Hi Everyone! I’m looking to convert to electric so I can brew in my basement during the cold winter months in Wisconsin. The concern is how to properly vent the steam/moisture. I’m thinking a vent hood of some kind that I can connect to an old dryer vent that’s no longer in use. Any Tips or suggestions would be great. Thanks in advance.
You didn’t say how big your system would be. What you propose may work. You will also need to open a window or door in the basement so you don’t suck heated air out of the house and to provide sufficient flow. The part of brewing that causes the most steam for me is the cooling because I let most of the hot water run on the floor into the floor drain and I have turned the exhaust off because my natural gas burners off. I should probably buy a hose to connect my immersion cooler to a drain.
Download the 2010 Presentation from John Blichmann on Setting up Your Home Brewery:
Lots of good stuff in there about ventilation sizing, equipment, and installation.
This is very important if you have a gas water heater or furnace nearby. Without a source of fresh air, air will be drawn down the chimney and could knockout your pilot light. Modern equipment should shut the gas off, so there is minimal worry of a gas leak, but a cold shower is a crappy way to discover the pilot light went out.
This is what I created. 6" blower, plexiglass, and wood. The plexiglass lets in light from the overhead light so I can see in the kettle better. All electric brewing system.
Martin, you are such an underachiever… not!
That is really nice!
Hi guys. Thanks for the responses. I’m only looking to brew partial mash / extract in the basement right now. I really enjoy brewing outside when the weather allows. This would be to satisfy the “brew itch” when I can’t be outside. So a single pot electric setup is the goal for now. I’m planning to set up ventilation to handle bigger systems in the future. Or at least be easily expanded/upgraded.
One thing I would do differently is I would only build my hood big enough to cover the boil kettle. The mash tun and HLT are just non issues. I used foam board from home depot screwed to a 1×2 frame. Vortex fan connects to a removable vent that snaps in place on my basement window. No permanent ventilation mods for resale purpose.
The bigger the opening, the more volume (bigger fan) you will need to draw the air up.
For the electric system you are looking at, a standard overn hood that is vented outside should work well. You may wish to bump up the fan size on a standard kitchen fan… if you go with one of the big gormet oven hoods, you will have plety of draw, but a lot of those are 6" duct rather than the 4" duct you have with the dryer.
Ya tease, Martin! Show us the rest of what you got going on down there! hehe
Range hoods also usually have variable speed fans and some sort of task lighting built in. Maybe find one at a scratch-and-dent sale?
Martin, thanks for posting as I was struggling with what to do for a vent hood. Didn’t think about seeing into the kettles so your solution makes sense?
Having toured Martin’s brewery in person, I can tell you I approve of his hood design and implementation. [emoji4]
Fwiw, here’s the double-capacity hood I found at a Sears refurb outlet:
And here’s the hole I cut in the side of my house to install it #goodtimes:
As you can tell, I decided to adapt the rectangular hood outlet to circular pipe and then back to rectangular for the vent to the outside. Might have reduced the capacity, but the circular pipe was easier to manage because the hood and vent couldn’t be aligned perfectly.
How well does she pull the steam out? I’m looking for one in the garage to keep the steam and Odors at bay and to brew in comfort in the winter with no doors open,
Does a great job on the steam. My family members can still detect a hint of wort aroma on brew day, though.
Don’t mind the wort aroma but if it pulls the steam and burner fumes out to where I just have to have the side door and one window open I will be happy the garage door lets in to much cold whether lol
Do also take heed of the advice from others above on makeup air. I have gas appliances in my space but don’t provide makeup air, but I carefully monitor with a CO meter.
Mabrungard, can you post some more pics of your plexiglas vent hood? What a great idea!
FWIW here is my setup. The “hood” is a storage bin from Walmart. It’s not connected right now but I use 6" semi-rigid pipe from the fan to my dryer outlet, then a 6" > 4" reducer and just disconnect my dryer vent when I brew. It doesn’t capture 100%, but after 150+ brews the paper on my exposed insulation directly above the rig is only mildly wrinkled. The humidity in my basement actually goes down when I have this on…
You might want to message Martin about this. He posted that picture in 2015 when this thread was started.