When the paneling peels off the wall!

[brewindruid]

So. went out to check on some things in the brewery/garage this morning to find the paneling was peeling off the walls. Not humid and wet here just a bit. Looking at the glass half full, I'm gonna put FRP up, just not sure it's worth the investment. It's washable durable and would definately brighten things up, but it ain't cheap. I keep thinking the funds could better go into process stuff.
Any thoughts on heat/flame resistant stuff for behind the kettles...tileboard?

Cheers
Scott

[Ozwald]

I'm building an indoor brewery at the moment & I'm kind of leaning toward the NRP Plas-Tex FWIW.

[brewindruid]

Is that a less pricey option Lee? Also, what are you going with for burners?
I am so tired of the heat and humidity, I am either going to have to close off a section of the garge or move inside. Two walls and a door and I have a room in the garage with a wondow AC. Every time I do this kind of thing THat nagging issue of "how is this improving my beer", vomrd up.

[Ozwald]

Not really sure yet. It's coming up soon, but I've been so busy with other things I haven't given it enough research time. Doing a quick Google search it appears to be pretty much the same stuff & roughly the same cost. That's just at a quick glance though. Currently I'm painting so I can put the floor in. I'm using a high humidity bathroom paint in laboratory white. Then I'm only putting the panels on the bottom 4' of wall. I'm a pretty clean brewer so it's more for the convenience of a quick wipe down & for the floor drain.

I'm only using 1 burner; I was using a HERMS system, but I had to go RIMS until I can afford to upgrade the HLT (both this HLT & the new one is/will be electric). I'm using the Blichmann burner with leg extensions. At my apartment I had it really close to the outside wall to keep the hoses short (the HLT/MLT were inside, I started with the burner ~4' away & kept creeping it closer until it was ~9" away) & never had a problem with the wall even getting slightly warm, so I'm just giving it a bit of airspace & there's also a low window directly behind it which is getting a large exhaust fan.

Also my new house is almost all natural gas (I have a boiler instead of a water heater that supplies the baseboard heating), so I'm hard piping NG, H2O & a drain straight in there. The room is actually an add-on designed to be an enclosed porch or mud room. It has an outside door & a glass slider into the house. Plenty of ventilation plus I'm going to put a couple two tree CO alarms in there to be on the safe side. I'm taking pictures along the way, I'll have enough progress within a week or two to post a few of them.

EDIT: Just looked up the FRP & I'm going with that. I'll only need 2 sheets of it & the deciding factor was it's in stock at Idiot Depot where the other stuff had to be ordered at my local Lowe's.

[brewindruid]

Man, what a fantastic setup!. We have a brewpub here that is in and addition that looks something like a greenhouse. I love the idea.
I have NG as well, but it was going to be over 1K to plumb. So, I think I am going with a large LP tank.
I have been interested in the going electric but worry about complexity. Maybe go with HLT And RIMS but leave Kettle LP.

Look forward to seeing those pics!

[Ozwald]

I left my kettle gas fired for flavor reasons. Turning your HLT electric is ultra simple. Grab a step drill bit, some earplugs & shit your pants while you drill a hole through your precious tank. It's slow going & you need plenty of cutting oil, but it's pretty easy. If you've only got 120v service at your brew location, don't listen to those idiots out there who run a 240v element off it. Yeah, it'll work, but if you know Ohm's law & do the math you're actually doing more with a 1500w 120v element than a 4500w 240v element. Mine's hooked to a JCI A419 controller. I turn it on, go work for 3 hours & it's sitting there waiting for me at temp when I get back. You could do the same thing by plugging it into a lamp timer (the kind folks use when they go on vacation) and set it for a couple hours before you get home or wake up. Not to mention the savings. It costs a few bucks (~$7 per batch at the local prices here) just to heat the HLT with LP. Again, do a little math & you'll find you're spending a few pennies doing it on electric. Even with the cost of the step bit (they're a bit pricey, but don't cheap out) and the element, you'll break even in less than half a dozen brews.

And not to gloss over it, but a grand to plumb some black pipe?!?!?!? I'm pretty sure I could run my gas 2 houses down & back for less than that & I live in rural Montana. Somebody's taking you for a ride on that one. I'm running mine about 20-25' from the nearest junction, with a few elbows to put it exactly where I want it at the base of the burner & it's definitely less than $100. If you're not mechanically inclined, I'm sure you have a friend or relative who is - buy em off with some beer. I'm making the switch from LP for a couple reasons - cheaper, don't have to drive into town to swap tanks for a decent price & the ease of bending over in my to flip 1 valve giving me unlimited gas... which also means never running out mid-boil ever again.

I'm going a little overboard with this build, but I've been brewing for over 10 years, I'm 85% done building a Doc-esque system from scratch & most of all it's my #1 passion in life. Not only will I have gas, water & a floor drain, but I'm putting in a raised oak floor 3" above the shitty poured concrete, a small work bench, shelving for my glass/growler/bottle collection, a wall panel for my tools (like a pegboard, but nicer looking & handmade) & other storage shelving. Not to mention it's on the other side of a glass sliding door so I'll be able to admire the mountain of stainless all the time. It's been a long time in the making but my dream brewery is getting closer by the day. Unfortunately I'll have blown my financial wad by the time the room is finished so the new stand, HLT & HERMS are going to have to wait a little longer than I originally thought. Still, worth it.

[brewindruid]

Good points Lee. I did just take what the local gas guy told me as gospel without taking it much further then that!
Your brewery is gonna rock man, worth waiting for! Definately understand the passion/obsession of the thing. It's a far better thing to be passionate over than many other cash sucking obsessions.

[bigdan]

FRP can be a bit of a pain to work with and if you don't get the trim just so when your hanging it won't be something you can totally hose down. Some guys do use it on dairy ceilings here though and just use some silicone when they add the trim.