Want to Build a Brew Sculpture

[schapiro1]

Anybody have more info on a single tiered system?

[DCBC]

Random thoughts:

Some sculptures place the boil kettle under the HLT. After some burn time, flakes (like me) of paint and rust, created by heat and steam for previous boils, start to fall down into your valuable boiling wort. Call me picky, I don't like rusty condensation dripping down into my kettle. Another good argument for using stainless instead of carbon steels.

Great, now I've got to add a flake catcher to my setup. I suppose if this ever becomes a problem, I could just put the BK on the top tier and pump everything around. I did a batch before getting the stand welded to get most of the paint melted off the burners. That's the part that didn't get repainted when I painted the stand.

[foomench]

The 2-tiered (2.5? split-level?) B3 systems put the mash tun on top above the HLT. The theory is that some of the excess heat from the HLT is going around the mash tun and keeping it warm.

Personally, I'm going single tier.

-Eric

[WetmoreBrew]

My first stand was a single tier, unfortunately it didnt work so well with only one pump... It was a pain to have to keep switching the hoses from kettle to kettle. Plus if I did a fly sparge, I had to set the boil kettle on the ground in front of the mash tun, so I could grav-feed into it - then I'd have to lift 13gal of hot wort onto the stand and wait (for what seemed like an hour) for my wimpy cast burner to get it to boil.

This weekend I built a two tier stand... (HLT under the MashTun, grav-feed to the Boil Kettle.)
I picked up a multi jet burner I plan to use under the HLT, I figured it would require the most BTUs - heating a full keg of cold water.
And I'll be able to start heating the wort as soon as I start the sparge, so the old cast burner should be ok now.

[baltobrewer]

My system is the single tier kind. If you use single tier you're pretty much going to be leashed to having 2 pumps. That being said, I think a single tier is a much more convenient layout from a brewday perspective...

[slanted & enchanted]

i have a single tier, 2 pumps. i like to be able to see down into my tuns, before i had a two-tier and had to use a step stool to check on my HLT. not that you really need to babysit an hlt but i like being able to just glance over top of everything and now what's up.

the first session with two pumps was a little dicey, but you get used to it quickly.

i'd suggest a tippy-dump system for your mash tun as well. i welded a sankey dip tub to the outside of my vessel, about at the bottom-third point and then weld some posts onto the frame, and i can easily dump it into a trash can. gets most of the grain out. makes things a bit easier.

i'm always fiddling with mine. it's steel, so i can always cut something off and weld something back on. you're gonna find at least one thing about the system that irks you once you're done, so just accept that fact and put it on a list to fix later on.