Anyone Interested in a Brutus Stand?

[backyard brewer]

Yikes, I never looked at the price.

[Haemon]

mmmm, brew porn. Maybe we could make a calendar.

+1

[JonW]

I brewed on the new stand last Sunday. I haven't painted/powder coated it yet as I wanted to give it a shake down run to see if I was going to make any other modifications to it. This brew was done in a manual mode with the exception of the Love controllers to monitor temps. I've picked up the BCS-462 but I still need to get some (liquid) valves for the automation side of things. I'll probably set it up with the BCS probes and control the gas valves and pumps with the BCS before moving to full valve automation.

The corner gussets worked great for heat deflection. On Saturday, I played around with making some burner wind screens, but I ended up scrapping the idea. I have standing pilot lights on the burners, but without wind screens, I can't use them. When I had wind screens in place, the burners were not getting enough oxygen. I may play around with this further, but right now I'm kind of resolved to the fact I may not use any pilot lights and just light the burners as needed.

One thing you don't see in the pic is that behind the stand are a set of home automation (UPB) modules that the gas valves and pumps are plugged into. I then have a keypad that I use for turning things on and off. It actually works pretty slick doing it this way!

I ended up mounting my pumps under the shelf as it works good to deflect both the heat and water from the pumps. I think if I hadn't put the diamond plating on the shelf, that the heat wouldn't be such a problem for the pumps, but with the shelf, it just gets too hot there. For the BCS, I may also be mounting a (sealed) box under the shelf that will contain the solid state relays and wiring for the automation.

[dhempy]

Looking Good Jon ... looking forward to seeing how you set up your automation.

Dan

[JonW]

OK, here's the current iteration of my stand. I now have the BCS-462 running all the temp probes, gas valves, pumps & liquid valves. I'm still working on tweaking the programming on the BCS to meet my processes. I'll still be tearing it back apart to either powder coat or paint the stand. I'm meeting the powder coater on Wednesday to discuss what can be done. I'm worried about the coating standing up to the continued heat of the burners.

I placed 6 SSR's under the stand that control the gas valves and pumps. There is also a 12V relay board and power supply under the stand for the liquid valves. There are 3 Cat-5 data jacks in a mounted box on the back corner of the stand that plug into corresponding jacks on the garage wall. One cable for temp probes, one for gas/pumps and the third one for the liquid valves.

The BCS is in an enclosure on the wall as it is also running my staging (conditioning) fridge and serving fridge. It will also be running the fermenter fridge. (All 3 of these refrigerators are kegerators.)











(eh, what's up with the forum chopping the pics???)

[brahn]

Whoa. When's the brewday at your place?

[dhempy]

Very Nice Jon:

Dan

[maltbarley]

Jon, instead of Lil' Dog Brewery, you might think about Recliner Brewery. Looks awesome!

[JonW]

Here's some new pics of the stand. I have the powder coating done now. The BCS is mounted to the garage wall and is also used to control the temp for my serving fridges (2 kegerators) and my fermentor fridge (3rd kegerator). There are 3 CAT-5 data jacks on the back of the rig that are plugged into the BCS on the wall. One CAT-5 for the temp probes, one for the gas valves and pumps, and one for the liquid SS ball valves. Check out the next post for a liquid flow diagram.

Burners are natural gas. I ran a dedicated 3/4" gas line in my garage and have a 1/2" ID gas line with QD that the stand attaches to.

The finish on the stand is a high temp powder coating. I was running it for a while with no finish, but it starts to rust pretty quick. I've only fired it up once now that the coating is on it, but it seems like it should last pretty good. The powder coat is rated for 1200 degrees.

Yeah, I know, 3 pumps seems like overkill, but with pumps now available for $100, it really just simplified the setup when using the electronic ball valves. It also lets me setup for doing back-to-back brew sessions where I can be mashing brew #2 while I'm still finishing up brew #1 in the BK. I like to do continuous recirculation on both the HLT & MLT, so this handles that nicely as well.

Still to do:
- change to SS QD's or cam locks. (I'm not a fan of the discoloring and flow restriction of the McMaster ones).
- swap out pump heads for SS versions.
- new tubing when new QD's are done.
- possibly move gas control valves from rear to front

[JonW]

Is there any way to fix the uploaded pictures here so they are not displayed in small scrolling boxes?

Also, is there any way to use links to images that don't get their width cutoff like mine above? An 800 pixel width picture should be completely acceptable.

[maltbarley]

I'll give you $500 for it.

Seriously, VERY nice.

[backyard brewer]

That is very very nice. Those casters really make the setup, where'd you get them ?

[JonW]

That is very very nice. Those casters really make the setup, where'd you get them ?

Without those, I'd have nothing!

[backhousebrew]

Wow, that is a great looking rig.
It looks like a lot of time and work went into it.
I hope to see it in action some day.

[JonW]

Wow, that is a great looking rig.
It looks like a lot of time and work went into it.
I hope to see it in action some day.

Thank you. I'd be up for hosting a brew day sometime.