This page shows the brewing stand which I designed and built. I had considered building a single tier, brutus-10 style stand, but didn’t like them for various reasons (storage space, needing a second pump to do fly sparging, etc), so I decided on a 2 tier.
My requirements were the possibility of automation, burners for both the HLT + BK, fly sparging, HERMS, and to upgrade some of my components. I ended up reusing the burner from my SQ14 as the HLT burner, added a new blichmann burner for the boil kettle, and a new SS brewtech boil kettle.
The stand was planned using sketchup. I had 2 15 gallon kettles, and a cooler mash tun to accommodate for (and planned for the future possibility of a kettle mash tun). If you want the sketchup file, you can grab it below.
It took some experimenting, but I came up with a 4 fin + “heat blocking bar” for the burner mounts. This allows the gasses to escape from under the pot, but keeps the heat from coming up the front and burning the sightglass, valve, thermometer, and whatever other equipment is attached to the kettle.
The stand also has a removable shelf.
Since storage was a concern, I also designed it so that it would have a “storage mode”, and take less floor space in my garage. Here it is in storage mode.
The wheels are removable as well. Conveniently, they can fit into the same openings that the shelves go into. That means during storage mode, I can wheel the stand around upright if I wanted to.
Just for some more detail, here are the burner mounts from underneath. I added in a battery-powered ignition for the burners.
And finally, the pump mount. I moved over to stainless camlocks during this, and they are WAAAYY more convenient from the plastic quick disconnects I was using before. Since this picture was taken, I have upgraded to the blichmann pump.
Some more details..
- I used 14 gauge 1&1/2″ square tubing for the main stand, and 16 gauge 1&1/4″ tubing for the shelf and wheel mounts.
- Most of the bolts/clevis pins/etc are just 3/8 size in whatever length I needed
- The stand is painted with rustoleum high heat black gloss paint.
- I scoured the internet for ideas (2 tiers are not especially common), so props to the brew magic, abetterbrewstand, and ruby street for some rough ideas.
- The gas manifold is all 1/2″ black pipe and NPT fittings, up to the flex lines. At the gas lines, it’s 1/2″ flare to 3/8″ flare on the burner orifices. if anyone wants, I can post more details on the gas manifold, and links to parts, because it was somewhat tough to find some of the adapters.