new 3 tier gravity system
Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 9:15 am
After several months of casual discussions and planning, my engineer/metalworker friend and I go to work a few weeks ago on the Donnelly Wort-o-Matic 3 tier gravity brew stand. I learned a lot from this project and had a blast making this! Much thanks to this forum for ideas and suggestions.
The finished product! Looks great with the silver hammertone finish RustOleum paint, Now I just wonder how long it will stay on vs. burn off. More on that in a moment...
The plumbing was fun – used 1/2†black pipe and fittings, then a bunch of different Male/Female reducers and connectors to fit my needle valves and finally 3/8†OD copper tubing with flare fittings. I spent more time in the plumbing isle of various Lowes/Home Depot stores this past month that the rest of my life combined. Of course, then I painted everything silver to match. I think one of my cats is also now painted silver, I may have gotten out of hand.
Ready to roll!
Zero to 40 PSI adjustable propane regulator – the reason I have this one is they don’t make one that goes any higher! Yes, I wanted the ability to impact global warming by myself.
Self-leveling feet on all 4 corners so it will be stable anywhere in my garage brewery I want to put it.
The way it will be used currently –
1) hot liquor tank on top (I made a PVC ‘shepherds crook’ to fill it from my hot/cold running water in the garage, no lifting buckets or ladders for me).
2) 70 qt Coleman Xtreme cooler for my mash tun. I put a burner under the mash tun as well so I can move to a different arrangement at a later date if I want, ie. keggle with false bottom so I can directly heat the mash.
3) converted keg for the boil kettle. I will continue batch sparging for now because it's easy and that's how I set up my mash tun, but I can convert to fly sparging down the road if so desired.
Let there be FIRE! With a 40 PSI regulator and needle valves per burner the BTUs are almost unlimited on this setup, as I learned by setting off this atom bomb for my first test burn. I wanted to see how it would take to heat 8 gallons of water from 110F to 150F. Turns out it doesn’t take very long at all, and I also learned it takes less time to melt metal than I thought too…
I got a little concerned when the ¼†metal grates started to turn red and sag…
OMG what have I created! It’s gonna be a beast!!! 
I ran my first batch last weekend and it was a breeze! I finally have a one-man setup that I can use without to much strain, let the fun begin! Time to make more beer to top off the 10-tap keggerator for football season!
The finished product! Looks great with the silver hammertone finish RustOleum paint, Now I just wonder how long it will stay on vs. burn off. More on that in a moment...
The plumbing was fun – used 1/2†black pipe and fittings, then a bunch of different Male/Female reducers and connectors to fit my needle valves and finally 3/8†OD copper tubing with flare fittings. I spent more time in the plumbing isle of various Lowes/Home Depot stores this past month that the rest of my life combined. Of course, then I painted everything silver to match. I think one of my cats is also now painted silver, I may have gotten out of hand.
Ready to roll!
Zero to 40 PSI adjustable propane regulator – the reason I have this one is they don’t make one that goes any higher! Yes, I wanted the ability to impact global warming by myself.
Self-leveling feet on all 4 corners so it will be stable anywhere in my garage brewery I want to put it.
The way it will be used currently –
1) hot liquor tank on top (I made a PVC ‘shepherds crook’ to fill it from my hot/cold running water in the garage, no lifting buckets or ladders for me).
2) 70 qt Coleman Xtreme cooler for my mash tun. I put a burner under the mash tun as well so I can move to a different arrangement at a later date if I want, ie. keggle with false bottom so I can directly heat the mash.
3) converted keg for the boil kettle. I will continue batch sparging for now because it's easy and that's how I set up my mash tun, but I can convert to fly sparging down the road if so desired.
Let there be FIRE! With a 40 PSI regulator and needle valves per burner the BTUs are almost unlimited on this setup, as I learned by setting off this atom bomb for my first test burn. I wanted to see how it would take to heat 8 gallons of water from 110F to 150F. Turns out it doesn’t take very long at all, and I also learned it takes less time to melt metal than I thought too…
I got a little concerned when the ¼†metal grates started to turn red and sag…
OMG what have I created! It’s gonna be a beast!!! I ran my first batch last weekend and it was a breeze! I finally have a one-man setup that I can use without to much strain, let the fun begin! Time to make more beer to top off the 10-tap keggerator for football season!
