Since I am in a constant state of improvement on my homebrewing setup, I decided to start a page to document the evolution. This would be that page.

First off, I almost exclusively brew all-grain beers. This means that I don’t use any extract, but instead do most of the brewing using grains, hops, and water. Pretty sweet.

This page was started when I upgraded that setup to a 10-gallon batch size. After a night of cutting and welding, the makings of a stand were born, and here is what it started as:

After swapping out some valves, insulating the mash tun, and mounting the burner, here it is in action.

As those of you who do some brewing know, the process really requires a third vessel to do the boiling in as well. Since I didn’t want the stand to be as tall as the roof, I initially was planning on doing the boil on a separate single-burner stand. That stand wasn’t built for the first brew on this, so I drained the mash tun into a 6-gallon brew-bucket. I put the rest of the sparge water into the mash tun (I batch sparge right now, no sprinkler yet), and dumped the wort back into the top keg for the boil (now that it was empty).

Speaking of mash tuns, one of the things I initially struggled with was the false bottom on my mash tun as part of the initial design. It was initially a piece of HDPE sheet cut in half and riveted back together. The rivets pulled out when it got warm on the last batch, and it was a bit of a mess. I went back to the drawing board and came up with an idea for a filter which also took up less space than the false bottom. I went out and bought a flour sifter, cut the handle off, and put some mounting bolts through the bottom of the keg. The bolts have o-rings sealing them, and nuts tightened down to hold them in place. Then I threw some wing nuts on the posts so I can just loosen the wing nuts and pop the sifter off when I need to clean it. Here’s what it looks like in place with the bulkhead fitting in the center (it’s on the bottom so I can get the full amount of wort out, no losses in the mash tun!).

It’s actually quite strong despite the fact that it’s just a stainless mesh, and held 20 lbs of grain with no problem at all. I put a little dent in the top of it while I was stirring the mash with my spoon, but it didn’t cause any flow issues, and popped right out. It’s a nice, easy, cheap, and effective solution.

After draining off the wort, I transferred it back up to the top keg for the boil. I then put a small plywood shelf in place of the mash tun on the second shelf down to hold the carboys to drain into. It worked like a charm. Here it is with the wort chiller in place and the first carboy waiting to be filled.

The setup worked really well on the trial run. I think I may try it a couple more times with the current setup of reusing the top keg, and see if it starts causing any issues. As with any project, I’ve got some things that I would like to do before the next brew on it, but they’re improvements instead of redesign.

Next steps are:

• Locking casters so it’s easier to move


• A 90 degree bend coming out of the top keg on the drain (the straight-out ball valve was a bit messy going into the carboy funnel).


• Modify the top keg opening to fit a lid better


• Make a foam lid for the mash tun (just using a kitchen pot lid right now, losing some heat through the top).


• Some heat shielding/heat direction for the burner to improve heating efficiency.


• Possibly even a second burner on the top. It still took an hour to bring the sparge water to temp, and an hour to bring it to boil. I want instant gratification, and more fire is always better.

Stay tuned for more updates on the setup, and if you have any suggestions, let me know!