I can’t afford most of the brewing stuffs I’d like to have so I build stuffs from scratch.
Instead of a conical fermenter, I built a rack for 4 Carboys or brew-pails that is inclined at 60 degrees.
I used my Brad Nailer, furring strips and gorilla glue, all screwed and glued to the ceiling joist in my man-cave.
This creates a nice convection effect in the carboy during primary fermentation.
I also made a nice furring strip bracket for a bottling bucket gone leaky where the hole was made to 2 1/2’’
In the hole, I inserted the unused cup dispenser of my mash tun water cooler as a chute for grain in my corona mill.
the handle was replaced by a piece of threaded rod. My 18V cordless drill gets 10Lbs of grain milled in a few minutes.
A clean kitchen towel with 2 clothe pins guide the grist in the bucket below.
The bike rack in the garage holds my bag of grains when I brew in a bag and the pulleys work like a charm.
I made a sparge ring(for fly sparging) with 1/2" copper pipe, drilled lots of holes in the sides and bottom and soldered 4 lengths of 8 gauge solid copper wire to it. I can adjust the height of the ring above the grain bed by bending the copper wire over the edge of my keg mash tun.
I made a pre-chiller out of an old a/c evaporator coil.
Can we see some photos of these creations?
You guys need to submit these neat inventions to Zymurgy’s next gadget issue.
Well this is the first time I post anythin on a forum.
I don’t know how to insert pictures, but I have plenty of it.
I just have this img funny symbol without prompt…
My hands… especially my opposable thumbs!
You can’t post pics directly. You have to host them somewhere than put a link to the pics in your post.
I’m a DIY person. I’ve convinced myself I can make a better mouse trap. ::) Here are some of the contraptions I’ve made for the brewery. Most are the result of other brewers posting ideas & pics of their contraptions. Cheers!!!
Grain Mill with bucket for added capacity
Mash Tun
Immersion Chiller
Conical Fermenter and Fermentation Box
Kegerator
That wort chiller sure is elaborate looking. Nice work.
Thanks!! I wanted the capacity for 10 gallons but a low enough profile to effectively do 5 if I did one, which I have with splits from a partigyle. The templates were a joint compound bucket & a coffee can and then laced with #14 copper wire. ;D Cheers!!!
I like the grain mill into the cabinet idea, nice.
I’ve wanted to try a hopback at home for a while. I’m not sure why, hops added to a 10 min whirl have always worked just fine. Anyway, tried it out today and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. Instantaneous hop aroma, hope that comes through in the final product (American Barleywine). Basically I used a stainless storage canister, a coffee gold filter, quick connects so it can plug directly into my kettle and that’s about it. It held 3 ounces of hops. I had to throttle back the pump so I could keep the hops completely submerged during the entire transfer (no flow problems).
That’s a heck of an idea!!! Cheers!!!
Just curious: Why is your hopback configured that way? Which is the input and which is the output? Where are the hops relative to the filter (above/below)?
Yeah I knew more explanation would be necessary, just wanted to get back to a book I was reading (the tender bar). The lid is on top and doesn’t actually seal (or need to). It’s a vertical setup, the quick connect on the side of the canister plugs directly into the outlet of my kettle. This way the beer flow contacts all the hops as gravity pulls it down through the filter and out the bottom. So the filter sits in the bottom of the canister just like it would in a coffee maker. Yesterday (the only time it’s been used), I ran the flow rate so that beer level in the canister stayed just below the lid thus all the hops were completely submerged. If the homebrew hopbacks on the market were sold for $100-ish (still maintaining large profit) I wouldn’t have bothered making my hopback or posting the instructions. Funny, in general I’m anti most DIY homebrew equipment as sometimes it creates more problems than the builder thinks it solves. Anyway the thing is simple, I bought all the parts in about two minutes and it did work well. I did machine the pipe thread nuts (from a stainless coupler) that you see in the pictures only because I didn’t have stainless nuts :
sitting around. Let me know if you have any further questions or thoughts. Cheers, j
I’m making it right now. I am building my own stir plate. Just trying to get the magnet in the right spot to balance. Easier said than done…
How do I search threads on here without scrolling through dozens of pages? I’m sure there has to be a discussion on DIY stir plates somewhere.
At the top of every page, there’s a line “HOME HELP SEARCH…”. Just click on search and away you go
i see, says the blind man…
thanks.
Man this thread should be bumped. I like everything here. Especially the walk-in cooler. I’ve been fomenting some ideas about a cooler in the garage- can you lager in there hamiltont?
jaybeerman that elegantly simple hopback might make an excellent Randall. Have you considered this?