The Monolith

[blackwaterbrewer]

alright. i have been waiting to post about this since i found the basis for this project. in a used restaurant equipment warehouse, i found an industrial sized coffee brewer. it is about 3' wide and 2.5' tall. it is a stainless steel rectangle which houses 2 40 qt stainless steel pots and several heating elements. each pot has a spigot and a glass sight tube on the front of the "Monolith".

i have removed all of the electrical and heating elements along with the 2 beautiful stainless pots. that is when i discovered a Gorman Ruff high temp water pump.

i will post pictures when it is done, but , basically i will insulate the entire cavity and re-install the stainless pots into their side-by-side holes. then, install an electric heating element into the left pot, and re-attach the spigots and sight valves. i will add dial thermometers in each side and install a stainless braid drain manifold into the mash tun side.

i cannot figure out how to upload to a post, so i will put pictures in My Gallery. sorry.

all that iis left is to wire up the water pump, attach the tubing, and i have a fully contained (if not automated) brewing system which i can now run without having to move awkward, boiling pots. also, i now have no plastic or aluminum in my system, and i can easily fly, batch, or decoct with a few minor adaptations.

oh and also, it looks really cool!

i'll post some pictures in a few minutes

 

[mrbowenz]

alright. i have been waiting to post about this since i found the basis for this project. in a used restaurant equipment warehouse, i found an industrial sized coffee brewer. it is about 3' wide and 2.5' tall. it is a stainless steel rectangle which houses 2 40 qt stainless steel pots and several heating elements. each pot has a spigot and a glass sight tube on the front of the "Monolith".

i have removed all of the electrical and heating elements along with the 2 beautiful stainless pots. that is when i discovered a Gorman Ruff high temp water pump.

i will post pictures when it is done, but , basically i will insulate the entire cavity and re-install the stainless pots into their side-by-side holes. then, install an electric heating element into the left pot, and re-attach the spigots and sight valves. i will add dial thermometers in each side and install a stainless braid drain manifold into the mash tun side.

i cannot figure out how to upload to a post, so i will put pictures in My Gallery. sorry.

all that iis left is to wire up the water pump, attach the tubing, and i have a fully contained (if not automated) brewing system which i can now run without having to move awkward, boiling pots. also, i now have no plastic or aluminum in my system, and i can easily fly, batch, or decoct with a few minor adaptations.

oh and also, it looks really cool!

i'll post some pictures in a few minutes

I have been tempted by large coffe urns more than a few times, I think you are on to something here, would love to see the pix . there is a company out there( the name escapes me at the moment), that produces high quality coffee urns in stainless, I have bidded on a few but never scored. I would love to see what you have come up with ..

 

[JalaPeno]

Please keep us updated on the Monolith Brewery project.

I think you put them in your gallery to distract us with the bloody chainsaw accident pics but the pic of the lovely wife made up for queasiness suffered.

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

i just tested the pump with water and it works beautifully! also, i just realized that i came with a built in sparge arm. i guess this was used to sprinkle the hot water over the coffee grounds. i am currently wiring up the pump and fastening it to the HLT and the mash tun. i need to get the electric heating element bef0ore i do a brew. also , i need to install the thermometers. don't be mad, but i failed to mention that the owner of the warehouse didn't charge me anything for this. in fact, he even helped me load it.

i will continue to put pictures on my gallery. sorry about the chainsaw pics, it is just to tempting to sprinkle those in. 37 stiches and 1/4" of bone lost. surfed 8 foot Costa Rica 2 weeks later!

 

[StoutFan]

Nice build. Looks like a very fun new brewing toy.

 

[diatonic]

You can insert the images from your gallery in to a post by licking the image link in the editor

and pasting in the Direct Link address from the gallery page. Looks cool. 3 images per post (including smileys and such)

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

pictures

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

here is an update on the monolith. everything works! it was a pain installing the thermometers becaus of the space between the outer wall and the actual pot. the sparge arm could not have been any better and needed only to be hooked up to the HLT pump. i built a 1200 watt heatstick for the HLT side. it takes a while to heat up, but it will work for now. a few more tweaks and it will be ready for its innaugural brew!!

check out the sparge arm!

 

[beerthirty]

I like it.(even though it electric)

 

[Cheeto]

this is great !

How about a parts list of what you needed to buy to make this work, I see these quite often !

and how many pounds of grain can it hold ?

please youtube the first brew in that!

thanks

-Jason

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

the only electric part is the heater for the hlt. the mash tun drains into a normal keggle heated with a propane burner. as for the parts list, the coffee urn supplied most of it. i took the hot water pump and electrical panel out. i made a crude wooden hosing for the pump and mounted it under the setup. i used the high pressure tubing and hose clamps to connect the pump to the two internal pots. i replaced some of the spigots with brass ball valves. the spigots on the urn already had sight tubes on them which was great. i actually put one on my keggle. the hardest part is insulating it. i stuffed r-19 into the mashtun side then crammed the pot down in its hole. the thermometers took some work, too as there is a 2-1/4 inch gap between the wall of the housing and the actual pot inside.

not to be too long winded, but it really had all of the parts in the urn already, i just did some Frankenstein work with it and, now it is ready to go.

i don't know anything about youtube, but i will get my brother to set it up for the innaugural brew. he will work for homebrew!!!

 

[alpo]

that is crazy looking

 

[magnj]

Looks nifty. Also, I enjoy the OpIvy quote

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

i'm glad to see that "young-uns" still know about Op Ivy. [All i know] is one of the best songs, lyrically, ever written. Socrates would have loved it (Jesus Christ and Ghandi, Too)!!

 

[slimer]

I like...........

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

my next quote may be..

"when you think you know everything, that is when you know the least. when you realize that you know nothing is when you begin to be wise"
-Charles "Cush" Dobbs [my dad]

 

[winzerz]

I wonder if these are avalable thru navy surplus

as I know they have many of these things aboard ship

being ex navy and all

 

[magnj]

i'm glad to see that "young-uns" still know about Op Ivy.

I can't say I'm an active listener anymore but they were a big influence on my tastes, someone gave me a cd in my early teens and I had it on repeat for a long time.

 

[robertwa]

Can you post who the manufacturer, model number etc of the coffee brewer is?
Thanks

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

it is a Cecilware FE 300 automatic coffee urn. i live in Norflok, VA so it must have come off a ship (we have quite a few here). i don't know who else would need to make 20 gallons of coffee at a time. If i could get on base, they probalby have a few broken ones laying around somewhere.