Hoppo's E-Brewery Build

[Hoppopotomus]

A friend and I finished a large bar that he and his brother built in NH. Local pine slabs, live edge, sealed with a clear epoxy coat. Beautiful, as is your work. Get brewing.

I know what you mean, I love the look of slab bar tops with live edges. Not sure if you have ever seen it, but here's a pic of the bar I built a few years ago. Mine's a redwood slab with conversion varnish as opposed to pine. I wanted to avoid the thick glossy look of epoxy, but am learning that the conversion varnish isn't nearly as durable as the epoxy. I imagine that some day in the future, I will strip the conversion varnish and refinish in a epoxy for better durability.

I kow I need to stop building crap and get the brewing going. I'm just trying to wrap up the odds and ends, because I'm afraid if I don't and just start brewing, I'll never finish them. I also am trying to work out my water chemistry (different thread), because my water analysis from Ward Labs sucks! I'm considering a reverse osmosis system, because my existing water supply to the HLT will require a lot of work (acid neutralization, boiling, and/or lime softening) due to extremely high alkalinity. I'm getting advice from the chemistry gurus in the Brewing Science forum on how to salvage my water, and have been emailing back and forth with John Palmer. He's a brilliant man and very willing to help, but even when he is trying to explain things to me in general terms, a lot of the infomation is way over my head. I'm just honored that he is trying to help me out. It may just be easier to install R/O and rebuild my water from there. Sorry to go

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Oops, forgot to attach the pic.

 

[jeffmeh]

Oops, forgot to attach the pic.

Gorgeous.

Good luck with the water chemistry thing. I'm fortunate enough to have very soft water out here, so I can build from it. I have owned RO systems before for aquarium stuff, and they are slow and produce a lot of waste water. Before you buy one, you may want to see if you can get RO water at a supermarket locally, and do some experimenting.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Thanks. I have been brewing for years with R/O water from a dispensor at the local Meijer, but that was when I was doing 5 gallon batches on my old system. I really would hate to have to carry 20 gallons of water down to my basement everytime I brew on my new higher capacity system. I'm really researching different R/O units with larger storage tanks and trying to cross compare useable water production with waste water discharge. John suggested an ion-exhange unit to remove the alkalinity, but keep the hardness. I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point, but that's for another thread.

 

[homebrew57]

Where are the updates? I love this build.

 

[rockinmarty]

I second that motion.

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[Hoppopotomus]

Sorry fellas, I haven't had time to get onto HBT much lately. I'll post some updated pics. at the end of the week. I started the drop ceiling last week and am about 75% complete with it. I plan on wrapping it up tomorrow when I get out of work and then will clean up the mess left behind on Thursday and snap a few pics. Besides the ceiling, I did purchase a flat screen tv for the brewery and am working on a sound system with some old Bose speakers and Technics receiver that I had laying around. I found a slimport adapter for my smartphone, so now I can catch the wireless signal from my control panel on my phone and project the BCS screen onto my HDTV. Pretty cool to be able to see all of the temperature guages and the process on a bigger screen.

My final project pertaining to the brewery with be the flooring. I'm still trying to decide how much time and effort I can afford to put into it. I love the idea of acid staining the concrete and then sealing it, but I made a mess of the concrete during construction, as I originally planned on tiling. The prep work would be ridiculous to go that route now. I don't think that my knees and back can take any more tiling and grouting either. I'm exploring some of the vinyl plank flooring options, since it's 100% waterproof and very quick to install. I have found some really nice dimensional options that have the look and texture of natural stone tiles, as well as textured faux wood options like weathered pine, country cedar, etc. When I started this process, I would have never dreamed of going this route, but as I explore these products more and more, there's some pretty cool stuff out there at a reasonable price and goes down very quickly.

I have ran a couple of batches through the system, which both turned out really, really well. The first brewing session had a few hiccups, but the second one was pretty damn smooth. I am wrapping up the ceiling this week, as I want to brew another batch over the weekend. Then onto flooring.

 

[KPSquared]

Check out www.legacyindustrial.com for floor stain and sealer. Seriously affordable and an awesome product. Urethane sealer with a epoxy topcoat and a traction additive over top of brown stain would look sweet and hide any questionable concrete finishing.


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[Hoppopotomus]

KPSquared....I tried to check out the metioned products, but the link was for an electrical equipment supplier. I used their search engine, but nothing comes up for floor stains, floor sealers, etc. Could you re-check the link or direct me to the actual page that these products are sold. Thanks.

On a side note, I was able to finish all of the drop ceiling and lighting in the brewery last night. I will clean up the mess tomorrow, as I work 13 hrs. today, and will post some pics. Thanks guys.

 

[KPSquared]

http://legacyindustrial.net/cart/ultimate-clear-sealer-system-p-177.html

I had the wrong dot...

They are super helpful. Lots of product besides this one. Acid stain goes down first.

Talk to them and they'll hook you up.

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[Hoppopotomus]

Clearly I haven't been diligent about keeping up on my thread here. I did not video the first brew day, but took a few pics along the way. I brewed an American Amber and an Amarillo Wheat IPA the first go around and have done a couple of batches since. The Amber was the first one through the new system and the pics are taken during that first brewing session. Here are a few pics of the first brew day. I had a couple of issues with BCS programming. My panel came with a brewing session pre-programmed in, which I tweaked to match my typical process. It appears as though the pre-programmed data had the BK temps. monitored by the HLT temperature probe. :smack: The program has the element firing until it gets to 108 degrees, then sounds and alarm and holds the temp just shy of boiling. You then hit the manual override button on the panel to take it to the next step of bringing it the rest of the way to boiling. The control panel was firing the element according to the temp. reading on the HLT probe. Well, I had my back turned measuring out hop additions on my prep table, waiting for the alarm to sound and had a massive boil over. What a mess! I figured out that it was reading the wrong probe, so I manually swapped them on the panel, until I could figure out the programming. I contacted ebrewsupply.com and asked them where the problem could be and Eric me find the problem buried in the programming. It's working fine now.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

.....and the rest of the first brew day including the mash in action, fermenters lowered into the Ale Chamber upon completion, and the brewery after clean up. It's so nice to have all of my brewing equipment confined to one spot and a big sink with a pre-rinse faucet and drip pan to clean up. Brewing has gotten much, much easier.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

OK.....here's a pic. of a pint of my first batch on the prep table in the brewery and some miscellanous pics. of my brewery with the drop ceiling and recessed lighting installed. I also have a new flat screen in there, which I purchased a month or so ago. Sorry about the crappy picture quality. Every homebrewing related project that I have done has been photographed using this camera, but the picture quality has been steadily going down hill. I'll try to figure out how to upload pics from my phone. I had a hard time making it work with my last phone, so I'll give it a try using my new one. These will have to do for now.....sorry.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

.....and a few more for good measure. One of the pics. it to give you an idea of how my brewery is configured in relation to the bar. Basically when you come down the stairs to my basement you come into the bar. If you take an immediate left at the base of the stairs you would enter my brewery through a door, which takes you to the wine/beer cellar and brewery. The one pic is taken standing in front of the wine/beer cellar back out to the bar. I'm not the most technologically advanced guy in the world, but I may shoot a video of the layout and maybe a brew day in the future. I have a buddy coming down to brew in 2 weeks, so maybe he can be my camera man during the process. Anyways, that's all I have for now. I have decided to bite the bullet and prep. the floor to do an acid stain finish with an epoxy clear coat finish. I'm going to try to tackle that project in 3 weeks, so I can call this entire thing done! Thanks for following.

 

[MicahB]

Seriously nice work, pretty damn inspirational! Question is; do you need a roommate?

 

[hunter306]

Absolutely excellent. Love how you worked around the utilities in the space and still managed to get an armchair in there.

Great looking build, congrats!

 

[augiedoggy]

very impressive, and inspirational.

 

[cfrazier77]

I am in ah, you are a talented and very lucky man.

 

[Docbruw]

Wow that drop ceiling really brightened up the place! Very nice job on the build.

 

[KPSquared]

Did you end up going wIth Legacy products or find someone else? Looks awesome btw. I usually hate T&G pine but you've done it so well I'm a full on convert!

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[Hoppopotomus]

Thanks for all of the compliments. It has been a long process, but it's getting there. I wish I could devote more time to working on it, but my time is really tight nowadays. Hopefully I can knock out the flooring in the next few weeks and call it done. Thanks again for following along.

KPSquared.....thanks for the link. I checked it out and they have exactly what I'm looking for. I plan on giving them a shout to ask a few questions about prep work. I have a few lithium grease stains where I drilled my keggles and various spots of primer/paint around the perimeter. I also have a small crack in the concrete in one area. Hopefully they can give further insight as to the appropriate products to clean the concrete and fill the cracks before staining. I'll keep you posted. Thanks again for the link.

 

[KPSquared]

In my experience Legacy has been awesome to deal with. If you can't get solid answers, go creep around on garagejournal.com or become a member and fire a PM to Scotty at Legacy. He's on there all the time and there's a number of flooring experts who frequent as well. Try to do a bit of searching and reading because most of what you want to know has been answered multiple times! Good luck and keep us posted.

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[Hoppopotomus]

Went down to visit my folks this weekend and my dad gave me a bunch of items that were in my grandpa's bar many, many years ago. Included was this vintage PBR light fixture, boxes of collectible liquor decanters, and some antique license plates. I know that the PBR light doesn't fit in with the craft beer movement or my decor for that matter, but there is an awful lot of sentimental value with it. My grandpa passed away a long time ago, but this fixture brings back a lot of good memories. I rewired it this afternoon and cleaned it up a bit. I plan on building some slab shelving on the walls of the brewery to display the decanters, many of which have a nature theme to them. Pretty cool stuff. Hope this works, because I have never posted pics from my phone before.

 

[ChocolateMaltyBalls]

Man, the whole thing looks fantastic, the only thing out of place in that pic is the full glass.... it should be empty.


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[Hoppopotomus]

Thanks. I have a buddy coming down to brew this weekend and then I plan on disassembling the entire brewery and putting everything over into my exercise room. Hopefully I can get the acid stain on the concrete floors done within the next few weeks, install the reverse osmosis system and put this project to bed.

 

[cfrazier77]

Went down to visit my folks this weekend and my dad gave me a bunch of items that were in my grandpa's bar many, many years ago. Included was this vintage PBR light fixture, boxes of collectible liquor decanters, and some antique license plates. I know that the PBR light doesn't fit in with the craft beer movement or my decor for that matter, but there is an awful lot of sentimental value with it. My grandpa passed away a long time ago, but this fixture brings back a lot of good memories. I rewired it this afternoon and cleaned it up a bit. I plan on building some slab shelving on the walls of the brewery to display the decanters, many of which have a nature theme to them. Pretty cool stuff. Hope this works, because I have never posted pics from my phone before.

My grampa had the same PBR light up in his bar. I recently was given it after he passed away. I just moved so it not made it up yet but it will, soon. It will always remember him when I look at it.

 

[KPSquared]

So stoked to see the final project. I love the look of stained and sealed concrete.

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[BadNewsBrewery]

You gotta paint that water heater to look like R2D2 or something cool - it's the one 'sore thumb' in an otherwie AWESOME build. Congrats on sticking it out and finishing it the way you wanted and the RIGHT way, even when it may have been easier to try and cut corners at time. You've got a thing of beauty there.
-Kevin

 

[steveoatley]

You gotta paint that water heater to look like a big can of PBR
It will fit right in with the hanging light !

Beautifull Build Hoppo !!
I've been watching for some time.
Love the Lodge Pole Pine !

When can you start on my basment brewery ?!

 

[KPSquared]

Get some thin stainless and wrap it. Add a cone and some other parts and makes it look like a big conical fermenter...

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