Brewing Stand

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I am in the process of making a Homebrew brewing stand.  The material is from the kids old trampoline.  The steel is galvonized, so i did it outside the garage for better ventilation.Also, I am using my new found TIG skills and using stainless filler rod where ever possible.  Please let me know your thoughts/ideas.Anyone have any homebrew experience out there?  ...maybe you have some good ideas as what to add to this stand.Thanks,Joe Attached Images
Reply:Here's another picture Attached Images
Reply:There is still more to add to the stand....and will post those pics when ready Attached Images
Reply:Looks great. I used to homebrew for years and years but not recently. My wife worked for Charlie Papazian at the American Homebrewer's Association for a while, his setup is insane. I can't think of anything to add- good job!
Reply:Looks good to me. I haven't brewed in a couple of years. Do you have a cooling coil in your brew pot? Are you going to put a pump on it to get your wert back into the kettle from the lauter tung? I built a counterflowing chiller that would cool the wert to 70 degrees straight from the brew pot to the fermenter.  Oh crap now you've got me wanten to go creatin a batch
Reply:I also have a counterflow wort chiller and will be incorporating it into the a seperate brewing kettle stand that will accompany the mashing stand shown above.  I put the counterflow chiller on my christmas wish-list last year and my mom got it for me!  Aren't mom's great!   Yes, there is a pump for it to do the recirculating for a step mash and when sparging.  To accomodate this, i welded extra couplings on the Hot Liquor Tank (all 1/2" NPT) and connected a copper coil to them. The coil sits inside the tank and acts as a heat exchanger for increasing the temperature.  The Hot Liquor Tank is the tank you see sitting up highest on the stand.  The green igloo cooler is my mash/lauter tun.I am going to keep my brewing kettle seperate so as to be able to clean up everthing else while the actual brewing takes place.  Hence, i can just wheel it away from the rest of the system. Attached Images
Reply:My suggestion, is to clean it all up, and get it powdercoated. since you used something other than stainless (really it is the only good thing to use in food grade situations) you will wnat to protect your beer from contaminants, and that rust will let all sorts of creepy crawlys in.
Reply:The wort doesn't come in contact with any of the stand components.  But i understand your concern about getting contaminats into the beer.  That would definitely be scary!  My cousin said the same thing about painting or powder coating it.  Sounds like a great idea!  ...and it would be more pleasing to the eye.Any idea how much it would cost to get it powder coated?  Also, I recently acquired a sheet of stainless steel for a few other components of the stand. The guy bartered it for beer! These are the kind of deals i really like!  I will post pictures of the new modifications when they become available.
Reply:looking good, my one concern is that you mash out to the lowest level where ( I presume) you cook the wort. Then you have the issue of raising (5 gal?) of boiling wort up to discharge into the carboy. I need a way to lift; by mechanical means, so my old body doesn't get burned. but enjoy the new toy, the process and the esult.pswhat is your method of straining out the hops from the hot wort?
Reply:How to get rid of the hop residue, and other solids that form during the boil?  I  joined a local brewing club a couple of years ago soon after I started brewing (Pontiac Brewing Tribe) and posed the same question to few of the mighty Brewmasters.  They suggested doing the same as the microbreweries: whirlpooling the hot wort for 15 minutes before moving it through the wort chiller. Whirlpooling causes all the particulates to settle into the center of the brew pot.  As long as you do not disturb the brew pot afterwards, the hop residue and hot-break will stay put where they settled.  Some extra hardware is required in order to create the whirlpool. What I did is as follows:1. weld on two fittings near the bottom of the brewpot. In my case, 1/2" NPT Stainless Steel Couplings2. Install a right angle copper pipe on the inside of the keg3. Hook up a pump which can handle the high temperature. Mine is a magnetically coupled pump with a polysulfone head.  The pump outlet is attached to the right angle fitting.  The pump inlet is attached to the straight fitting.  Thus a whirlpool can now be created. Voila!Also, I have not seen any hot side aeration (which is was a big concern of mine) by using this method. Attached Images
Reply:Here is an inside view of the brewing kettle: Attached Images
Reply:I would also like to get the brewing kettle up as high as possible.  Because of this, I'm still in the design stage of the actual "Brewing Stand".  The previous pictures show only the "Mashing" portion of the process.Taking a look at the Mash Stand pictures, you will notice that the brew kettle can sit kind of high if I design the brewing stand properly.  The top of the kettle can actually be a about 6 inches higher than the bottom of the Mash/Lauter Tun (Green Igloo Cooler) since the kettle cannot be filled all the way. I would, however, like to design the Brewing Stand so that it can be lifted another foot after brewing is complete and before it is whirlpooled.The REAL dilemna is that the lowest point of the Brew Kettle, with counterflow Wort Chiller attached, must be higher than the top of the fermenting vessel. I was thinking about utilizing a scissors mechanism and a hydraulic bottle jack.......or maybe retrofitting one of those tables with a hydraulic lift... I am open for suggestions here!  Anybody out there have any?
Reply:It's been a while since my last brewing stand posting.  The stand is coming along great. Been getting a lot of good advice from everyone in my brewing club, the web, and from postings here on Welding Web.This whole project is making my brewday go much faster and easier.  Here are a few pictures of the brewing portion of the stand.Check out the burner!  This puppy gets my wort boiling really quick and has really saved a lot of money on propane. Attached Images
Reply:Looks good to me. Where did you find that burner. That looks better than the turkey fryer I use.Brett B & B Fabrication and Welding Inc.Spalding, MI.
Reply:I got the burner as a christmas gift last year from my mom (aren't mom's great!).  This burner is awesome.  You can get one of these from a plac eon the internet called Beer, Beer, and More Beer.http://www.morebeer.comThey sell three different models: 100,000  200,000 and 300,000 BTU  all in propane or natural gas models.The one pictured is the 200,000 BTU model and costs $70.  The 100,000 BTU model is $40.  I have both models and found it is worth the extra $30 to get the bigger one.I used to use the turkey fryer burner also.  This one seems to be significantly more efficient with the propane.  With the turkey fryer burner, I could get about 2-1/4 batches of beer out of a 20# tank of propane.  With the new burner, I am going on my fourth batch ...and these are all with a 90 minute boil!  I expect to get even 5 batches out of the 20# tank.  I will keep uou posted on when the tack goes empty.Just one other thing, gotta watch those boil overs!  I had a few boil overs because this burner is really potent.  You can get a nice steady boil with this thing on low.I highly suggest getting one. It will save a lot of money in the long run.   L8R,Joe