home brewer's workbench

[atomicjoe23]

Hi all, this is my first visit to this forum and my first post. . .I used the search function first to see if there were any threads that already existed relating to my question with no matches so I figured I would post. . .

My buddy and I are new to home-brewing but we are already solidly committed to the hobby. . .I've decided that I want to build a home-brew workbench so that I can keep all of our brewing equipment in one central spot. . .and so we will have a nice large and clean area to work at when brewing a batch of beer. Right now we have brewed only one batch of beer (a London Brown using a Munton's kit) that will be ready to bottle in one week. We will be trying our first recipe (the blood-orange Hef from the book "Extreme Brewing") so right now our equipment needs are fairly simple but we have an eye on the future and moving on to all grain brewing once we get some good successful batches under our belts.

I thought I would ask for any suggestion that those of you with more experience brewing might have regarding thinks that would be nice to have or would make life easier. . .I've been drawing the plans up and getting the dimensions worked out right now, but I'm just about ready to turn out a completed plan and start getting the supplies together and building. Here's what I've thought of so far:

The bench will be about 7 ft. long and 3 ft. deep with a solid hardwood top (think of a butcher's block). The bench top will have a deep sink installed with dual basins (22 gal capacity each) to the left of the sink basins will be where the bottle drying tree will be installed and to the immediate right of the sink will be a drying rack for holding lids and false bottoms; as you work your way to the right there will be a nice open area for us to measure, mix, etc. followed by a bench-top bottle capper on the front right corner and a grain mill (not sure what kind yet. . .maybe a Valley Mill) mounted on the side directly behind the bottle capper. There will be a 12" shelf above the work bench that will hold 4 carboy dryers and have a space for 2 scales and the backing between the bench top and the shelf will be a pegboard to hold things like spoons, tygon tubing, and what not. . .there will also be an installed holder for the hydrometers, hydrometer test jar, and thermometers.
I'm gonna put some drawers in to hold all our miscellaneous equipment (several shallow drawers and one deep drawer) and there will be cabinet doors with enough room to store one 40 qt. brew pot and bottling bucket underneath the bench as well.

I was gonna make the bench out of all solid hardwoods so it would be like a functional work of art. . .like those fancy woodworking benches. . .the top was gonna be made of hard maple with purpleheart wood between the maple as stringers (if you've ever seen the solid neck bass guitars that have different kinds of wood used you will know what I'm talking about. . .if not check out this link and you will have some sort of idea. . .http://www.gibson.com/Products/GibsonElectric/Tobias/Classic/).

I know the bench will be expensive and a lot of work, but I like having side projects to keep me busy and I will enjoy working on the project as well. If anyone has any positivie suggestions to make I'm all ears. . .I would love to learn from those of you have been doing this for a while and to hear what you have learned that has made brewing easier and more enjoyable for you. Sorry if the post is kinda long.

Thanks!!!

 

[RichBrewer]

I've been brewing for over 11 years and my equipment is all over the basement. I would be very interested in this as well. I was thinking maybe having a nice table top for the fermenters with storage underneath.

By the way, welcome to the forum!

 

[trinitone]

I think it is a great idea. I plan on doing the same thing after I buy a house. If you're up for the time and money investment then you should definitely go for it.

 

[speed]

i would think i would want a top that wouldn't harbor bacteria. hit the salvage yard and try to get as much stainless steel as you can, you can use it everywhere.

 

[AiredAle]

This is a great idea. I have a pedestrian version of this, a corner of my utility room with an ell-shaped 13 feet of formica kitchen counter and undercounter cabinets, with a single SS sink in the short side. When I'm brewing, this is not enough room to really spread out, I'm always moving things out of the way. I set up my propane burner and keggle on the counter with a kitchen vent fan overhead to extract moisture and combustion byproducts. I end up with my scale on the top of the nearby fridge, my notebook on top of the beer freezer, and stuff all over the floor.

The storage is great, because I also have 8 feet of over counter wall cabinets.

So, if you have the space make it lots longer. A waterproof surface is good too. I splash a bit of water about, particularly when cleaning up.

I'd love a top made of a single slab of Honduran mahogany, or a copper sheet, but I'm happy to have any work surface.

Carry on, but go bigger and longer.

 

[Wables]

As a wood worker myself, I applaud your efforts. Sounds like a great idea!

I have been planning my brew area for my next house, as I will need a whole small room. As for now, my setup works well for me. Here is what I am doing:

My table is an interior door (free) on a set of saw horses ($20). The top is stained and poly'd, and I keep a layer of plastic ($0.25) that is changed after bad spills. Spanning the braces at the bottom of the saw horse is a 6' X 20" piece of left over 1/2" osb (free) and 2 6' 2X4's ($4). All of my stuff is stored in small plastic rubbermaid containers ($10). My laundry tub is about 6 feet away, so I have no need for an extra sink. Total cost was less than a 6 gallon carboy at my LHBS. The only crumby part is that I brew in my detached garage, so in the winter I am carrying my boiling wort 100' to the house, plus down 1/2 flight of stairs. My garage set-up is 2 turkey fryers and an old card table.

I am also using a broken down 22ft^2 chest freezer with a space heater to ferment in. My basement stays at a frigid 53 degrees all winter, and brewing, especially wine and mead, takes too darn long.

My advice is to build something very basic like mine, but in similar size to what you want your end product to be. Figure out what you like and don't like about it, and set a deadline for the construction of you "ultimate" bench.

 

[SpamDog]

Sounds great.. the only thing that got my attention that you might want to reconcider is the 12" shelf ABOVE the workbench with FOUR carboys on it.. 2 things.. First.. that is gonna be kinda heavy, have to be a decently supported shelf.. Second.. and more important to me.. Imagine accidently bumping the bench too hard and having 4 heavy glass carboys comming crashing down.. and if you are lucky and they don't hit you.. they will atleast break.. I would concider small shelves under the bench to store the heavy/big/breakable stuff...
Other than that I am jelous and wish I could have a nice brew bench

SpamDog

 

[rdwj]

I'm thinking about making a work bench when I get around to my brew-room too. I think a nice addition to the bench would be a built in motorized grain mill. I'd put it to the side with a place to set a bucket underneath the bench to collect grain.

 

[Ol' Grog]

I'd go with a stainless steel top. Wood will harbor bacteria unless your absolutely psycho on your cleaning regimens.

 

[AleHole]

I agree with SpamDog about the shelf above. Those Carboys can be serious dangers, especially if you have a cat or kids that may be climbing over your bench. Maybe the shelf could be constructed with some sort of fence to prevent them from falling or maybe consider storing them under the worktop with cupboards where the shelf would be. That sounds like a nice setup and I am sure it is way better than what most of have on this forum. Hope this helps. Also once you come with the finished product some pics would be great!

 

[brewhead]

you can do like i did and built my countertops from laminate scraps from retail shops near by. when they change out the displays usually that stuff gets tossed in the dumpster. i asked if i could salvage what i needed and they said sure. i now have nice laminated counter tops and shelves.

 

[atomicjoe23]

Wow. . .what a great response!!! Thanks for all the feedback. . . I hadn't thought of the carboys getting knocked over and that's definitely a good idea to incorporate. . .I'll have to think about what to do with them.

As far as pictures goes it will probably take me quite a while to build the workbench. . .this will be my first "major" woodworking undertaking so it's gonna take me a while to figure everything out. . .I will be happy to post pictures and even plans to build your own when I get a finished product. . .something I learned from my motorcycle and car forums is to take pictures as you go. . .that way others can see a step by step process of what's going on. . .I thought about the stainless top before the wood, but that stuff is ridiculous expensive and it's actually kind of hard to find (at least I haven't had any luck). . .the copper top sounds like an awesome idea (I love the look of copper!!!) and what I may end up doing is having a copper top for whatever area around the sink where any wet work will be getting done and for where I will be doing work at the sterile stages and then use the "pretty" wood top for the non-sterile stages of brewing.

I was trying to keep the size of the table down so it wouldn't become ridiculous big but it sounds like I may want a bigger area to work with. . .the "ell" design may be the way to go. . .my plan is to have a separate brewing building. . .one of those lawn sheds. . .I can run some plumbing off of the house lines (I've done that before) and then it could be totally self-sufficient and it won't clutter my garage up and I won't have to worry about the wife complaining about my beer stuff cluttering her kitchen/house.

If anyone else has any other good ideas I'd love to hear them!!!

 

[Wables]

What are your plans for controlling the temperature in the shed? Are you going to ferment in the house?

 

[AleHole]

One idea for a countertop that I used in my garage is a prefab laminate countertop from Home Depot. It was about $65. They come in different lengths ranging from 4 to 12 feet. I got an 8 foot one and its perfect. Just an idea anyway. Cheap, looks good, easy to clean, come in different colors and sizes, and best of all no cutting required unless you need an odd length.

 

[Brewtopia]

I wouldn't at all be concerned with the wood surface. Hardwoods including maple are known for their anti-bacterial properties.

 

[atomicjoe23]

Sorry I haven't been on the forum for a while. . .things have been busy and I haven't been able to make a whole lot of progress on this for now. . .I've actually decided to put the project on hold until we buy a house now so that I can make a separate home brewing building (read garden shed modified to fit the needs of home brewing).
As far as controlling the temperature of the shed itself and fermenting in it I have given this some though. . .I will be fermenting in the shed, but I have been thinking about constructing some fermenting units into the cabinets (at this point I've decided on a U-shaped cabinet set-up based on the comments concerning needing more space. . .this will give me more counter-top space as well as undercabinet/drawer storage space and allow a more compact footprint while not sacrificing any real workspace). . .what I was thinking about was possibly creating two separate fermenting units (big enough to hold two 6 gallon carboys apiece) that would be temperature controlled using small window air conditioning units (I was thinking of two so that I could ferment two different styles of beer requiring different fermenting temperatures at the same time). The window air conditioning units are pretty cheap any more and I could hook up a more accurate thermostat to them to control the temperature if I needed to. I figured I could set them up as large sliding drawers so that you could slide the whole base out for ease of access to either carboy and use a restaurant style chill box door to seal the door and make sure that they are nice and tight. . .this will also keep the fermenting carboys in the dark. . .there's still some logistics to figure out and I'm trying to locate a source for doors that are the right size (I may have to get imaginitive here. . .I could use some old vintage refrigerator doors and have them custom painted for a cool retro look. . .or even old ice box doors too. . .who knows). I'll post up some more when I find the plans for a garden shed that I like. . .once again thanks for all the suggestions and help!!!

 

[homebrewer_99]

I read most of the comments and have to agree that a formica counter top would be better than wood.

As for making a shelf above you to hold carboys...well, that's just not right. I would think it's an accident that going to happen and it could be deadly if you break one in mid air from a bump. Keep your carboys low to the ground.

I use dolly's to move my heavy stuff around the basement. Walmart has a large potted plant dolly that's 15x15 for $5.97 that holds 150 lbs (I think). That's more than enough for any carboy and cheap.

My $0.02...