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My Beer Operation

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stag15m4

Member
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
8
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0
Location
Apex, NC
I'm not too big on posting in Forums. I like to read and research instead of write a bunch of posts and articles. There comes a time however, after all of your reading and researching is done, that you finish a project that you really think you sunk a hole in one. For me, this is that project...

My entire operation from start to finish is spelled out here in the following set of posts.

***The reason I'm posting now is because my draught setup is finished and functioning very well. I'm sure there will be some minor tweaking along the way, but for now IT'S DONE :mug: ***
 
My Neighbor and my Dad come over to my house on brew day and we begin brewing on the homemade Brew Rig. We use electric water heater elements to heat the water and boil the mash. One future upgrade is going to be mounting a low pressure gas burner to the Boil Kettle to help us keep it boiling in the winter. There is a lot of heat loss and it's hard to keep it rolling. The neighbor built this rig and it is an absolute tank.

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We began with 5 gallon batches, but decided that was not quite enough. We now roll out 3 to 4 ten-gallon batches on brew day. 4 is tough, but if we start early, it works great.
 
We started out like most other homebrewers, brewing an extract kit in the kitchen and fermenting in a plastic bucket which stays in the bathtub until it's finished or until your wife gets pissed off about it taking up valuable room in the guest bathroom. :eek:

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That worked okay for the 5-gallon days. Since there are 3 of us brewing, we needed something bigger so we bought some sanitary fittings and used half-barrel kegs to ferment in. They live in a temp controlled fridge in the tool shed and we no longer get in trouble for poor bucket placement.

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Two 1-inch OD blow-off tubes is very excessive, but it looked cool for the picture. We each use a keg with a cap that has a stainless hose barb on the top and run it into a growler of water. We don't worry about our air-lock getting stopped up and the hose fits perfectly inside the mouth of the bottle. The cap for the keg (2-inch sanitary cap) fits the existing connection on the keg almost perfectly. The only thing that had to be modified was the silicon gasket. Other than that, it was perfect.
 
My neighbor got this whole operation started and had his setup going quite some time ago. I just finally got mine up and running which again, is the reason for the post.

Mike's Setup is in his kitchen next to the spice rack. ;)
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My wife was very supportive of having beer taps in the house, but we couldn't figure out a good economical way to make it work. We have a covered deck that we spend a LOT of time on, so we finally decided to just build an outdoor kitchen and keep the beer outside. I built an oak Tap Tower using my friend's wood shop. The tower itself took a few days and $20 in lumber and fasteners... No big deal.

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The Faucet and Shank units are what made this project so expensive. Not to mention Sanke Keg taps and beverage line. Thankfully, the expensive part is over and the beer flows freely.
 
I am an American and I like to drink my beer cold.:mug: The problem with keeping the faucets outside is the heat and possibly the cold (I'll find out this winter).

The way I combat that issue is by circulating Glycol through homemade Trunk Line. I have a pressure and return line running in between all 5 beer lines and they are connected on one side to an in-tank fuel pump and on the other side with copper chilling manifolds. The manifolds are 3/8 inch copper and the cooling coils are made from 1/8 inch copper (Used mainly for oil pressure gauges in hot rods. The coils are coiled around the shanks of all 5 faucets. They empty into a 3/8 inch return manifold that sends the glycol back to the holding tank that stays in the freezer. So far, it works quite well.

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This pump was from the local junk yard (Thank You Jackson Auto Salvage)

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The Tank was constructed from 6" PVC (Sewer Pipe) with Lexan cemented to the bottom. They did not fuse together well enough, so I used Silicon Caulk to keep it from leaking.

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That was a quick overview of my equipment and how we use it. I am very proud of my tower and the fact that I made it myself is why this post has gone up.

For anybody who is trying to decide whether to buy a tower or build one, try building first. Not only to save some money, but it's nice to be able to say that you built it when you have a cookout and all your friends are standing in line for beer.

We are not a company, but we had to develop a name to brew under. We came up with "Knucklehead Brewing" and have coined a few recipes that we really like. I made some labels that will go on tap handles before long and I thought I would display them since they too are part of our operation.

Thanks for looking and letting me brag. :rockin:

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That is a beast of a brew rig. I have the same 2 tier design on my rig but no where near that good looking. Everything else looks great as well! :mug:
 
Again, awesome stuff. My only 2 cents is on the moose knuckle label I would have put a actual moose knuckle instead of the moose. Nothing graphic ;)
 
Thanks Guys, I appreciate it.

Again, awesome stuff. My only 2 cents is on the moose knuckle label I would have put a actual moose knuckle instead of the moose. Nothing graphic ;)

I did try to find a good semi-tasteful photo of a moose knuckle, but it just wasn't available. I will have to keep my eye open though... In case something turns up. If anybody out there has a smokin' Moose Knuckle photo that they don't mind me using as a non-commercial beer label, Send It!
 
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