My 14L brew house

[YeastWhisperer]

I was a hardcore all-grain, yeast bank maintaining amateur brewer from early 1993 through early 2003. I primarily brewed ~22L (5.75 U.S. gallon) batches during my first pass through the hobby. Twenty-two liters was chosen because it allowed me to leave roughly one half of a U.S. gallon of volume behind with the break and hops while draining my kettle into a primary fermentation vessel and a U.S. quart (32 U.S. fluid ounces) of volume behind with the yeast and cold break when racking from one of my primary fermentation vessels into a soda premix tank (a.k.a., Corny keg). While somewhat wasteful, the practice resulted in very clean beer and cropped yeast.

When I decided to reenter the hobby last summer, I knew that I would have to reduce my standard batch size if I was going to brew with any kind of frequency. I cannot drink anywhere near the amount of beer that I could drink when I first started brewing; therefore, I settled on 14L (actually 3.65 to 3.75 U.S. gallons) as my standard batch size. I chose 14L as my batch size because 3-gallon premix tanks are available and 3-gallon tanks free up an additional shelf in my brewing refrigerator for yeast slant and media storage. While I wound up purchasing a manufactured 10.5 U.S. gallon brewing kettle for the odd 5.75 U.S. gallon (5-gallon premix tank) or 6.75 U.S. gallon (two 3-gallon pre-mix tanks) batch, the 3.65 to 3.75 batch size has worked out quite well.

My preferred batch size is non-standard in the U.S.; therefore, I decided to build my kettle from scratch. I could have used a larger pre-manufactured kettle, but the height to diameter ratio would be have been wrong (one wants a kettle with a height to diameter ratio of at least 1:1 that is correctly sized for one's batch size), leading to increased evaporation rate, less efficient hop untilization, and a shallower fluid column while chilling. I do not recommend going this route unless one is certain that one's preferred batch size is non-standard. One will spend as much, if not more than one would spend purchasing a pre-manufatured kettle. My custom 6.75 U.S. gallon (27-quart) kettle was more expensive to build than my 10.5 U.S. gallon Polar Ware 361BP factory manufactured brewing kettle was to buy.

With that said, I have decided to post a few photographs of the 14L brew house that I assembled late last summer.

Brew House



The entire brew house fits on a folding card table. While one can purchase pre-assembled beverage cooler-based hot liquor backs (HLBs) and mash/lauter tuns (MLTs) in the U.S., I sourced all of the parts and assembled the units shown in the photo above. I am far too frugal to pay twice the parts cost for items as simple to build as beverage cooler-based HLBs and MLTs.


Inside shot of the coupler weld



The kettle in this brew house started out as a Vollrath 27-Quart stock pot. The coupler was welded by a local sanitary welder. I live in a semi-rural area that still has dairy farms; therefore, finding a sanitary welder to perform the weld was not a problem. Welding this stock pot was a challenge due its diameter and the thinness of the material (~1.2mm).


False Bottom



I ordered the custom size false bottom shown above from NorCal Brewing Solutions in California. I drilled the pickup tube hole because I did not know how far it needed to be located from the side of the kettle until I bent and flared the pickup tube. I wound up having to purchase cutting, flaring, and bending tools that are designed for working with stainless steel tubing because my copper tubing cutting and bending tools were not up to the task, and stainless steel flare fittings are 37 degrees whereas copper flare fittings are 45 degrees.


Kettle with Pickup Tube




Kettle with Pickup Tube and False Bottom



There is roughly 0.375" (9mm) of dead space under the false bottom. I only use whole cone hops (a.k.a. "leaf" hops). A false bottom coupled with whole cone hops and an immersion chiller or a counterflow chiller with a recirculating pump leads to very clear wort.


Mash/Lauter Tun False Bottom



I have used several different false bottom designs in my mash/lauter tuns over the years, and this one is the nicest by far. It is the 9" version of Adventures in Homebrewing’s 16% open space false bottom.

[FarmerFred]

Great looking setup. Nice and tidy. Thanks for the ideas!

[YeastWhisperer]

If you decide to use a pickup tube with a full-coverage false bottom like I did, you can avoid a lot of headaches by using a flare fitting instead of a compression fitting. I learned this lesson the hard way when I built my first all-grain brewery back in 1993. Flared tubing requires almost zero lateral movement to remove, which means that the hole through which the pickup tube passes in the false bottom can be not much larger than the tube itself.

The kettle false bottom takes advantage of the radius at the bottom of the stock pot to eliminate the need for a stand. It is cut 1/16" of an inch smaller than the inside diameter of the kettle

[sbond10]

Nice write up 14ltr sounds like an ideal batch size to me probs what most normal gas cookers could handle over here

[YeastWhisperer]

I start with around 19 liters and boil down to 14 liters. I use a Camp Chef SB30D Pro 30 30,000 BTU stove, which is a low-pressure propane stove. The Camp Chef Pro 30 handles this batch size fine; however, it struggles when brewing a 22 liter batch (I start with around 27 liters and boil down to 22 liters). I have been thinking about having my garage wired for 240VAC and going electric. Our standard mains voltage is 120VAC.

[sbond10]

My stove will do around 15-17!itres possiably more given time