DIY Carboy Crate

[CU_tony]

So I am moving into having more long term batches than I have ready table space, as with my fermentation chamber I want to go vertical!

Also, I want to proudly display batches of apfelwein and the like somewhere not in a closet so these need to look interesting.

Ive seen some really cool old demijohn crates that are the bulk of my inspiration for this project and I have started drafting a design in sketchup.

First some issues Ive seen with various examples online:
This guy doesnt look easy or safe to stack:

... Unless you get in the pyramid formation which doesnt meet the safe criteria:

This guy looks resilient, though it seems as if it would impede access to the neck/airlock especially when stacked:

These guys look nice, not crazy about the vertical extensions but we are getting close

I cant of course locate the image I found last night that I consider my design a direct derivative of, because my computer promptly crashed after seeing that work of beauty and I had to try and remember as much as I could to come up with whats below.

The vertical slats and the two boards at the top should hold the carboy fairly securely and given that all the examples I have found are seem to be made from 1x stock, this seems like it should work.
The boards at the top will be held in with thumbscrews (I got a sweet box of these gifted from my grandfather). I would like to design a hole pattern that will allow me some adjustment with board spacing and was thinking that I should be able to do some maths and drill 3 holes in the slat, and insert two threaded thingys into the band that given proper spacing of all 5 holes should afford an amount of flexibility.
If anyone is good at maths and wants to chime in, I have other smaller fish to fry at the moment and would love any advice.

I am wondering structurally if for the two "bands" that wrap all the way around the longer of the pieces should be on the same side of the crate or rotated 90d like in the design. I thought it may be more secure but aesthetically I think I would prefer a uniform face.

The crates stack with a 3/4" bit of 2x2 sticking out of the top band and into a 3/4" recess in the bottom band.

I made a smaller "stacker" that will let me stack ontop of carboy with an airlock, and I will have to assemble one crate to determine the final height for that guy, but Im hoping that it will let me squeeze in a racking cane so I can legit let the carboy sit undisturbed for 6+ months and rack without moving.
I simply copied the bands that I used for the carboy crate for uniformity, though Im thinking I ned to do better as it looks cumbersome and like it may block some access to the mouth of the carboy.
Also it can be used to elevate the carboy while im racking into it depending on the situation.
Or it could be used to display a single carboy crate and keep the airlock activity a little farther away from my dogs nose.

Let me know what yall think, I am going to start looking for reclaimed lumber and would love some feedback on potential issues or improvements that could be made.

 

[tjmac5071]

Have you thought about building the crates and having them on shelving? I can just imagine the shuffling game as the bottom batch it begging to get bottled or kegged. I am sure if you used some reclaimed wood or rough edge pine you could make the shelves themselves part of the display.

 

[CU_tony]

Good point, this project stems from a wildly derailed thought chain after I had some flimsy shelves that were the perfect size, but not perfect for 4 carboys, and while thinking of ways to fix those shelves, I stumbled this direction.

I will put some thought into shelves, but the one main con that I see, is a finite amount of space. And it will always be that amount.
Shelves that can hold 6 carboys will take up the same space if there is 1 or 6 carboys, whereas if I were to have fewer carboys in use I can put them in storage and only have the current experiments on dispaly.

Also I feel like the crates lend themselves towards stacking due to them spanning something like %80 of the height of the carboy, whereas with a shelves structure I would likely aim for something more like a glorified milk crate (the current not stackable solution, as with a few brewhaulers)

I did have a fleeting thought of a stand that would hold three carboys going vertical on a slight angle for trub collection purposes. I liked the thought of it but wasnt thrilled with the idea of having 2 or 4 carboys to deal with after making a 3 carboy solution.

As for the shuffling, Im hoping with some planning I can minimize that, and since these are long term brews, I hope its not likely to be a frequent exercise, perhaps every 3-6 months.

I tinkered with the design a bit more flipping a few pieces and drawing up a shorter stacker piece, it does look like there is plenty of room for pulling an airlock to sample on the open right hand side, and it appears that I can stick a racking cane through the upper crate on the front side to rack the lower in place.


Does anyone know if racking in place after months undisturbed is comparable to cold crashing or is that a more silly thought for things like appfelwein and/or mead?

 

[EazyMcBreazy]

Milk crates

 

[CU_tony]

Milk crates

Milk Crates dont satisfy hardly any of the criteria Im aiming for. Plus those in addition to a few brew haulers is what I am currently using.

I want something that looks nice enough to display in my house, and my goal is to stack them vertically which milk crates cannot safely do without serious modifications.

Also just to state the obvious, I like woodworking projects and over engineering is something I strive to live up to every day :rockin:

 

[Sadu]

How do you plan to keep the light away from the carboys? The aesthetics aren't as nice with towels draped everywhere.

 

[John Paul Stoddard]

What is the Most you will have on Display at a Time?
I have seen Racks that hold a single carboy that could tilt at racking time.

 

[tracyk]

I just use Ozarka water bottle crates. They are higher than milk crates. The ones that I have are blue in color.

 

[CU_tony]

How do you plan to keep the light away from the carboys? The aesthetics aren't as nice with towels draped everywhere.

I havent read anything that leads me to be concerned about light hitting fermenting beverages that do not contain hops.

My only anecdotal evidence was my first batch of apfelwein that as an experiment I left purposefully uncovered in my living room ~3' away from a window. That batch tasted wonderful and I knew that as easy as non-boil "brews" are I would definitely be scaling up.
I knew with scaling up that I would not be able to use my fermentation chamber for all (or even most) of these batches as it caps out at 3 ish carboys.

I currently have 15 gallons going and counted another 5x 5 gallon carboys in the shed waiting for something...

I would imagine 6 to be a good number at any given time once I finish getting ramped up.
Ramping up will likely depend on apple juice sales as well as that store's stock since most dont seem to carry 10+ gallons of whatever they have on sale (and worse, most dont seem to ever have the 1 gallons on sale, just the 2 qt packages..)