sarsnik
Well-Known Member
I wanted this thread to be as comprehensive as possible, documenting the progress of our brewstand build. This forum absolutely has everything that you need to know to built an effective brewstand, but many of the technical details are buried deep within threads. Also, for what some people might consider common knowledge, it is arcane to others. Gloss over the details if they aren't relevant to you and ignore my super pithy descriptions.
My girlfriend and I have been brewing for 5 years or so, starting with prehopped extract kits, and quickly coming to the all grain dark side (She took these pictures, mostly). Up until now we have been using a SP10 burner which has been great, but the constant lifting is a pain even for someone in the early 20's. Fueled by the brewstand fervor on this forum, and my natural inclination to take on projects completely beyond my abilities we decided to build a brewstand to handle 10-15 gallon batches.
We wanted to go weldless for a few reasons:
1. I can't weld. Don't have the money to buy one to learn, or to hire someone.
2. Hiring someone to weld it takes out the DIY aspect for me
3. The stand has to be able to be dismantled since a cross country move is a possibility and my car is small.
4. I have most of the tools already.
While there are a number of people making weldless brewstands using slotted steel from McMaster-Carr (Wallace), I didn't like the idea of burning galvanized metal, and I feel like a brewstand should be personal expression using a cookie cutter solution didn't appeal.
Instead we used bed frames, an idea inspired by bobby_M's overbrook brewstand. We were able to drive around town for an hour or two and salvage some from communal dumpsters in apartment complexes. We needed three for our design. Free is good.
I'd never used an angle grinder, but needed something to cut the metal bed frames. I opted for a 20$ angle grinder from harbor freight (on sale) pictured above. You can get it cheaper, but I wanted the added feature of a paddle switch. If for some reason I dropped the grinder, it wouldn't keep running.
Then I cut them up, somewhat haphazardly. Using the grinder is really invigorating but I was convinced the cutting disk would shatter and I'd end up with a piece in my jugular. Didn't happen, and now we have cool pictures with sparks. Note the high precision cutting technique, as well as my expert redirection of the sparks into my shin. No issues with the grinder dying as some people have had with HF grinders.
Clamped the pieces together and drilled. If your bolting this stuff together, you need to compensate for for slight bending of the angle iron once you tighten the bolts. Clamping tightly is important, otherwise you'll end up with a crooked stand. Be prepared to drill a ton of holes. I went through two bits, and a can of cutting oil. It's not difficult, but a drill press would make things much easier (I used a hand drill).
Since this is weldless, it was important to plan out how the iron would lay together. We decided the longer sections of the stand would be the outer layer, cross supports the middle, and uprights mated to these pieces on the inside. This makes it so the uprights themselves bear all the weight instead of just the bolts. Look at the completed stand to illustrate this.
We used 1/4 fine thread hex bolts that were 1/2 long. We started using 1 bolts, but they collided with eachother at some of the joints.
This is the top portion of the stand, cut and fitted. 54 long and 16 wide to hold a keggle. We wanted a few inches of space between each keggle for heat and weight distribution as well as aesthetics.
Scored a Yeungling keg also. Using the same angle grinder, I tried to cut the top using a jig without much luck. Scrapped the jig and just freehanded the cut.
For reference, heres the keg placed on the stand. You might have already guessed that since the long sections and cross sections are mated together instead of level, the keg will wobble. Our solution was to add some fins on each of the cross sections to compensate, shown later.
The next step was to dismantle it completely, and prep each section to be painted. I used a steel wire brush to remove all of the paint as well as any rust that accumulated. No pictures since the process was monotonous and took a few hours.
Each piece was cleaned with denatured alcohol and then painted with this grill paint. I wanted to use a high temperature engine enamel, but it has to be oven cured which would have been difficult with the 54 pieces. Also, in contrast to some other people, I think the flat finish of the paint looks classy.
We used 8 harbor freight casters rated at 275 lb each. Maybe it's overkill, but I was concerned since the mounting plates were larger than the width of the angle iron, so only three bolts are holding it. They were also only $4.50 each on sale, so why not? We used 5/16 hex bolts for these since they fit more snugly. They also share the bolt connecting two pieces of the angle iron.
Next we tackled the propane manifold. A lot of designs have deadspace and extra piping I wanted to eliminate this. These are the parts used and why I chose them:
2x 18 long 1/2 black pipe
2x 1/2 black pipe tee (connects the black pipe)
1x 1/2 to 1/4 reducing elbow (convenient! the final joint in the manifold)
2x 1/2 to 1/4 bushing (placed at the end of the tees)
1x 1/2 2 black nipple (attached to the beginning of the manifold, for the regulator)
Heres a picture of the manifold with the stand, for size comparison. It isn't attached yet, but we eventually used two galvanized clips to secure it to the bottom of the stand. You can also see the tabs that we put on to allow the keg to sit flush with the top of the stand.
Choice of burners was a major hurdle. Many brewers swear by the banjo burner, or BG14. The other choices were the jet burner (wok burners), the BG10, and the BG12. Some people claims that the BG14 and the jet burners are overkill in terms of heat. I used a BG10 on my old SP10 stand and wanted something more robust. Therefore I opted for BG12's since they seemed like the best compromise. They are also less that twenty bucks each, compared to the fifty or so for the banjos.
We still mash in a 48qt rectangular cooler, so we just got 2 burners for now. This also allows for us to add on a banjo burner for the higher output if we think we need more BTU's.
Here we're doing a night test of burners. I love the picture running at low output. It illustrates why these burners are so great they can be cranked up pretty high, and also run very low to prevent scorching. Thanks to OneHoppyGuy for his expertise on the topic, as well as his advice on fittings for the manifold.
We needed some way to mount the burners and came up with this. It's an old road sign post. It was pretty severely rusted, but an hour of grinding exposed some pretty nice steel. These things are MASSIVE! About an 1/8 thick and heavy. Luckily the holes were already there.
To hold the center beam, we added two more lengths of angle iron, like a little shelf, and bolted the beam in place. The top of the burner is 4 1/2 from the top of the stand. This leaves room to raise them if needed using washers or a short piece of tubing. Manifold isn't attached still.
Then to attach the manifold to the burners, I decided to use copper tubing. The alternative was to buy short crimped hoses ($12 each) or use the yellow flex lines (nearly $30 each!). I bought the cheap flaring tool from harbor freight for around $10 to enable me to flare the ends. The tool also comes with 4 bending springs, and a tubing cutter...can't beat that!
3x 1/4 FPT by 1/4 MPT Brass needle valves (connected MPT end to bushing)
3x 1' copper tubing at 3/8 OD, and 1/4 ID (flexible, used to connect the valves to burners)
6x 3/8 flare nut (attaches the copper to flared fittings)
3x 3/8 FL to ¼ MPT (needle valve to flare nut)
3x High pressure orifice. (orifi? Connects the coppper to the burner)
Bending small lengths of tubing is a really pain in the ass. The bending springs were essential, and using something rounded to bend against such as a pot or maglight is really helpful. I like the end result better than the flex hosing look however, so it was well worth the effort to me. You can see the simple clips used to attach the manifold to the stand
We reassembled the manifold and sealed it using pipe dope. Gas teflon tape can also be used, but it is prone to becoming brittle and flaking off. We did leak testing using a dilute soap solution and looking for bubbles.
A note about the regulator I wanted to reuse our old regulator from the SP10. It is the style that incorporates the orifice directly on the hose. However the swivel fitting leaked profusely under pressure, so we needed to buy a new one. We opted for an adjustable regulator for flexibility. It screws onto the manifold via a 3/8 male flare to 1/2 FPT brass fitting.
Finally got to brew with the stand, even if it is partially complete. Still don't have a pump or keggle fittings. That's the next step, as well as finding two more kegs to convert.
We still need to figure out windshields you can see the burner flame lifting away due to gusts of wind.
I'll continue to document any developments in the next few weeks. Any advice is greatly appreciated and questions or comments are encouraged!
