Water Cart

[brewtodrinktobrew]

Hello brewers,

So for quite some time I have had this idea of building a “Water Cart”. The premise was to mount a water filter, a propane instant hot water heater, a pump, a Electric HLT, a counter flow chiller and a Hose for cleaning all to a cart to roll to the patio that is my brew area. I finally put it together and did a “Wet Run” with no grain or hops and I am ready to brew.

I have to say I like it a lot and I can’t wait to brew on it. I am going to swing by my LBS tomorrow and make a SMASH IPA to break it in.

From today’s test I was able to run water through a 3 stage filter into the heater into my kettle at 150 degree. I filled both sparge and mash liquid in about 15 min, much faster than heating the water via propane to mash temp. A single pass from the chiller put the water at 64 degrees.

This is going to cut my brew day down by a lot not to mention that I am just rolling my brew cart and the new water cart to my brewing patio. I will post more updates once I brew on it!

 

[Cyclman]

Great concept.

 

[brewtodrinktobrew]

So I brewed a 11gallon Citra Smash IPA on the new rig. I set up the rig, ground the grain, set up my water additions and hops. I turned the water on at 125pm, the water went through the filter into the hot water heater it started up automatically, I dialed it in to output 150 degree water to my boil kettle. I transferred that to my HLT cooler. Then I filled my Mash tun. I mashed in 45 min after water on. I feel like that is pretty good for a 3 stage filter and heating the water.
The rest of the brew was pretty normal. 1 hour mash, 45 min sparge and 1 hour boil. The counter flow chiller dropped from boiling to 180 while recirculating to the whirlpool port in JUST TWO MINUTES! After whirlpool I transferred directly to the fermenter in a single pass, 11 gallons in 8 mins.
Clean up was a breeze I had everything cleaned and put back in the garage by 625pm, making a 5 hour brew session for an 11 gallon batch.
If anyone wants to build something similar let me know and I will be happy to share more details.