Brew shed advice

I’m looking to move my brewing into a corner of my shed I’m not using. The space I have is about 12ft x 30ft. Cement floor with floor drains, but no plumbing yet. I can get water in pretty easily, drainage I can’t get easily. The floor drains just dump out the side of the building, which would be fine for wasted chiller water, but I’m not sure about cleaning chemicals and such. I use PBW and Starsan mostly. I was thinking of using a holding tank or something on a trailer body, and then hauling it to one of the RV dump sites I have, but that sounds like a hassle.

I was curious if anyone else is brewing in a shed, and if you have any advice for me as I turn it into usable space. It’s basically an empty box right now. I’ve got plenty of tools and a bit of ability to use them. I have a vague idea of the storage and counter space I’ll need, but any advice would be great.

I’m not sure if this is the right subforum for this, so please move it if not.

Have you looked through any of the builds in the Pimp My System section?  Are you looking for fancy or functional?  Or both? :slight_smile:

Yeah, the pimp-my-system section is the reason I was thinking of doing this in the first place. There are so many awesome builds it’s kind of overwhelming. I’ve seen a lot of them, but they’re pretty varied. I guess I’m looking for things that maybe someone didn’t think about when they built their shed that they wished they had.

I mostly care about function. I’m not going to build anything like http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/my-new-brewery-alehouse-shed-brewing-porn-99310/

i don’t think i would worry about dumping the chemicals out the shed.  at most i certainly would not hall them off site.  if you are going to trouble of collecting them i would dump them like normal.  to be honest it would probably be easy to collect them in a small barrel etc, throw in a submersible pump and section of hose and pump them away.

I have about 150 RV and mobile home sites on my property, so I wouldn’t have to haul them very far, maybe 150 yards to a drop point. I just want to dispose of my waste in the most responsible way possible.

I don’t have much information regarding the actual build, because I have to wait until I get a new house to build my brewery/man cave. However, regarding PBW and starsan, they are both safe to simply dump. The owner of 5-star has stated that starsan is not dangerous once the pH is raised. I use some of my remaining starsan on my indoor plants, because the phosphorus and other stuff in starsan is supposed to be beneficial to plants, the rest just gets dumped out on the lawn.

Sounds like a fun project. The one thing I’m going to add to my garage where I brew is a double or triple basin SS utility sink.

What kind of ventilation does our shed have?

Starsan is mostly phosphate and thats a plant nutrient.  Probably more responsible to land apply and let plants suck it up than put it in the water supply.  Plus if you reuse it as much as possible you won’t have a lot of waste.

Once the oxidizer in PBW is gone its just a base and salt and the base should be easily neutralized to convert it all to salts.

None yet, but there’s a section of wall I need to rebuild (rotted where the roof leaks) so I was thinking of putting in a window and a fan.

plumb it for a toilet! and plenty of cabinet space for TP!

What type of burner is being used?  If it is natural gas or propane, make sure your fan will push the needed amount of air to give enough make up air for at least 6 or 7 room changes per hour.  Also an inexpensive way to get electricity and water to the shed without running wires and plumbing is to dig a trench and lay a 3" PVC pipe in it. Then inside the PVC pipe place a garden hose and an extension cord.  Just make sure the trench is below the frost line and the hose won’t freeze.  The hose and extension cord can be attached to a hose bib and outlet on the house.

The air flow was something I wasn’t sure exactly how much I needed, so thanks for the ROT.

The shed already has juice, but that’s a good idea for the water. I’m still debating if I want to actually plumb it, or just rig something up with a hose. I have a frostproof hydrant about a dozen yards from the shed right now, so I could either just run a hose from there, or I could turn the well off for a little bit and run a tee off the pipe to the shed properly.