Long time brewer making changes

[Junkster]

Nice rig! Are the kettles held captive onto the hinged frames somehow?

I like the fold-down handle construction...

 

[limulus]

I remember seeing your build last year. I'm glad to see your progress. Too bad about the meltdown, but at least it was an easy repair.

 

[Carlyle]

Hey Junkster,

The kettles attach to the stand with hinged racks with bolts that clamp the barrels in place on all four sides. I'll try to shoot a picture this week.

 

[Carlyle]

Mashing and sparging at this point is accomplished with the use of a sprinkler attached to a board that sprays directly on the grain bed.

 

[Carlyle]

After much deliberation I decided it was time to redo my keggles to make this unit more efficiently,whirlpool while chilling and to better utilize the two pumps.

First one back from the welder

All three back from the welder and Calphalon stainless lids in place along with sight tubes still in need of calibration.

 

[Carlyle]

Okay no advertising and time to remove the paint.

Using a 3m round paint remover on a drill I started to clean them up.

Ah, that looks better!

Inside of mash tun with sprinkler back in place and whirlpool for recirculation. Both are place on disconnects to ease cleaning and removal of spent grain.

Inside of hot liquor tank with cold water inlet in place.

 

[Carlyle]

Inside of boil kettle before clean up, but shows pick up on bottom side away from center will trub will form and whirlpool tube in place to be used for chilling and recirculating through the plate chiller.

Suffice to say I made several large orders to Bargain Fittings for stainless fitting and disconnects...

 

[NYC]

Any chance you'd sell the melted pump, if the issue is just a cosmetic one (although I assume you wouldn't have bought a new one if it was)? Thanks.

 

[Carlyle]

Hey NYC,

I rebuilt the pump and put it back in operation along with an identical one to augment the procedure. Using both at this time and Little Giant being plumbed soon. Thanks for the offer though.

 

[Carlyle]

Still not happy with how my pumps were mounted I pulled them off the bottom of the stand and moved them to a separate rolling stand. I noticed this as a common theme in almost every commercial brewery I've toured thus far and see how it is very handy to be able to moved the pumps around.

Pumps in action

 

[Carlyle]

As the brew stand unfolds it has become a natural progression at this time to install a Rims unit and a controller. I searched the HB forums for quite a while and finally contacted Paul aka stlbeer who built his own system form scratch and was gracious enough to agree to build one for me as well.

Paul began the procedure and slowly put the project together.

Using a ammo can as the control box was ingenious. Sturdy, water resistant and oh so good looking. What better combination than beer and 50 cal ammo...

 

[Carlyle]

As the brew stand unfolds it has become a natural progression at this time to install a Rims unit and a controller. I searched the HB forums for quite a while and finally contacted Paul aka stlbeer who built his own system from scratch and was gracious enough to agree to build one for me as well.

Paul began the procedure and slowly put the project together.

Using a ammo can as the control box was ingenious. Sturdy, water resistant and oh so good looking. What better combination than beer and 50 cal ammo...

 

[Carlyle]

Control unit complete and literally plug and play when it arrived. Talk about keeping it simple for the electronically inept.


Thanks Paul!

 

[Carlyle]

Heating unit complete with drain valve in place and a quick buffing of the stainless. Strictly because stainless deserves to shine a bit and there is a lot of stainless at this point.

 

[Carlyle]

Okay how am I going to mount this thing?

The heating unit was fairly simple, I found the diameter and simply found two tri clover disconnects that fit over the unit.

I bolted the tri clovers fittings to the front of the stand after my welder put a hole in each with his plasma cutter.

I put a slight able on the unit so that it drained towards the valve for ease in cleaning and draining.

 

[Carlyle]

Next I had to figure out how to mount the control unit. At first I thought about having the welder put together something, but in the end decided on a using a flat screen monitor arm to do the job and ordered one off of Amazon.

In addition it folds out the way when not in use.

 

[Carlyle]

Brew stand up to this point.

 

[Carlyle]

In storage position

 

[Kahler]

Man i'm jealous. Nice build!

 

[NYC]

Hey NYC,

I rebuilt the pump and put it back in operation along with an identical one to augment the procedure. Using both at this time and Little Giant being plumbed soon. Thanks for the offer though.

Hey Carlyle, thanks for the response. It's really inspiring to watch your whole setup come together.

 

[Marquez]

Nice build!

Great how its come together.

How long is your typical brew day now?

 

[Carlyle]

Hey Steve!


Thanks!


Typical brew day for 20 gallons now is about six hours, down from a much longer time...

 

[kerber]

This is a great build. Thanks for taking the time to document everything out so well. This is a lot what my dream system will look like.

 

[Pyroholic]

That's just pretty. I'm a little surprised you would do all this and not have a business brewing.

 

[hoptopia]

Looks awesome! What are you fermenting in?

 

[Carlyle]

This is a great build. Thanks for taking the time to document everything out so well. This is a lot what my dream system will look like.

Thanks for the vote of confidence

 

[Carlyle]

Looks awesome! What are you fermenting in?

Thanks!

Currently fermenting in ball lock kegs and a Sanke, but just sent three sankes to the welder yesterday for modification. I'll update on those when complete.

 

[Carlyle]

Currently working on a better pump stand. i picked up this welding stand from Harbor Freight and have been doing a little work on it. Should be a little taller so the pump don't have to work as hard, and a little sturdier.

 

[Carlyle]

Here is a picture of my grain mill as it is now. It is in the flipped up position and shows the 1/2 slow speed drill and the Lovejoy connector.

And here is a little closer shot, don't mind the grain dust...

Here is the router rheostat, still needs to be mounted, but works well. The drill if you notice is clamped full open with a hose clamp and I use this to adjust my speed depending on the number of pounds in the hopper.

 

[Thundercougarfalconbird]

What Piece is that on the end of your sparge arm. I really like the design(with camlock)