Help with brew stand questions?

[JonClayton]

I am in the process of designing my brew stand and would like some input from those of you who use them. I have not had the chance to see a brew rig in action so I am a little unclear on what is necessary versus a nice add on.

Currently, the only parts I have purchased are (3) Bayou NG burgers, (2) of them being the 10 tip version and (1) 23 tip for the boil kettle.

I have a keggle for the boil bot, a converted 10g rubbermaid for the MLT (but still installing the burner for a future keggle mashtun) and a 8 gallon pot that I will add a ball valve to for the HLT. Eventually the whole system will be keggle based as I continue to find used kegs on craigslist.

My original thought was the keep it simple and relatively inexpensive by building a 3 tier gravity fed system. I am still not opposed to this, but would like my bottom level (boil kettle) to be high enough off the ground to support gravity feed into the carboy or later into a plate chiller into the carboy. If I allow 24" height for the bottom tier and 24" for each tier, that puts my top level at 6ft, or roughly 8 feet to the top of the HLT. I still think this is doable but a little worried about the height and and how much of a problem it would be to climb a step stool to add water to the HLT. What do you brewers think? Big problem?

The next option is a 2 tier system. Has anyone successfully ran a system like this with one march pump? I am trying to avoid the pump expense if possible, but one pump would not be a deal breaker. From my understanding there is no real less expensive alternative to a march 809hs so I am trying to decide if it's possible to do it with one pump? If I do a 2 tier system I am envisioning gravity feed from HLT to MT, and pump MT to BK, and gravity from BK to carboy hopefully passing through a plate chiller along the way in the future. Does this sound plausible?

Lastly is of course the single tier. I saw on on the brew stand wiki on this site that it is possible to do a single tier with one pump, but how does it work? I understand that it would first and foremost have to be a batch sparge system but even then, how would the pump layout work? It may be in the future that I can add a second pump, for now I want to make sure what ever I design is a no pump or single pump system.

Any input is appreciated, especially for anyone that has used similar systems. Thank you!

 

[OneHoppyGuy]

First: the 23 tip is WAY overkill for a keggle.
Second: Here is a 2 tier with one pump.
Third: You can get away with a single pump on a single tier by running your wort out of the mash tun into a bucket and then dumping it into the boil kettle, thus allowing you to use the pump for sparge/re-circulation.
As for climbing a step stool, site glasses are very inexpensive and easy to install. There's no need to peek in the HLT, keep the lid on and the heat also.

I hope this helps.

 

[JonClayton]

Thank you for your response! My burner order is on hold due to back order, maybe I should change it to all 10 tip burners if the 23 is over kill.

My concern with the ladder was climbing up to add the initial water to the HLT, but you raise a good point about a sight glass in order to easily see the amount of water remaining.

I had not thought about using a bucket to transfer between mash tun and boil kettle. That is a really neat idea that may be a good solution. I bet I could also so a 2 tier system with no pumps if I used a bucket to transfer between the tun and the kettle.

Hmmm..decisions to be made. Keep hitting me with input, I want to make sure I do this right.

 

[cobolstinks]

First: the 23 tip is WAY overkill for a keggle.
Second: Here is a 2 tier with one pump.
Third: You can get away with a single pump on a single tier by running your wort out of the mash tun into a bucket and then dumping it into the boil kettle, thus allowing you to use the pump for sparge/re-circulation.
As for climbing a step stool, site glasses are very inexpensive and easy to install. There's no need to peek in the HLT, keep the lid on and the heat also.

I hope this helps.

Im building a single tier wallace style stand, and I was only going with one pump. What i planed was draining from MT to BK than sparge from HLT to MT, why use a bucket?

 

[Coldies]

I'm in the middle of a new brewstand but what I have as of now is a single tier 2 vessel RIMS system. Heat mash water to strike temp in BK/HLT, transfer to my MLT by pump and mash and re-circulate, while mashing I will heat up my sparge water in my BK/HLT, after mashing I gravity feed my first runnings into a bucket, double batch sparge by pump, and after my second sparge the BK/HLT is empty and I will fill it with my wort (By lifting the bucket off the ground) and start heating up the wort. I will then collect my third runnings by gravity into the same bucket and then dump that into the BK. Technically its a 3 vessel system but the stand is only set up for 2 vessels.

Hope that helps.

 

[OneHoppyGuy]

Im building a single tier wallace style stand, and I was only going with one pump. What i planed was draining from MT to BK than sparge from HLT to MT, why use a bucket?

So the single pump is available for sparging on a single tier

 

[joelireland]

First: the 23 tip is WAY overkill for a keggle.

Hmmmm ... You have me questioning myself now.

I was planning on going with 3 x 20 tip LP burners for my brutus setup doing up to 10gal batches.

But maybe all I need is a 20tip under the HLT and a 10tip under both the MLT and BK?

Would greatly appreciate any good input here. I've been learning so much from these forums ... you guys have a wealth of great info!

 

[OneHoppyGuy]

10 tip for everything should be plenty unless you are going 20 gallon or larger kettles.

 

[Yooper]

I've had three different setups! One was no stand, just lifting/moving/dumping water and wort around. That sucked, but worked.

The second was a two-tier, with one pump. That works great, if you gravity feed to the BK. You can fly or batch sparge, as long as the top of the wort in the BK is below the bottom of the wort in the MLT as it drains. In my case, that was fine for 5 gallon batches but not for 10 gallon batches as the level of the wort in the BK raised above the level of the bottom of the MLT. I could have lowered the BK's tier, but that would have been hard to drain the BK then.

I now have a single tier, with two pumps. If you batch sparge, you don't need two pumps, as you can pump the wort out, then change the hoses over and pump the sparge water in. I like two pumps for continuous (fly) sparging. I have a CFC and although it would work with gravity feed, a pump makes it much easier.

 

[sketerbuck]

I have a RV hose that feeds my water filter and then I ran pvc right up the side of my rig high enough to fill my HLT. This is an easy way to keep from having to lift all that water up so high. The house pressure carries the water up to the HLT and gravity does the rest.

 

[Chrisl77]

I have been working on a 2 tier that has the HLT and BK up high and my cooler mash tun low. My plan is to gravity feed the water from the HLT to my mash tun and use a single pump for the rest. Here is a link to my brew stand thread.

 

[JonClayton]

Thank you everyone! I think I am going to go 2 tier like the system Yooper mentioned. One pump between HLT and MLT, gravity to BK. I will probably also use quick disconnects on the pump tubing and move it over to the BK at the end of the day to pump into the carboy. I could also just make the bottom tier high enough to gravity the carboy, but I think I would like to keep it low to keep the top of the top tier low.

What sort of hose is normally used with the march pumps?

 

[JonClayton]

One other question I meant to ask.... Bayou claims that burners must be 12" from bottom of keggle. Is this accurate? It seems like a big distance to me.

 

[Yooper]

I have some silicone tubing and QDs from McMaster Carr, so I just switch the tubes over when needed. I have the fittings on the HLT, the HERMS, the MLT (into the top as well, for when I sparge), and the BK in two places. It's hard to explain but maybe you can see in the picture:

Yooper's Two Tier:

You can't see it in the above photo, but the CFC is under the BK and has the same QD fittings and I just switched it to the BK/CFC instead of the HLT/MLT



I used all the same fittings and just added the second pump later:
Yooper's Single Tier

 

[JonClayton]

Yooper, thank you! A picture is really worth a thousand words to me. Question, I was envisioning the qd's on the bottom of the HLT for sucking the water out to the top of the MT. Is there an advantage to having the connections up top? I imagine with them up top you just have some sort of pick up tube running down to the bottom right?

I was thinking I could also also put one in the top of the MLT and after brewing fill it with ice water and use the pump to loop water from the bottom through my immersion chiller and return to top of MLT. It will probably be a while before I get get a plate or cfc but could help cool the wort faster than my standard ground water.

You folks have me really intrigued with the idea of using the outdoor water spigot for brewing. I usually use sink water from inside and was already considering adding a under sink filter to the kitchen.. I am going to look into some rv water line and a inline filter and try out the outdoor faucet. It would give me filtered water and save me some bucket hauling

 

[Yooper]

Yooper, thank you! A picture is really worth a thousand words to me. Question, I was envisioning the qd's on the bottom of the HLT for sucking the water out to the top of the MT. Is there an advantage to having the connections up top? I imagine with them up top you just have some sort of pick up tube running down to the bottom right?

I was thinking I could also also put one in the top of the MLT and after brewing fill it with ice water and use the pump to loop water from the bottom through my immersion chiller and return to top of MLT. It will probably be a while before I get get a plate or cfc but could help cool the wort faster than my standard ground water.

You folks have me really intrigued with the idea of using the outdoor water spigot for brewing. I usually use sink water from inside and was already considering adding a under sink filter to the kitchen.. I am going to look into some rv water line and a inline filter and try out the outdoor faucet. It would give me filtered water and save me some bucket hauling

On the HLT, the connections "up top" are for the HERMS, not for draining water. The best part of my stand is that the HLT is drained from the bottom! The ballvalve is on the wood, near the pump.

 

[JonClayton]

I am very excited right now. Stand design is finalized, 2 tier with HLT and MT up top and BK on bottom. 3 burners are ordered and pending shipment and I just ordered the H315HF from morebeer.com today. This is their march pump that has the 815 impeller and 7gpm flow rate. I also ordered 16 feet of 1/2" silicone tubing on the same order and will be ordering disconnects from McMaster Carr today. I ended up finding a extra keg to cut out today as well.

What am I missing?