New house - Brewery/Garage build

[Bartp]

Hell yea, the house is built and I’ve been moved in for over a month! Time to put together my brewery. Ever since I sold my last house, I’ve been gipsy brewing in my dad’s garage, not ideal but can’t let the kegs run dry, right?

I’m excited to get some brewing space back. I hope to finish this project within next two months.

Here’s the plan:

I want to have a brewing nook with adequate storage and counter space. My system is a 20 gallon eBIAB pot (I’ve switched to BIAB few years ago and I’m not looking back). The counters are 16” deep to make room for the cars.

The wine chiller is used as fermentation chamber. I have a Renco controller hooked up to it and 15 gallon fermenter inside. The kettle sits on top. It’s an eBIAB system with a heating element directly in the kettle, no flame. 212 is the hottest this will get so a cork pad under the kettle should be sufficient to protect the counter. I’ll be installing a hoist pulley above the kettle to raise the grain bag.

Here’s my controller and kettle.

Here’s how the garage looked few months ago.

Here it is now, after I painted gray few weekends ago.

Here’s what I’m hoping it will look like soon:

I’ll keep you guys posted on progress, but don't expect any instant gratifications. My next project is hanging the cabinets, hopefully this weekend and then floor.

Wish me luck.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

God i cant wait to get a new house, my current one only has a single car garage..as a bachelor not brewing i had no reason to have a two car garage...now i cant wait.

Will be watching this thread!

 

[Rivenin]

there are some new epic builds lately!

 

[treacheroustexan]

Following. I hope my lady and I will be getting a house next year or so that way I can start on my brewery! Yours looks great!

 

[Bartp]

God i cant wait to get a new house, my current one only has a single car garage..as a bachelor not brewing i had no reason to have a two car garage...now i cant wait.

Will be watching this thread!

Yea it really is great. My last place was a 950sqft condo so no garage. It was tough but I still managed to brew 10 gal batches in the kitchen Patio shed was for fermentation.

Love the PiBrew btw... after I'm done with this I think I'm going to dust off my arduino and raspberry and put this together. looks fantastic.


treacheroustexan -- It's not built yet so lets not get too excited lol. Knowing me it's gonna turn out looking like ass

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Love the PiBrew btw... after I'm done with this I think I'm going to dust off my arduino and raspberry and put this together. looks fantastic.

Good to hear, it is pretty awesome to have such control over such a important process!

The only other thing i'd really like that level of temp control over is my mashing, but to get that means hundreds/thousands in building up an electric setup

 

[JetSmooth]

Got a thread on that control box? I have a few ammo cans and am planning to do something similar.

 

[Bartp]

Got a thread on that control box? I have a few ammo cans and am planning to do something similar.

Not yet, I'll try to put something together for sure. I love these ammo cans, they're cheap and make great project boxes. Plus portable.

I took tons of pictures while building it. I could do a full on step by step. This is still a bit of work in the process though, as for now I've been using it on 120v to keep the mash temp steady and subsidize boil.

The element is 5500w, however at 120v it outputs 1375w. But with the 20 gal pot sitting over two burners + element, I have no problem bringing 15 gal of wort to boil.

Now that I'm no longer using a stove top, I'll be doing a 220 conversion and I'll try to document both builds.

FuzzeWuzze -- I don't think it's that bad. I built my PID based controller for under $200. It works beautifully. If you source your parts right (aka use whatever you already have) you could pull this off relatively cheap.

 

[eaglerisingbrew]

Those are amazing shots of the build. I look forward to seeing the progress and wonder what my wife would say if I took over the entire garage...

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Not yet, I'll try to put something together for sure. I love these ammo cans, they're cheap and make great project boxes. Plus portable.

I took tons of pictures while building it. I could do a full on step by step. This is still a bit of work in the process though, as for now I've been using it on 120v to keep the mash temp steady and subsidize boil.

The element is 5500w, however at 120v it outputs 1375w. But with the 20 gal pot sitting over two burners + element, I have no problem bringing 15 gal of wort to boil.

Now that I'm no longer using a stove top, I'll be doing a 220 conversion and I'll try to document both builds.

FuzzeWuzze -- I don't think it's that bad. I built my PID based controller for under $200. It works beautifully. If you source your parts right (aka use whatever you already have) you could pull this off relatively cheap.

Waiting for build log

 

[Bartp]

emergency trip to the ER and 10 stitches put a little damper on my plans to work on the garage over the weekend.

oh well, hopefully I'll bleed less next weekend.

 

[Gunfighter04]

Ouch,

You need to find a neater seamstress.

 

[JetSmooth]

That's gotta hurt.

Well, less building time is more documenting time, amirite?

 

[Bartp]

That's gotta hurt.

Well, less building time is more documenting time, amirite?

Right, typing also got affected lol

 

[HomeWetBar]

That ammo case controller is awesome! Would you be interested in posting the plans for it? Looking forward to seeing the rest of the build!

 

[Bartp]

That ammo case controller is awesome! Would you be interested in posting the plans for it? Looking forward to seeing the rest of the build!

Yes, I did start putting together some instructions. If time works to my advantage I'll post something soon.

 

[Bartp]

I made some progress over the weekend. The cabinets are hung.


I also finished the kegerator that cost me 10 stitches...


Now I need to do some electrical and plumbing work.

 

[Bartp]

Lol 15 months later I'm finally done!

Needless to say, it took longer than expected.

Over the last 15 months I've been slowly working on hanging the cabinets, installing counter tops, water hookups and sewer, hooking up the sink, running a conduit for 240 service, installing a 50a GFCI panel, and (re)building the control panel.

But in reality majority of the work happened in the past two months.

Although in the original post I said I'm sticking with BIAB, now I'm planning on getting another kettle and building a Brutus 20 type system.

What do you guys think?

 

[Woodbrews]

Very nice! What model refrigerators are you using for your kegerator and ferm chamber? Those look really cool.