then I can grout that tile on the cabinet side. Lastly, I moved my little two-tap setup back into this room, at the moment I have a Saison and Brett Saison I just tapped pouring from there. View attachment 648679 View attachment 648678

Beautiful setup! Really looking forward to seeing it complete.

You should probably stand that CO2 tank upright. Full CO2 tanks are partly filled with liquid CO2 and partly filled with CO2 gas and CO2 regulators are designed to regulate CO2 gas only. I could be wrong is someone else wants to chime in with more knowledge on this.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Beautiful setup! Really looking forward to seeing it complete.

You should probably stand that CO2 tank upright. Full CO2 tanks are partly filled with liquid CO2 and partly filled with CO2 gas and CO2 regulators are designed to regulate CO2 gas only. I could be wrong is someone else wants to chime in with more knowledge on this.

Hmm you could be right, I hadn't thought of that. It seems to be working fine the last few weeks, but I should figure out a way to secure that cylinder there upright. It was a bit top-heavy there with the dual regulator, which is why I decided laying it down is better than having it fall over!

 

[RoguePixels]

I've got similar problems with mine being top heavy. I'm considering either a tank strap to mount it to a wall or building a portable stand out of wood in case I want to take it somewhere like the one shown here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/portable-5-gallon-keg-cooler.637650/#post-8486223

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

So i've made some progress the last few weeks. I got the face to my cabinet made and mounted on the rough framing. This allowed me to get the tile on the side of the cabinet grouted. I also did the jam extension for the window trim for that last window. I have to now get the cabinet top finished (doing a tile top), but I wanted to run my water and gas lines up through it first so I have to finish my burner stands first. without access to a good metal working shop I made 6 of these brackets with my angel grinder, which was a PITA. These will mount to my current stands and use to attach the burners. I hope to get this finished soon, it will make more sense once I have pictures of it finished. I'm excited though it's starting to really get down to the end on this project and close to getting brewing in this space!

 

[rlmiller]

Question on your epoxy pour:

Did you have any difficulty with your memorabilia trying to float up during that first pour? Seems like that could be a problem so was interested in real life vs pondering.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Question on your epoxy pour: Did you have any difficulty with your memorabilia trying to float up during that first pour? Seems like that could be a problem so was interested in real life vs pondering.

Yes if you read up on it there are tricks to make it work. I glued down and sealed the coasters in place with mod-podge which is a clear crafting glue, it worked well. The caps I had to do a thin pour in that section of the shelf and have my wife help me quickly set them all in place into the thin pour (I had them already laid out in place then moved them out of the way for the pour, then quickly set them back into the wet epoxy). It worked well. Although no-where in the online tutorials did I see that it's important to have the cap edges completely submerged in the epoxy. Since i only did that thin pour in the caps area, not over the coasters a few caps near the edges were only stuck into the expoxy for 3/4 of the cap, a bit was open but it was stuck down into the epoxy so it would not to float up. When I did the first thick pour these kept bubbling up air where there was gap in the cap/epoxy and I have about 4 caps where some bubbles got locked into the epoxy. It's only something i'd notice, but just and FYI if you do something like this.

 

[Jmarsh544]

How is the progress coming?

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

How is the progress coming?

A bit slow the last month+ my folks visited for 3 weeks over the holidays so I didn't get much time to work and just hung out. I've done a bit of work getting the last part of my burners finished, as well as figuring out the final step of the gas and water connections at the HLT. I was just working on cutting the tile for the top of the cabinet last night. Once I have that done i'll post another picture.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

So a quick update, progress was slow since November since we had four separate visits from friends and family since then, which was great but hard to get a lot of project time in. I’ve been working a bit here and there the last few weeks and have the cabinet top just about finished, I do not have a good tile saw those long porcelain tiles were a bitch to get ripped for that last run on the top, but it worked out in the end. I also got the utilities all finished for the HLT. I just need to get a few more coats of lacquer on the wood wrap for the tile top and then I can grout the top and put it in place. That will be a nice milestone when it is done and I get the HLT all setup and ready to rock.

 

[Boilinginsc]

Looking great!
Did you have to rotate (after the cut was started) the long tile to rip it?

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Looking great!
Did you have to rotate (after the cut was started) the long tile to rip it?

Man that was an adventure, but no. I had just bought a new blade and it was thinner than the piece behind that blade that holds the splash guard in place. Even if I rotated the tile I was still left with a ton of uncut tile in the middle so I just setup a quick plastic splash zone in my shop using some plastic paint sheeting I had and the lumber that is stored on the ceiling, I then removed the splash guard and free-cut the tile after I had marked it with a sharpie. It was a huge huge mess and I got soaking wet, but it was done!

I got the top grouted last week and started working on cleaning up the rustic lumber which I will use to trim out the last window and make cabinet doors for my cabinet from. I was really short on that material so I had to spend a long time figuring out the best way to make all the cuts and not waste material. I hope to get further on that window trim tonight. Below you can see the top with grout, the lumber before doing anything on the planer and after I got it cleaned up with the planer and sander.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Last night I hung the lacquered rustic trim boards on that last window, and I got my cabinet top fixed to the base with some brackets, and started the work on the cabinet doors. I sloped the cabinet top a bit so if there is a big spill it will come to the front not down the back of the wall. Now I can get my HLT in place and totally finish out the exhaust vents (just a bit of aluminum tape needed), and i'll be working on finishing the doors for the cabinet and I also have the baseboard trim ready that needs to get cut and nailed in place.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I got some good work in this past weekend. I got my baseboard trim up, and I did a bit of work on my double-boil kettle stand to get the burners mounted (still a bit more to go on that). Sunday before the super bowl I spent about 5 hours polishing up my two keggles. That was a pain but boy do they look nice! I did a bit more work on the cabinet doors this week so far, it's really getting close to the end i'm super excited!

Below is the photo post baseboard trim.

Here is one keggle pre-polish

And here it is a few hours later

Cabinet doors got glued together last night first coat of lacquer going on them tonight.

 

[Boilinginsc]

You’re doing some really nice looking work there!

 

[225]

Looking good!