Show me pics of your dedicated brewing rooms!

[kal]

To close the loop: Thanks to all those who posted pictures and ideas.

My new basement brew room is now at the stage where I'd call it 'complete' and having brewed in it about half a dozen times or so now I'm happy to report that I like the added space compared to what I had before.

Before I used to only make wort in the 'brewery' and left milling, grain storage, fermenting, and conditioning/serving to other parts of the basement (mostly the furnace room). Now these have all been combined into one room. It's nice to have everything in one spot - no running around the house.

Milling and fermenting in the same room can sometimes be a concern with dust getting into the fermentation and causing infections, but I always mill the night before brewing, my mill sits on top of a round MDF board that completely covers the grain bucket, and by the time I pitch the yeast ~24 hours later the room vent hood's been running a long time exchausting the air in the room many times over (fresh air is drawn from the outside through a vent I open when I run the fan).

Some pictures:

Waiting for the boil to finish (watched wort still boils):

Conditioning fridge and grain shelves:

The conditioning fridge holds 6 kegs that are on CO2 (5lb tank). When a keg in the keezer blows, I grab another from here and it's all ready to go. There's some room for overflow beer and other things too:

Keezer on the right holds the 8 kegs that are being served on tap while the freezer on the left is run as an actual freezer (0 F) for hops, yeast, and a copper chilling coil to cool the tap tower coolant:

(It's an older picture - the beer line hoses are not hooked up yet)

You can see into the brewery from the bar (dimmable spot lights on the kettles and other shiny stuff can be left on if people are hanging around the bar):

Kal

 

[Bostonbrewin63]

Wow^^^^^^^^^^^. Bad..... Just badassss......

 

[arvee]

Dedicated brewing rooms? Now that is faaaannncy.

Maybe someday I'll have that. For now my kitchen works.

 

[grathan]

I feel like I just watched grand finale at the fireworks show.

 

[Channel66]

To close the loop: Thanks to all those who posted pictures and ideas.

My new basement brew room is now at the stage where I'd call it 'complete' and having brewed in it about half a dozen times or so now I'm happy to report that I like the added space compared to what I had before.

Before I used to only make wort in the 'brewery' and left milling, grain storage, fermenting, and conditioning/serving to other parts of the basement (mostly the furnace room). Now these have all been combined into one room. It's nice to have everything in one spot - no running around the house.

Milling and fermenting in the same room can sometimes be a concern with dust getting into the fermentation and causing infections, but I always mill the night before brewing, my mill sits on top of a round MDF board that completely covers the grain bucket, and by the time I pitch the yeast ~24 hours later the room vent hood's been running a long time exchausting the air in the room many times over (fresh air is drawn from the outside through a vent I open when I run the fan).

Some pictures:

Waiting for the boil to finish (watched wort still boils):

Conditioning fridge and grain shelves:

The conditioning fridge holds 6 kegs that are on CO2 (5lb tank). When a keg in the keezer blows, I grab another from here and it's all ready to go. There's some room for overflow beer and other things too:

Keezer on the right holds the 8 kegs that are being served on tap while the freezer on the left is run as an actual freezer (0 F) for hops, yeast, and a copper chilling coil to cool the tap tower coolant:

(It's an older picture - the beer line hoses are not hooked up yet)

You can see into the brewery from the bar (dimmable spot lights on the kettles and other shiny stuff can be left on if people are hanging around the bar):

Kal

That's just.... beautiful.

 

[aquenne]

No its not a dungeon, just my little brew area in the basement of a 110 or so year old house.

Not the prettiest but a few years in the making and im quite pleased with it. Not pictured but there is a floor drain just infront of the brew stand, nice to be able to spray things down and not have to worry.

Pretty standard as far as set up goes. BK and HLT have 5.5kw elements, controlled by selector switch. PID (hlt has RTD at herms out) and for BK I use manual duty cycle control.

One interesting thing is for sparge, I heat water from our hot water heater thru the HLT (for temp control) at a slow rate so that I can pump from MLT to BK. Typically fly sparging on a single tier requires 2 pumps.

 

[bracehelton]

I converted a room that used to be my sorts bar into my BreüRoom. I have a Sabco Brew Magic with all the accessories (chill wizard, stainless fermenter and storage tank). I had to weld up a frame for a ventilation hood to fight fumes and evap. The one thing I'm not happy with is the big ugly white fermentation chest freezer. I need to wrap it to make it fit the rest of the color profiles. The TV is dual purpose, on brew days I "Airplay" (apple Mac book/ Apple TV lingo) my beersmith brew timer for a 50" displayed recipe and timer to assist me. The water filter shown is a .5 micron hi temperature set up plumbed off of my hot water line for the house. I would love to cut a hole in the wall and put a sliding door to the exterior where I could install a big stainless sink because I don't have room to fit it in the BreüRoom. For now I use a sink in the adjacent laundry room.

 

[DocScott]

kal: oh...my...god... That is beautiful.

 

[kal]

View attachment 129535

I like the industrial (almost 'steam punk') look to the vent hood. Very cool!

Kal

 

[Jayhem]

When someone tells me that homebrewing does NOT save you money, they must be thinking of this amazing setup:

My setup does save money because it costs about 1,000 times less than Kal's insane setup!

haha. I feel so ghetto now. But. Hey, I still make good beer!

 

[kal]

Agreed! More expensive equipment doesn't guarantee good beer. Good beer is mostly about the brewer, not the equipment.

I had an email recently from someone basically wanting a guarantee that if they build my setup that they'd win awards for their beer. I told him that just like good running shoes do not automatically make you a world class runner, good equipment is no guarantee of good beer. That's backwards.

Kal

 

[-TH-]

A few pics inside the brew cave...

 

[Jayhem]

Is it safe to run propane burners indoors if you have a hood and vent fan pulling the fumes outside the house? I'd love to brew indoors in the winter but I'd have to have a large fan and hood for my 13.5 gal full boils over propane. I'm also a bit wary of having propane in my basement directly underneath 2 floors of 20 year old pine floor joists....just sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

 

[kal]

Is it safe to run propane burners indoors if you have a hood and vent fan pulling the fumes outside the house?

It is if your ventilation is adequate.

Due to the extra heat and poisonous gases that must be removed, the ventilation requirements are considerably higher with a gas brewery as compared to electric however.

John Blichmann wrote an article for the November 2012 issue of BYO magazine that summarized ventilation requirements of both as follows:

- Electric based brewery: Divide the element size (in watts) by 17.6 to obtain the required CFM (cubic feet per minute). In my case (and many others) I use a 5500W element in my boil kettle. 5500 / 17.6 = 312 CFM. I therefore require a fan that can move a minimum of 312 CFM in order to ventilate my indoor electric brewery properly. I use a ~450 CFM one since I've got a couple of twists and turns which reduces airflow.

- Gas based brewery: Divide the burner’s BTU/hour rating by 30. A 80,000 BTU burner is about an average size for gas brewers (produces approximately the same amount of heat in the kettle as a 5500W element). 80,000 / 30 = 2666 CFM. You would therefore require a fan that can move 2666 CFM in order to ventilate a gas setup properly if a 80,000 BTU burner is used. (That's a pretty big fan and requires a pretty massive duct size too).

More info in my in-depth ventilation article.

Don't forget the make-up air requirements too. The air has to come from somewhere. Opening up a window is adequate if you have one. Otherwise you need a vent somewhere to the outside that you can open and close (that's what I do).

When brewing I close the brew room door and have this vent to the outside open to feed fresh air to the room. This way I don't exhaust all of the air-conditioned air from the house in the summer, and don't exhaust all the heated air from the house in the winter.

Kal

 

[Jayhem]

It is if your ventilation is adequate.

Due to the extra heat and poisonous gases that must be removed, the ventilation requirements are considerably higher with a gas brewery as compared to electric however.


- Gas based brewery: Divide the burner’s BTU/hour rating by 30. A 80,000 BTU burner is about an average size for gas brewers (produces approximately the same amount of heat in the kettle as a 5500W element). 80,000 / 30 = 2666 CFM. You would therefore require a fan that can move 2666 CFM in order to ventilate a gas setup properly if a 80,000 BTU burner is used. (That's a pretty big fan and requires a pretty massive duct size too).

More info in my in-depth ventilation article.


Kal

Yea the size of the fan needed to make it safe would make the cost savings by not going to electric negate itself.

I'm pretty content with my outdoor brewing setup, it's also more fun to sit in a lawn chair on the deck enjoying the view and a homebrew while you wait on the mash and boil. It's effective just not as awesome as a dedicated indoor home brewery.

 

[kal]

Yea the size of the fan needed to make it safe would make the cost savings by not going to electric negate itself.

That is unfortunately usually the case.

To quote myself from my article:

"Because of the enormous ventilation requirements of a gas based brewery (12.5 times higher than an equivalent electric setup), an indoor gas brewery is not easily achievable. It requires a massive amount of air evacuation as well as an equally substantial make-up air system. Large fans with ducting larger than 16" in diameter may be required, making safe indoor gas brewing very expensive. It is not uncommon for the ventilation and make-up air system of a gas based indoor brewery to cost more than the brewing setup itself."

I'm pretty content with my outdoor brewing setup, it's also more fun to sit in a lawn chair on the deck enjoying the view and a homebrew while you wait on the mash and boil. It's effective just not as awesome as a dedicated indoor home brewery.

Sitting outdoors brewing is indeed lots of fun. It's the one thing I don't get and is one of the reasons why I brew mostly in the winter (as I'd rather be outside in the summer). The ground water's colder in the winter making chilling easier/faster too of course.

I tend to do a lot of evening brews so I don't miss brewing in the summer (it's dark out early in Canada). I start heating the HLT after work and don't boil until later around 9PM after the kids are in bed. What I like is that up until the boil I have very little fiddling to do so I can spend time with the family (no need to babysit the brewing setup). The real work starts when the boil gets underway and I clean out the mash tun, clean the fermenters, get yeast ready, add hops the boil, chill, etc.
Everything's usually cleaned up by around 11PM.

Kal

 

[kchomebrew]

 

[DarthBrewer87]

 

[Chuginator]

Kal, you have serious issues. That is all.

This is also a bump... I'd like to see more!

 

[kal]

Kal, you have serious issues. That is all.

This is also a bump... I'd like to see more!

Sure - here are a few more...

Boiling:

Watching the boil:

Conditioning fridge / grain storage:

The fridge holds 6 kegs and a 5lb CO2 tank, various beers, yeast, etc:

Cleaned up, kettles drying:

Earlier shot, hooking up the 8 draft lines (freezer on the left is for yeast & hops, and has a copper coolant loop to chill the draft lines, freezer on the right is the 8-keg serving keezer):

Bar:

Where the brewery is located in relation to everything else in the basement:

Kal

 

[Channel66]

Sure - here are a few more...

Boiling:

Watching the boil:

Conditioning fridge / grain storage:

The fridge holds 6 kegs and a 5lb CO2 tank, various beers, yeast, etc:

Cleaned up, kettles drying:

Earlier shot, hooking up the 8 draft lines (freezer on the left is for yeast & hops, and has a copper coolant loop to chill the draft lines, freezer on the right is the 8-keg serving keezer):

Bar:

Where the brewery is located in relation to everything else in the basement:

Kal

I have a certain hatred/admiration for you.

 

[shoreman]

Kal - that is impressive to say the least. Did you build that yourself over time or have someone do it? Looks like a dream setup - enjoy it.

 

[m3n00b]

Sure - here are a few more...
Kal

You sir, win the internets today! :rockin: I just found my purpose.

 

[kal]

Hi Shoreman. I had a local company (JustBasements Ottawa) take our ideas and do the design and build. It was way too much work for me to even consider not to mention I couldn't figure out how to fit it all in and still have it look nice. They came up with some interesting ideas too that I never would have tought of like the windows between the bar and brewery.

That said, I still somehow managed to spend 2-3 hours/day working on it (I did all the low voltage wiring, home theater setup, buying/installing some of the components, and all of the brewery setup as it came as a big empty tiled room).

It was a great collaborative effort but they did the design and 95% of the heavy lifting. I make 100% of the beer however.

I have a day by day blog of the build here if you're curious. It includes hundreds of build photos, step by step. I learnt a lot!

Kal

 

[limulus]

This is all I'm allowed to show. The rest is classified and if you saw it...yeah, I'd have to send someone to kill you.

 

[Inkleg]

This is all I'm allowed to show. The rest is classified and if you saw it...yeah, I'd have to send someone to kill you.

Wait, I've passsed by your house when the garage doors were open.
Damn, now I guess I'll just have to wait for that "someone" to show up.

They are bringing your beer and I have to drink myself to death... right?

 

[Channel66]

This is all I'm allowed to show. The rest is classified and if you saw it...yeah, I'd have to send someone to kill you.

I like your garage doors for what it's worth.

 

[limulus]

Wait, I've passsed by your house when the garage doors were open.
Damn, now I guess I'll just have to wait for that "someone" to show up.

They are bringing your beer and I have to drink myself to death... right?

Watch your back dude.

 

[tdogg]

So, when someone asks if homebrewing saves you money... do you laugh or cry?

 

[m3n00b]

I like your garage doors for what it's worth.

This guy saw too much. I saw nothing. -_-

 

[ryanhope]

This thread is depressing and inspiring!

 

[PLOVE]

Anyone with a nice indoor/outdoor brewing setup. For example, a solarium? Man caves are nice, but they are still caves. Living in the PNW you need to soak up all the rays you can

Thanks for inspiration everyone!

 

[Randy_Bugger]

I make world class beer in a 1974 conversion van, down by the river.

 

[limulus]

I make world class beer in a 1974 conversion van, down by the river.

He's also a motivational speaker when he's not brewing

 

[Randy_Bugger]

He's also a motivational speaker when he's not brewing

Plus, I can bench 400lbs and have a stupidly hot wife who shags like a porn star AND brings home the bacon!

I wish I had a fancier looking brewing area, though.

 

[Southern_Junior]

I start heating the HLT after work and don't boil until later around 9PM]

Kal

I'm in college and have plenty of time to switch directions now. What is this "work" you speak of that bought this killer brewery?!?!

 

[tonyc318]

I'm mad that I looked at this thread. I currently have to haul all of my stuff out and set up every time. We are going to be doing some work out the porch which should give me a brewery zone under the porch. Then I will be able to set up and leave it there. Can't wait. Nice work on your set ups!

 

[malchizedec]

Bit messy but it works well for all types of brewing projects.

 

[BayerischBier]

Bit messy but it works well for all types of brewing projects.View attachment 821713

So many biotech and potential sci-fi/weaponary questions..... Star Trek photon torpedo or a smart safe for a lager?? #humor

 

[malchizedec]

Some new additions