Building Brew Rig Ideas Input Sought

[Maheel]

I am slowly putting together the gear to upgrade from the 19L BIAB pot

trying to head towards a 40L (2 kegs) setup and thinking 3V

I have

Italian spiral burner for boiler
50L keggel for boiler (nearly finished )
techiniice style 72L esky for a mash tun
copper for manifolds and pickups etc
few bits of SS bulkheads / valves etc
spare X 2 keggel for HLT & ?
3 X 3 ring burners for HLT and ?

still buying
build stand (i do have a big steel table / work bench that might suit)
a real mill...
march pump
sort out more plumbing

but getting closer

issue is do I get a march pump and go 3V flat or consider gravity 1st?
could kind of go gravity (with batch sparge) right now but mot sure which to go for future.

I am not real keen on gravity having +50L of HLT up high and like the look of "RED ROCKET" style setups as the look to be more movable around the shed

anyone in the BNE area got a complete 3V level "red rocket" style brew rig setup i could come look at for inspiration ?
happy to bring a brew with me.....

 

[Malted]

It would seem to me that with a single level system you would need either two march pumps or more complex plumbing.

What about a two tier setup? Have the HLT raised above the MT & Keggle. The total height of the setup can be such that you can look into the HLT and can get above the MT for stirring. Some of those single tier setups seem to be too high to be able to look into the MT whilst stirring. You can use gravity to feed HLT to MT and the pump from there to keggle. This also works well for recirculating the liquor in the MT prior to pumping to the keggle and allows you to fly sparge with only one pump.

What would also seem to be good if you went a two teir setup is to have the HLT in the middle so you can gravity feed to the other two vessels for making wort and for cleaning afterwards.

Anyway, just food for thought.

 

[Pennywise]

I think you'll have issues with a 50L kettle trying to get a double batch in, about 70L would be preferable I think. Can't help with the rest as I'm only just starting full boil AG myself

 

[argon]

I always thought i wanted to have a single tier 3V.. even made myself a single tier frame from slotted angle to the same dimensions as Franko's Red Rocket. But after quite a few batches of gravity feeding from HLT - MT - KT i'm pretty happy with how it goes. And it produces some pretty tasty beers in my opinion. Pumps and heat exchangers are fine if that's what you want, but at this stage i couldn't be arsed with the extra layer of complexity/cleaning and generally faffing about with all the extra gear. If i was convinced that it added an extra layer of efficiency, consistency and quality i'd probably be inclined to do to add the complexity. But i've tasted quite a few beers at from other brewers at comps and at BABBs that have been produced in varying methods and i can't say that the beers produced by complex systems were any better than the ones knocked up on a stove top.

Anyway... with my 3V gravity i have 50HLT - 50MT - 80KT. HLT sits on top of fridge, MT sits on milk crate on top of aforementioned frame and KT sits on frame with Rambo under.
50HLT - 2200w element.. great for setting on timer and tempmate for strike water ready when you want it.
50MT - plenty of room for double batches... have done OG1077 with plenty of room
80KT - old style keg... worry free boiling, no boil overs when pre-boil for a double batch is typically around 53L

The only thing i'd change is to make my HLT bigger as i have to top up for sparge water when doing double batches... which is all the time for me. If i was putting it together from scratch i'd be buying 3 x 70L ss pots from Ross for the entire setup. 80L kettle is nice, but 70L would be just as good. In the past i've tried double batches in a 50L kettle, but it's a PITA watching out for boil-overs and doing top ups all the time.

 

[Spoonta]

mine is atwo teir happy as less pluming and easyto get my head around how it needed to work

 

[Maheel]

yeah thanks all some good thoughts

i agree pump would add lots of complexity....

might just knock up a manifold for the mash tun and give it a whirl ASAP to crank out a brew
using gravity and KISS

benefit of no buy pump / stuff = go buy grain mill

 

[argon]

the good thing about going gravity is that you can add a pump in the future. For me the pump is almost the last thing on the list. Certainly get yourself a mill before any of the other stuff.

 

[donburke]

firstly, you only need 1 pump for a single tier 3v system, as you can batch sparge

secondly, rather than adding complexity, i find a pump simplifies matters,

in particular it saves you having to fill jug after jug and tipping back into the mash when recirculating

also with whirlpooling, and more importantly, recirculating the wort when chilling with an immersion chiller

plumbing can be as simple as 2 lengths of silicon hose with a few camlocks

your rig can be as simple or as complex as you like

it was also the 'red rocket' that caught my eye and was the inspiration for my build

there is a link somewhere in one of the threads here that links to a website that has hundreds of photos of different 3v systems, multi and single tiered, if i find it i'll post here

good luck with whatever you decide to build

 

[Gavo]

All depends on what you want to brew on. I built a 3 tier gravity system and have used it for some time, however I got tired of climbing up on a ladder to fill the HLT. I recently bought one of these and turned my system into a two tier. So I now pump strike and sparge water up to the MLT and gravity feed to the kettle.
I have a 60 lt kettle and when doing a double batch (two kegs) I am about 50mm from the top so need to watch the possible boil over like a hawk.

Cheers
Gavo.

 

[yardy]

my rig is 2 tier, HLT gravity feed to MLT and pump to Kettle with a CFC, i used it in the same configuration for a couple of years without the pump and CFC, just got pissed off with the kerfuffle of using a 5lt jug..

i would go 2 tier gravity and just get making beer and then add a pump later if you want.

main thing is you're getting away from that flash in the pan BiAb malarkey :icon_cheers:

cheers