Questions on building a brew stand

[dmcman73]

I am currently finishing up my build out of an all electric All Grain brew setup, I am not about to work on the stand.

I don't have a lot of room width wise (about 44" wide) nor do I have a lot of height to work with in my basement (ceilings are low, about 8'). I was thinking of building a two tier setup where my HLT and BK (both are SS 10 Gal kettles with heating elements built into them) will be at counter height and my Mash/Tun would be under one of them on a lower shelf(it's a round 10Gal cooler). The HLT would gravity drain into the Mash/Tun and then I would have a pump to bring the wort up into the BK. I figured that way both the HLT and BK will be directly under the exhaust hood and I won't have to worry about condensation collecting on the stand if one of them was at the lowest point under.

Would this work?

Thanks

 

[jmichaeldesign]

I have only pumped directly from the mlt once and had a 15% drop in efficiency. I have heard from many others that pumping the mash has had similar results. I know that many people do this so there must be a way to fix this.

I decided however to do a two tier system where I pump water up to the mlt and gravity drain to the boils kettle.

There's a limited amount of steam coming from the hlt so I wouldn't be too concerned about it being directly under a vent hood. I keep my hlt covered so no steam escapes

 

[dmcman73]

Thanks. I changed my design around similar to the "One Barrel Brewery" design that's here on the forums. Three levels where the Mash/tun will be at the highest. The next level for the BK which will be off to the right of the MT and low enough where the valve of the MT clears the top lip of the BK to gravity feed and then right below the MT I'll have my HLT where I'll have a pump pumping the water up to the MT.