My all grain setup :)

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Rugger1978
Craft Brewer
Posts: 295
Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2011 4:21 pm

My all grain setup :)

#1 Post by Rugger1978 » Mon May 02, 2011 4:02 pm

I started brewing my own brew when I got laid off last July. I started with Extract and Specialty Grains and after learning the process decided to make the jump all grain brewing. I wanted to show my setup I built for anybody who is interested in saving some money by building their own. I know even a cheap prebuilt setup just to hold everything is in the upper hundreds of dollars. I decided to go with a tier setup to save on not having to buy pumps and batch sparging to save on not having to purchase another kettle with fake bottom and such. Also alot of items I received by putting them on my birthday and christmas lists, lol.

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I built the frame using slotted angle iron purchased from home depot. I simply did my measurements and cut the pieces with a grinder and then bolted everything together. You could save money by picking up old bedframes, but then you have to drill holes or do some welding. I would say total cost in the slotted angle iron is around $150.00. Notice I also built a shelf into the frame, which I would highly recommend having! I use that shelf for a lot, including somewhere to put my beer while I'm brewing lol.

The top pot is a 10 gallon heavy duty aluminum stock pot that I purchased for $170 from a guy on ebay. It came with the lid, thermostat, and drain valve. I installed a site gauge and marked it every gallon so I know exactly how much water I'm putting into the cooler. The bottom pot is a 20 gallon heavy duty aluminum pot I purchased from waresdirect.com for $80.00. I then purchased the valve from morebeer.com. The burners are bayou classics purchased from http://www.bayouclassiccooking.com/high ... ooker.html. The bottom one is a high pressure cooker model SP10 and it will bring 12 gallons of wort to boil in less then 15 minutes. The top one is a low pressure model.

The cooler for mashing is a Coolman Extreme Cold 70 quart. It has enough space for high gravity 5 gallon batch or normal 10 gallon batches. There's a webiste that shows how to convert these coolers into a mash tun.

To cool the wort as it exits the boiler I run it through a shirron chiller. These things are expensive, but well woth the money! I spent $100 on this particular one and it cools the wort extremely fast and then dumps straight into the fermenter bucket. You'll notice in the picture as it exits the shirron chiller it goes through an in-line thermostat. I can adjust the temp of the wort by simply increasing/decreasing the pressure of the water being run through it.

For areation I got a aeration stone with an inline air filter that I put my air nossel from air compressor upto. Aerates very fast!

You will also notice I have the whole setup next to a sink I installed in the garage for the porpuse of cleaning and being able to put water into kettles and run my shirron wort chiller.

I hope this helps anybody who has any questions about buildling one of these things. I'm sure there are some changes that the more experienced brewers might change, but the beauty of bolts, is that I can adjust shelf height as needed to accomodate different setups in the future.

Cheers!
Jared Rudy
Fat Back Brewing
On Tap: Irish Red Ale, Vienna Lager, American Wheat, Belgian Triple, Oatmeal Stout, Saison, Hard Cider
Primary: Oktoberfest-Marzen
Kegged/Ageing: Russian Imperial Stout, Oktoberfest-Marzen
Next Brew: Vienna Lager or an IPA

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Bill
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Posts: 935
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:21 am
Location: Auburn/Topeka

Re: My all grain setup :)

#2 Post by Bill » Sun May 08, 2011 11:44 am

Looks pretty good. I still haven't put mine together yet. I think I have all of the bed frames needed to get it done.

How close do you have that to the wall? Are you concerned about the heat coming off of the burners and how that would affect the wall?

good project!
Thanks!

--Bill

all your mash are belong to us

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Rugger1978
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Posts: 295
Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2011 4:21 pm

Re: My all grain setup :)

#3 Post by Rugger1978 » Thu May 12, 2011 8:49 am

The unit itself butts up against the wall, but the burners set away from it. The white wall is actually 3/4" fire retardant laminate to make for easy cleaning and less worries about burning down house. However, I can say that the laminate has never gotten hot as I did check the first couple times I was brewing. I'll look at taking a picture from the side and posting it so you can see.

I also forgot to mention that having the propane bottles in the garage is poor practice and they should really be left outside and a hose ran to the unit.
Jared Rudy
Fat Back Brewing
On Tap: Irish Red Ale, Vienna Lager, American Wheat, Belgian Triple, Oatmeal Stout, Saison, Hard Cider
Primary: Oktoberfest-Marzen
Kegged/Ageing: Russian Imperial Stout, Oktoberfest-Marzen
Next Brew: Vienna Lager or an IPA

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