Brew Stand Update

All the way back in January I announced that I was had acquired an old aquarium stand for a large tank. It looked like it would be perfect to become a brew stand. I posted a video about my plans and set forth thinking about how I wanted the stand to operate.

I can’t believe its been 8 months since originally posting that clip. I am happy to announce that progress has been made. In fact, the project is about halfway complete or maybe even a little bit closer than that.

The big decision came with shortening the height of the original aquarium stand to about half its height. I liked the idea of keeping it tall so that in the event I had a pump failure or clog, I could still go to a gravity feed system either into a bucket, kettle or fermentor. In the end I chose to chop the stand down to half its height, about 16 inches.

I chose to do this to primarily keep the brew stand closer to the ground. I felt like stirring the keg during mash in was going to be a bit of a pain with it so tall once the keg-mashtun was on top. The stand is also a little more narrower than I would have liked if I was fabricating something from scratch. So lowering the center of gravity a bit made me feel safer.

I expect I will eventually put some casters on it so I can wheel it around from a stored position to a brew in position. If I do that I’ll likely put some cross bracing along the bottom of the feet to help widen its stance a bit more. That will help improve stability. But for now it should work out fine.

The low height will still mean I am bending over to control the burners. But the burners I have chosen to work with sill stick out far enough that a control valve right on the burner will make it clear and easy which burner I want to manipulate. The low height also poses a bit of a dilemma for mounting my pump. I use a standard march pump for the recirculating mash tun and then I switch it over for use during a recirculating chill set up. I might need to mount a heat shield around the pump to protect it. But I’ll figure that out on the first run of the burners.

Lastly, A couple readers have asked about the number of pumps. I currently only foresee on pump in the short term. It works for me so far. I think I can rig up enough tubing and quick disconnects that I can pump from an HLT into the mash tun, and then changing tubing around to go from mash to kettle.

So all that’s left is to plumb in the gas lines. I plan to use rigid black pipe and T-fittings for to carry the propane. Then I’ll come up with a soft connection to go from the T’s to the control valves/orifices at the burners themselves. I was thinking I might be able to use stainless steel braided vinyl water supply lines for that part, but I am not sure. I like that they come in different lengths and some pretty short. They are also somewhat cheaper than the alternatives; copper and flare nuts or flexible gas lines with flare fittings. And advice there would be appreciated!

So that’s the update. Stay tuned. I am anxious to brew on it now so I hope to get to functional burners and possibly mounted pump within the next week or so. Wish me luck.

Cheers!