Hoppo's Brewery & Wine/Beer Cellar

[Hoppopotomus]

Hey DIY'ers, I know that a lot of you don't venture over to the electric or automated brewing forums, unless you have or are moving towards an electric system. I have been building my basement brewery for quite a while now and am really close to being done. I have a thread over in the electric brewing forum, but decided to post a few pics of the brewery and my latest project, my wine and beer storage cellar. Here are a few shots of the brewery. It incorporates many of the components that I have built and documented on other threads including my ale/lager fermentation chambers, motorized grain mill, grain storage cabinet, etc. All I have left to do is the flooring and drop ceiling, but otherwise, it's pretty much ready to brew beer. Most of the programming is complete with the BCS control panel as well, so I just need to do some more wet testing and I'll be good to go.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Long before I started the brewery, I framed out a little wine and beer cellar. It's located at the end of the brewery in the SE corner of my basement. I had a few cases of Italian marble for the floor and covered the walls and ceiling in knotty pine paneling. I basically insulated the interior walls of the room and ceiling to avoid keep the heat from the rest of the basement out of the cellar. I installed a vapor barrier and did not insulate the floor or exterior perimeter walls. The room stays cool because of the temperature of the earth on the other side of the poured walls and from the floor concrete. My testing so far shows a very consistent temperature in the upper 50's to very low 60's year round.

For the longest time the cellar served as a storage closet for all of my brewing and wine making equipment, but now that the brewery is almost done, I cleared everything out and started building the beer shelving and wine racks. Last weekend I built the shelves on the east wall of the cellar for beer and liquor storage. Then I sketched out on the my wine rack spacing to get an idea of how to build them. Here are a couple of pics.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

I was able to get my hands on some very inexpensive pine lumber from Menards for next to nothing for the wine racks. Not the highest quality lumber, but I couldn't beat the price. It should look much better once I get some decorative trim to clean up the seams. The wine racks hold 120 bottles of wine, but If I ever need more capacity, I'll build additional racking under the little counter top that the wine racks sit on. I typically keg all of my beer, but now that I can brew 10 gallon batches, I plan on doing some bottling, especially for beer that benefit from aging or beers that I don't drink a lot of. I also plan on doing a lot of split batch experiments with different yeast strains, so I should have plenty of storage. Here are a few pics of the wine rack as of today.

 

[Safa]

Absolutely beautiful. Very jealous.

 

[pheasant39]

It is awesome congrats

 

[pannell77]

your work is a piece of art my friend

 

[homebrew57]

Some of the best work on the forum. Great builds!

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Thanks guys, I appreciate all of the kind words. I'll post some pics. this weekend of the cellar with final trim. I just have to decide on the flooring at this point for the brewery and knock out the drop ceiling. I was going to tile with a heavy duty porceline tile, but then changed my mind. I'm really sick of tiling at this point. I have been exploring acid staining for concrete, which looks awesome and with several coats of sealant would hold up great. The problem is that I wasn't exactly neat when I did the priming and painting, so the floor has a lot of stains on it. Not to mention, adhesives, wood glue, grease from when I drilled my keggles, etc. I wasn't careful, because I thought I was tiling and it would be covered up. Now that I want to do the staining, it requires that the concrete be completely clean an free of any surface contaminants, so it will be just as much work at this point as tiling. I have also considered cork, but it's much more pricey.

Regardless, I have to get this project done asap. I was contacted by an editor from BYO and they want to feature some of my work in an up coming issue, but I want everything to be done before I consider it. I guess, I need to get busy before the retract the offer. Thanks again, and I'll post progress on this thread as well as the one in the electric forum.

 

[Mcbobs]

Looks great! I love how simple the wine rack is but still remains completely functional. I might have to steal your idea for wine as I have a couple cases of wine that need storing.

 

[Stealthcruiser]

Nice work!

He said "final trim"..............Tee hee hee.....

 

[pedimac]

Simply amazing. Great work. I can't even make a sawhorse nearly as straight/accurate as anything you have. Awesome.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Looks great! I love how simple the wine rack is but still remains completely functional. I might have to steal your idea for wine as I have a couple cases of wine that need storing.

Thanks.....got the idea from an episode of "Man Caves" on the DIY network a couple of years ago. They built a Tuscan Wine cellar in the episode and used this simple design for the racking, so I stole the idea. I DVR'd that episode and kept it until I was ready. Like I said, I certainly didn't use high grade prime lumber, just basic pine boards that were dirt cheap. I'll use some nicer moldings to trim it out, but it's functional even with boards that were a little warped and beat up.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Nice work!

He said "final trim"..............Tee hee hee.....

Thanks......smart a$$!

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Simply amazing. Great work. I can't even make a sawhorse nearly as straight/accurate as anything you have. Awesome.

Thanks, I appreciate the compliments, but this is not exactly precision work. I am not a trained carpenter or master cabinet builder by any stretch of the imagination. Working with this style of "rustic decor" using knotty pine paneling and cedar logs is very forgiving and allows me to easily cover up my mistakes. Like I have said in many of my threads, I just have a knack for putting lipstick on pigs. If you strip off the logs and paneling.....it ain't pretty

 

[wncbrewer]

Have you ever heard of a cedar-ection? I have one right now. Very nice work sir

 

[MNSmitty]

Wow. Thats a great looking setup. Nice work!

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Thanks guys. I snuck out of work early for the first time in months. I have a Home Depot a mile from my office, so I swung in to look at their moldings. They had some decorative trim for $5 a stick, so I just went with what they had. I ran home and did the trim work this afternoon and just need to paint the insulated door and the wine/beer cellar is one more thing to cross off my list. Here are a few pics of the trim, not the nicest stuff in the word, but I couldn't beat the price. The cellar isn't exactly a show piece and will be behind closed doors most of the time, so I didn't want to invest too much cash into the project. The entire room was prolly in the low $200's for everything....not bad at all.

We pulled all of the xmas decor out last weekend, which are stored next to the brewery under the basement stairs. My brewery is like a bomb went off in it, so I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning it all up. I just may get a batch through the system this weekend if I can play my cards right.

 

[MNSmitty]

Wine storage (looks good for 22oz bombers too), a nicely stocked liquor selection, and a pile of of Oberon cases surrounded in nice woodwork and tile.
Looks like heaven to me.

 

[cfrazier77]

Wow, that is really nice. I like how you always put so much work into the small features. Well done and congrats.

 

[BeerguyNC61]

Nice work and WOW what a well stock assortment of booze!! What time is the party?

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Nice work and WOW what a well stock assortment of booze!! What time is the party?

Thanks for all of the compliments.

As far as the booze goes, my wife and I rarely drink liquor, I'm obviously a beer guy and she's a wine gal. On occassion we will make some margaritas or the occassional bloody mary, but rarely. We have been able to accumulate a stash of liquor in part from what people have left at our house. I also have a family reunion every year and there is always a table full of liquor that is raffled off to the adults, however, it's typically 1/2 gallons of cheap stuff.....hence the Five 'O Clock Vodka, Black Velvet, etc. The better stuff gets snatched up quickly, so then I get stuck with what's left. On the flip side of that, my father in law (who does not drink at all) ended up with the content of his father's liquor cabinet when he passed. We have some really old and somewhat rare stuff as well. The only time the liquor comes out at our house is during parties and the cheap vodka goes into my airlocks. Thanks again.