Your Brewstand Retrospectives?

[sarsnik]

So yesterday I cut through a 2" sided 1/8" thick piece of plain steel angle iron with my angle grinder. Took about 30 seconds and the cut was pretty straight. I'm going to try to make all the cuts with the grinder. If I plan things out well, I can probably buy sections that are already cut to size.

Glen, Thats remarkably similar to what I want to do. Well, I guess its not all that remarkable considering most stands are about the same...but its a really nice design.

The differences I would probably make are: 2" angle iron instead of 1.5". I figure my bolts will be the weakest link in the stand structure. If I have more area to bolt onto, I'll feel better about it's integrity. As mentioned before, I also think I'll be using square tubing for supports. especially the keggle holding 'diamond' supports above the burners.

Two questions for you glen:
Will you really need to shorten the legs of the stand to be able to see inside the MLT/BK? Would you mind sending me your designs (sketch up I'm assuming)?

Lastly, to anyone who might know, how large should the burner area be to support keggles? I know they run about 17", is the 18" design that Glen made sufficient?

Thanks again for all your input guys.

 

[Bobby_M]

It seams that many people oversize the stand and then have to add a lot of extra pieces to make the vessel support area small enough to hold the vessels up. My design put the front and back rails close enough to be the vessel supports. It's a lot less cutting.
I think my keg skirts contact about a 3" long area at four locations on the stand which is more than enough. With flat bottom vessels, you can undersize the stand even more and have the pot overlap the edges by a bit.

I can see oversizing the width of the raised tower area however so that you can put a shelf in and store the top vessel underneath for a more compact package.

One thing a bolt-together design has to account for is height differences due to overlap. Don't forget about that.

 

[sarsnik]

I was thinking about holding the kegs together with a setup similar to yours bobby, with a welded square of angle iron that would sit upright and hold the keggle in place. this should negate any differences in heights from bolting.

 

[joelrapp]

I ended up going with a homeowner sized version of industrial racking. It is more than sturdy enough to hold any and all the weight I want it to. I got mine from Menards, 6' section uprights and crossbeams for just over $100. Costco sells a similar product (though not online) for I think $180. Same size dimensions but with extra shelves. If I had it to do again I would have gone with that. I would never choose to pay the price for the cost of a welded sculpture.

 

[samc]

I have a single tier -3 keggle, RIMS recirc with BCS controller.

I also built a single kettle BIAB on a cart with pump/pid control

My retrospective is the 3 keggle set up never gets used anymore. I can't brew as big a batch but clean up is a lot easier and faster.

 

[thesanch]

2. I don't think single tiers make a lot of sense anymore. HLT up high, mash and BK down low. No reason to force a second pump when the HLT is basically hands off. Every time I hook up a set of silicone hoses to pump sparge water, I think to myself, this could have been a 2 foot piece of tubing hanging off the HLT up high instead.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Have any thoughts for a good width to use for sanke kegs? You mentioned in another post that you think brewstands are too wide.

 

[sarsnik]

I have a single tier -3 keggle, RIMS recirc with BCS controller.

I also built a single kettle BIAB on a cart with pump/pid control

My retrospective is the 3 keggle set up never gets used anymore. I can't brew as big a batch but clean up is a lot easier and faster.

Sorry for being dense, but can a 2 pot system only do BIAB? I wouldn't mind consolidating, but I don't like BIAB all that much.

 

[Bobby_M]

This is exactly what I was thinking. Have any thoughts for a good width to use for sanke kegs? You mentioned in another post that you think brewstands are too wide.

Unless there are concerns about being top heavy and unstable, I'd look to have the vessels rest directly on the front and back horizontal rails. In the case of a sanke, that's 16" edge to edge.

 

[Bobby_M]

BIAB is essentially a one vessel system where the mashtun becomes the boil kettle directly after pull the grain bag out. However, there could be BIAB systems that use a dunk sparge setup in a second vessel. Also, there's the brutus 20 system which is what I'd call a no-sparge, 2-vessel RIMS.