Stainless wall thickness for Brutus 10?

[brewnickbrew]

Lehr: What an awesome job. Too pretty to brew on.

e-9Brew: This is awesome. Thank you.
I just got a quote today for 2" .063 wall SS for $231.00 from a local company. I can live with that price. Although I am going to go to a local scrap yard that does have 304 SS to see if I can squeeze a little better price out of this whole process.

 

[surfmonk]

I'm going aluminum with stainless heat shields and ceramic standoffs. I'll work fine I'm reckoning...

I've also been considering tslot for a stand.
How did this work out for you?
What kind of ceramic standoffs did you use?

 

[Irrenarzt]

I've brewed over 80 batches on my frame since building it. I usually brew every Saturday but I brewed on Sunday this weekend as I had to do some bottling on Saturday. This is just to give you an idea of how often my frame is being used. I used it less often at first but I use it very often now. I have that biitch dialed in now.

I scrapped the heat shields after only a dozen batches or so as they didn't work as well as without them. The ceramic standoffs are typically made from steatite, a form of soapstone. They are expensive and fragile. I did machine a bunch of stainless standoffs as the ceramic ones were breaking often but then I decided to remove the shields altogether. You don't need heat shields at all. They only reduce the efficiency of your combustion and therefore you get much more carbon on your pots. I'm an chemical engineer so I think I know what I'm doing more or less and I fiddled with different designs/ideas/modifications and none of them worked as well as not using any shields at all. Yeah the frame gets a bit hot, but you learn to not touch it after only a few times. Derrin mentioned his club friend was switching to stainless after many skin donations. This has not been my experience whatsoever. A few very minor burns at first, but nothing that left any scars. However many people are idiots and will not learn from their mistakes. Aluminum is not a good choice for these types of people.

T-slot doesn't clean up as well as stainless though. So if you are the kind of guy who spends all weekend detailing your BMW, t-slot may not be for you.

 

[surfmonk]

I've brewed over 80 batches on my frame since building it. I usually brew every Saturday but I brewed on Sunday this weekend as I had to do some bottling on Saturday. This is just to give you an idea of how often my frame is being used. I used it less often at first but I use it very often now. I have that biitch dialed in now.

Great! Thanks for the reply and proof of concept. Sounds like it is really holding up.

What size tslot did you use?

Guess I'll just have to eliminate boil-overs

 

[Irrenarzt]

Great! Thanks for the reply and proof of concept. Sounds like it is really holding up.

What size tslot did you use?

Guess I'll just have to eliminate boil-overs

I used 45 x 45 mm everywhere but the top main perimeter, which I used 45 x 90 mm.

Here's an old pic but you can get the idea. It's robust. No way is it going to melt or sag.