It has been entirely too long but I am finally wrapping up. Long story short, I stopped brewing about a year and a half ago due to selling/buying a house. The new house has a 1600 sq ft heated and cooled basement that is now my shop and brewery. When we purchased the house I vowed to not brew anything until the new brewery was finished. Thankfully that time has come and I should start the first batch soon.
As you can imagine the project evolved and expanded into a rather large undertaking. My original setup was a home built gas fired 3 tier dubbed the "Murder Death Brew" since my friends had concerns for its stability. The new system is a single tear 2 - vessel no sparge electric with 20 gallon kettles. I am running it semi-automated with a BCS. Parts of the system are controlled by manual valves but others are electric. As I feel out the temperament of it, I will convert it over to fully-automated.
The pics should be rather large so click on them to get the full view. I am sure that I have left out a ton of details so feel free to ask if you have any questions. Cheers!
Gratuitous penny floor shot.
I am a car nut as well so I tried to incorporate bits and pieces of both beer and cars. The bucket seats are out of an RX7 and the bench is a rear seat from a 96 Impala SS. The end table is still a work in progress since I am waiting on parts to finish it. They are rotor housing from an older model RX7. I have another one, not pictured.
This is the exterior door of the brewery as viewed from inside my shop. I wanted something different and liked the idea of the chrome hardware so a freezer door fit the bill. The door itself is 4’x8’.
This is where the “magic happens”. I started off with a fairly standard setup from eBrewSupply and then added my own touches to it. I am using a BCS to control most everything. The portions that are currently manual are filling the pot with tap water, controlling the circulation path for the chiller, and the valve for draining the BK. I may eventually change them all over to electric valves like the others, but not until I get a better feel of the brewery.
We used a random assortment of Edison style bulbs with the cloth wrapped twisted pair wire.
All of these tap handles were NOS connecting rods from a garage going out of business. Some old Hudson, Nash, Ford, and maybe an Edsel if I remember correctly.
New keezer waiting to be filled.
This is one of the last pieces of the project that I am wrapping up. This is in our “cellar”. It is another room in the basement. I have had custom stainless coils made to fit into the fermenters to act as an immersion chiller. I am working through the chilling setup now. Planning on a large reservoir in a freezer as opposed to a more compact chiller using an air conditioning unit. I need something quiet and indoors so the freezer method won out.
These are some pics of when we were building it.
As you can imagine the project evolved and expanded into a rather large undertaking. My original setup was a home built gas fired 3 tier dubbed the "Murder Death Brew" since my friends had concerns for its stability. The new system is a single tear 2 - vessel no sparge electric with 20 gallon kettles. I am running it semi-automated with a BCS. Parts of the system are controlled by manual valves but others are electric. As I feel out the temperament of it, I will convert it over to fully-automated.
The pics should be rather large so click on them to get the full view. I am sure that I have left out a ton of details so feel free to ask if you have any questions. Cheers!
Gratuitous penny floor shot.
I am a car nut as well so I tried to incorporate bits and pieces of both beer and cars. The bucket seats are out of an RX7 and the bench is a rear seat from a 96 Impala SS. The end table is still a work in progress since I am waiting on parts to finish it. They are rotor housing from an older model RX7. I have another one, not pictured.
This is the exterior door of the brewery as viewed from inside my shop. I wanted something different and liked the idea of the chrome hardware so a freezer door fit the bill. The door itself is 4’x8’.
This is where the “magic happens”. I started off with a fairly standard setup from eBrewSupply and then added my own touches to it. I am using a BCS to control most everything. The portions that are currently manual are filling the pot with tap water, controlling the circulation path for the chiller, and the valve for draining the BK. I may eventually change them all over to electric valves like the others, but not until I get a better feel of the brewery.
We used a random assortment of Edison style bulbs with the cloth wrapped twisted pair wire.
All of these tap handles were NOS connecting rods from a garage going out of business. Some old Hudson, Nash, Ford, and maybe an Edsel if I remember correctly.
New keezer waiting to be filled.
This is one of the last pieces of the project that I am wrapping up. This is in our “cellar”. It is another room in the basement. I have had custom stainless coils made to fit into the fermenters to act as an immersion chiller. I am working through the chilling setup now. Planning on a large reservoir in a freezer as opposed to a more compact chiller using an air conditioning unit. I need something quiet and indoors so the freezer method won out.
These are some pics of when we were building it.