Single Tier Brew Stand with BCS460 Complete Build

Williams 728
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Ok, the final build pictures are posted!

Here is a rundown of the equipment I used:

Gas valves: Honeywell VR8200A2132

Pilot Burners: Honeywell Q314A4586
(I took the ell shaped bracket and straightened it flat)

Thermocouples: Honeywell Q390A1046
(Last 4 numbers represents the length)

Pumps: March 809 with a Chugger pump stainless steel center inlet head

Burners: 10 tip jet burners from Tejas Smokers.
I chose these purely for their quality and reliability and they did not disappoint. I have heard WAY too many problems with the Chinese crap that you can buy for $30. It was hard to swallow but I kicked down the $95 per burners. The stainless steel braided NG hose and the NG quick disconnect couplers were from them as well.

In case you were wondering, the NG piping is galvanized that is cleaned up real nice. Looks much better than the typical black pipe and I didn’t want to have to paint them.

All of the stainless steel fittings and quick disconnects are from bargainfittings.com. How could you beat $5 shipping on a $550 order especially when they have EVERY fitting you need!

Note: pics do zoom fairly large when you click on the bar.



Final pic1.jpg

final pic2.jpg

final pic3.jpg

fianl pic 4.jpg

final pic5.jpg

final pci6.jpg
 
The wort chiller and water filter.......



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If you click to zoom you can really see the corners where it looks like one seamless piece.

This is done with the proper abrasives in a 3 step process. I use a 5" grinder to grind the meat of it then I use a 3" roloc 40 grit sanding disc and after that I use a 120 grit 3" flap disc to smooth things out. After 2 coats of 2K primer and urethane paint you can't see a scratch under the paint.

IMG_20140326_100938_024.jpg

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And there you have it folks!! Again, I greatly appreciate the time that people invest on answering and posting on this site. It has helped me tremendously evolve my brewing knowledge and without this site, I would still be scratching my head.

Also, thank you for the positive comments so far and the next ones that come.

If anybody needs help fabricating their brewery in SoCal, feel free to hit me up.
 
Absolutely stunning rig! You should be very proud of your incredible creation. Thanks for sharing it with us!

John :mug:
 
holy crap. so nice...

im new to SD from Chicago. i used a CF chiller and the water here is really warm compared to what im used to. do you guys do any thing to use less water when chilling out here? my last brew in chicago used about 8 gal to chill down a 10 gal batch, i think i went thru 15gal the other day.
 
I may have missed it but what batch size are you running / what size are the kettles? ... loved this with your very first post. And lets face it Red does go faster.
 
oldstyle69 said:
holy crap. so nice...

im new to SD from Chicago. i used a CF chiller and the water here is really warm compared to what im used to. do you guys do any thing to use less water when chilling out here? my last brew in chicago used about 8 gal to chill down a 10 gal batch, i think i went thru 15gal the other day.
Click to expand...


Either use 2 inline chillers with the second recirculating ice water in a bucket, or use one, chilling into the kettle on the ground water pass, then switch to ice water on way to fermenter.
 
oldstyle69 said:
holy crap. so nice...

im new to SD from Chicago. i used a CF chiller and the water here is really warm compared to what im used to. do you guys do any thing to use less water when chilling out here? my last brew in chicago used about 8 gal to chill down a 10 gal batch, i think i went thru 15gal the other day.
Click to expand...

You'll want to search "prechiller" for many different ideas. The way I do it is I will make some blocks of ice the night (2 nights) before in tupperware containers I have available. Then while in the boil stage I will put those in my mash tun (after I clean it) and fill with water. When its time, I then gravity drain the the freezing cold water to the chiller. I usually can get most of the wort chilled by the time the water runs out. The reason why I do it in my mash tun is I have a Blichmann Auto Sparge so I can add more water without fear of over filling. Mind you, my set up is 5 gal with 10 gal. kettles. It is very simple without a lot of hoopla without extra equipment. Remember, I like a simple design.

On a winter day without the the prechiller, I can chill the 5 gal of wort in in less than 10 min. With the prechiller it is about the same.

BTW, welcome to San Diego! I moved out here from Milwaukee in '79
 
froot said:
I may have missed it but what batch size are you running / what size are the kettles? ... loved this with your very first post. And lets face it Red does go faster.
Click to expand...

5 gal. batches with 10 gal. kettles. I can't think of any system that I ever seen on this forum where anybody did a 5 gal setup to this extent. Everything I have seen is 10 gal. I know, why go through all that trouble to make a 5 gal batch? Well my answer is many reasons: I don't drink that much beer, needed a small footprint, I don't keg, I like to brew many style beers so trying to perfect a recipe is more feasible and one more thing...... because it's red Froot, it does go faster.... from brew to cleanup is 4 hours.

The small footprint and brewing more often are the 2 big reasons. because of that small footprint and keeping the simple design approach, everything fits in the kettles and the drawer when not in use except for the bench capper and the fastrack. Hell even the HLT is my bottling bucket.
 
Wow... This is impressive! If you have any literature on where you learned to weld and fabricate like that, I'd be very interested.

Love the setup. Thanks for sharing!
 
brewApprentice said:
Wow... This is impressive! If you have any literature on where you learned to weld and fabricate like that, I'd be very interested.

Love the setup. Thanks for sharing!
Click to expand...


I learned a little bit from my dad and high school and mostly self taught after that. My earlier profession allowed my to weld on a regular basis but was never a welder by trade.

I can only tell you to try to get someone to get you started then practice, practice, practice. Also, the "school of YouTube" helps. The welder settings are very important and with technology today, welders like Miller have one setting for you to dial in....the steel thickness, then the welder sets up the rest automatically. A little technique and a steady hand and you're golden.
 
The phone app won't let me like?!!? Thanks for the reply looks like the rig is definitely pulling the numbers. I keg so I always run 10 gal, even if I have to give it away. Your attention to detail is outstanding and I've see more than my share of build threads on this site. You know there are no backward steps from here, let us know when you upgrade to 20G kettles and bg14 burners, cause thats when you'll really see that baby burn red.

froot
 
As you probably have figured out I live in a townhome which is why I needed a small footprint. When we end up buying a bigger home then a larger brewery could be in the plans. But I still like 5 gal batches either way to perfect my craft as I can brew more often.

Personally I think you just wanted me to let you know when I change so you can have first dibs on my "old one".
 
Cardog said:
As you probably have figured out I live in a townhome which is why I needed a small footprint. When we end up buying a bigger home then a larger brewery could be in the plans. But I still like 5 gal batches either way to perfect my craft as I can brew more often.

Personally I think you just wanted me to let you know when I change so you can have first dibs on my "old one".
Click to expand...

Can you blame him!? Awesome build!
 
I was off the forums for nearly 2 weeks and look at what I missed! :rockin:

Cardog - very awesome build. So many well thought out details all through this. Kudos man, this is a great setup!

What are the white capped units on the out ports on the pumps? Are those auto vents?
 
Aaaaah I was waiting for someone to notice those. Yes, they are an auto vent. I didn't want the duovent style as it was too big for my liking. So I chose this http://www.watts.com/pages/_products_details.asp?pid=3422

It works, but I don't really need it as I never have an issue with priming. Maybe because of the center inlet design, I don't know, but I took every precaution in the design. I had the luxury from learning what and what not to do from all the threads here.

Thank you JonW for your contribution and kind words. It was a thread you responded to when I asked about manual switches that gave me the confidence not to use them. The BCS460 has been reliable and I am glad I didn't use them.
 
An emoji does not exist that expresses the pure awe and envy which I feel. That is an OUTSTANDING build. Probably the best build quality of ANY piece of equipment I've seen here on HBT, and I'm an unabashed build voyeur.

I'm not sure what else I can say. Prost!

:mug:
 
BeardedIdiot said:
An emoji does not exist that expresses the pure awe and envy which I feel. That is an OUTSTANDING build. Probably the best build quality of ANY piece of equipment I've seen here on HBT, and I'm an unabashed build voyeur.

I'm not sure what else I can say. Prost!

:mug:
Click to expand...

That's definitely my favorite compliment! The SWMBO has dubbed this forum as "The Man's Facebook"
 
BrunDog said:
Trying to pre-chill the incoming flush water is generally inefficient. It will work somewhat, but does not work as well as direct chilling.
Click to expand...

Ok BrunDog, I have perfected it now with the flow rate and the size of the ice cubes I made. I brewed yesterday and was able to chill 5.5 gal down to 71*F in a record 4 min 50 sec with only the 10 gal of ice water. The ice water was @ 42*F. My goal is to have less hoopla with less equipment.

Ice Water.jpg
 
Actually just found out about a week and half ago. Since I knew I was brewing shortly after I found out, I wanted to be easy with what I knew will work instead of maybe dealing with process files not saved, idiosyncrasies, etc.

I will be updating it now though.
 
Looks great! I'm thinking about building something similar but with 20gal kettles. What size tubing did you use for the main structure?
 
I used 1 1/2" 14 ga. (.083) tubing. You can build a stout stand with 16 ga. (.063) if it is structured properly. I chose 14 ga. purely for the ease welding, more meat to grind on and possibly drill and tapping. What I mean by ease of welding is that using 16 ga, if you don't cut your measurements super duper perfect ending up with a somewhat large gap, its hard to weld without blowing through. It just takes more time to weld at that point.

The only thing you have to consider is the total span you will have without supports. If you look at my stand I have supports in between each burner. If you did that, like I said you could do 16 ga. if you wanted. With 20 gal. kettles I assume you would probably have a minimum of a 60" span. If you did that without supports in between then you are going to need 11 ga. or 14 ga. if you went with 2".

I am not a structural engineer but doing many projects like this, I have a lot of experience. Having said that, I see too many threads where people used 2" with 1/8" wall thickness.....that is so overkill, you might as well go Mac Daddy and use stainless if you're going waste your money on steel.

Bottom line, there is no harm in over engineering. Keep in mind with 20 gal. kettles you're probably not exceeding more than 320lbs of weight at any given time. That's really not that much weight. Heck, I know I could set an average car (about 3500lbs) on my stand and it will be fine. The wheels would the weakest point at that point.
 
There wouldn't be a link per se but I could send you a file of the drawing. You will need Sketchup to open it though. May I ask why you would want the file to this?
 
Cardog said:
Ok BrunDog, I have perfected it now with the flow rate and the size of the ice cubes I made. I brewed yesterday and was able to chill 5.5 gal down to 71*F in a record 4 min 50 sec with only the 10 gal of ice water. The ice water was @ 42*F. My goal is to have less hoopla with less equipment.

View attachment 346788
Click to expand...

I think I will have to give this a try. I currently just chill to whatever the ground water temp is and if it's too high then I stick it in the ferm chamber to drop it down to pitching Temps.

I see you moved to SD from Milwaukee. I moved out here from Madison.
 
I actually got the chilling process down to just over 4 mins. I realized the temp sensors take 5 to 10 seconds to stabilize so I was able to shorten up the time by 30-40 seconds. This is only a testament with the DudaDiesel B3-23A-30 plate chiller. I am sure once I get dialed in I can probably get down to less than 4 min with a pitching temp of <75*F.

With the 2 months of winter and 10 months of summer here, you have to get creative cause this is what you'll end up doing most of the time. In the winter, I don't use my prechiller method as it only takes about 6 mins to chill.

Go Packers/Badgers. Been out here since '79.
 
I would love the file! I'd love to replicate it, but will probably tweak it a little bit. I figured you had uploaded it to the warehouse and had a link!
 

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