New brewing room

[Redbeard]

Hi guys, great site this is.

I have been brewing into bottles for awhile and was getting 18L soft drink kegs filled at a local micro brewery, but have my first brew ready to rack into a keg tomorrow.

Anyway I want to build my own brewing room, come celler area and i have collected enough bricks,timber,sheet metal and other bits and peices for the job and i have a 500 acre property so space isnt a issue

Being a plumber I intend to add a double trough, hot water system and a pot belly for wintery nights brewing, bottling, kegging and of course sampling.

My question to you guys is how would you set this up?

What size,shape and heights are needed?

I have been considering reverse brick veneer for the job or i could go with plain old fashion double brick.

Will it need an air cond?

I dont really want the expense of running AC as i have been working on a fridge for a brewing box, and the new building will stand in the shade of a much lager machinery shed.

But will the AC help with natural conditioning of brews in the hot summer months? when we get 45C temps.

Has anyone done this before?

Can you post up some pics or plans.

I can build anything i just need the right information to do it correctly.

 

 

Thanks guys

[Bear1525228171]

Hi Redbeard,

 

After constructing 2 cellars at various homes in the past, I recommend building it underground. Assuming you already have a house built, you could build a shed over the top to assist cooling in summer . I have successfully done this with building a cellar with bricks, but it's important to make it waterproof.

 

WA gets hot like Adelaide, and keeping an above ground brick building insulated in summer will be the biggest challenge in summer without AC. A useful reference helpful to my cellar was "Setting up your own Wine Cellar" by James Halliday

 

Regards, Bear

 

 

[Redbeard]

Cheers Bear, thats the sort of ideas i want.

 

Never though of putting it under ground, and i have already poured concrete for the house.

Going under ground may be a bit difficult as i have 500mm of good course sand over boney clay and the water movement in winter is fairly bad. But I will google that book title and try to get a copy.

 

Thatnks again.

[rossm]

G'day Dereck,

I have a custom built brew room but it is really only that, not a man cave as such! I used the panels that demountables are built from, I too have a twin laundry trough for bottle washing and general cleaning and shelving to store and condition beer. I made mine a 3m cube, because that is how the panels worked and then put a tropical roof over the top. It has an air conditioner connected to a thermostat which also has a power point connected to the warming side so in the summer it turns the a/c on and off and in the winter it turns the heating belt on and off....(I'm a sparky)a cellar of course would be the best but a lot of work and expense but I reckon a brick building with the veneer cladding would be a pretty close second. The air con would still be a useful addition but it would probably not need to run as much as mine does, and unless you are making lagers I wouldn't think you will need to use your cooler box. You would only need a small air con if you insulate the building so I guess it gets back to how much time and money you want to spend or can afford.

[Trusty1]

if there is space in one of the existing sheds on your property, it would be advantageous to erect something inside an existing shed/garage/outhouse to protect from the extremes you might get in WA. If you are getting serious about it, I'd recommend a brew fridge with a temp controller and a heat pad/belt. A/C is only necessary for your comfort then, the beer is [cool] and under control.

[rossm]

...have to disagree Trusty1, if the room is built in a shed, with brick and then clad with...whatever and insulated, I would say that an air con will do as much cooling as you will ever need for most brews, lagers may be a different story, but I am not into lagers so my room does just fine, and by the sound of it Redbeards will be a better set up than mine being in a shed,brick and clad with insulation to boot! I would reckon even in the hottest spell your air con will keep it well and truly cool enough to brew most thing without a second fridge/box....and you get the comfort factor as well. The thermostat setup is not that dear and a plumber should be able to con a sparky without too much hassle....even if it is on the ol' barter system. It gets pretty bloody hot here and for some long periods, but my room will stay in the low twenties/high teens which is plenty for most brews and ideal for conditioning. Admittedly my air con runs a fair bit in the summer, but it is only a small one and probably doesn't draw much more than a fridge, although a fridge with a tempmate type of setup would probably have to run less for the smaller space. All food for thought...

[Redbeard]

I have done an experiment with a mate of mine who is a sparky and in the test we built a 4m x 3m room with timber framing, had another mate who is a bricky come and lay an INTERNAL single leaf wall. We then packed 90mm R2 Batts into the framing covered with silver paper and then clad with tin. The roof was dodgyed up with patio tube trusses and has 150mm R3 batts sitting on a 4mm hardie plank ceiling with Aircell rolled out under the roof tin. it has a 1200mm x 1200mm north facing window with 600mm awning and a south facing 820mm door and a concrete floor. There is a point to my ramblings.

It stayes cool in summer if opened up at night (25C inside if ambient is 35-40C) and it stays warm in winter if open the curtain on the window to let the sun heat the brickes and floor (18C if you can get 4-6hrs sunlight, I know sunlight is bad for home brew). Temp ranges from -5C in winter to 45C in summer

This is the method in which we intent to build our houses, hence the experiment and now i am thinking it would serve as a good brew house too. Only i have to build another one cos the experiment building is at his place not mine.

Those who know something of thermal mass would understand where I am coming from. But it is experimental.

I looked breifly into under ground cellers but sub 13k isnt what my budget can allow for.

Trusty I had thought if building in an exsiting shed but it wont work, to much machinery. I have started to build a brew fridge from a secondhand upright freezer.

As said before i want to stay away from an AC, but if it is required then I will have to try and find a small split system with temp control and try it out.

 

Cheers guys

[rossm]

Sounds pretty much to me that you are already onto it Dereck, My room has no window and the door is made of the same panel as the walls it has the concrete floor but is never exposed to the outside elements, sounds like you have similar temp range as we have here, going by what you have said now, I reckon your fermenting fridge in this room without the air con will be OK....you win Trusty1!

[Trusty1]

I thought a shed inside a shed theory would work if you had the space, as I lived in a town in the centre of NSW for 3.5 years where there were huge temp ranges, generally though, it was just really hot. one of the main businesses around town was Pace Farms, where they produce eggs - well they produce chickens who produce the eggs.... They use a shed inside a shed theory and keep the "shed" cool even though there are 60,000 heaters (we call them chickens) in these huge "sheds" (there are 12 of them!!!. They have no a/c, just vents and open and close them accordingly. They keep a constant 18-19C. I can't remember if the outside or inside skin is angled, one of them is, to create a buffer space to keep temps constant.

 

My brew room is my double garage, which only has one side that is directly in contact witht the outside elements, which is the roller door. All other sides of the 'box' have buffers. The garage is below the house (we are on a sloping block) with a store room at the rear, the sub floor on the high side and a void of about 2.5-3 metres on the low side before the external brick wall and the roller door at the front. I have some lower temps in winter (we got down to -9 a few weeks ago), but a heat pad in between two fermenters, both with jackets on, keep them at the appropriate temp (turning them off throught the day). there are no worries about summer temps due to thermal mass insulation, but I have set up a brew fridge, just need to finalise the connections.

 

Sorry if I'm rambling, off work with crook back, and have taken STRONG [kissing] painkillers[love][rightful] !!![biggrin] [biggrin] [cool]

[Redbeard]

RossM & Trusty1

The project building i explained above is experimental and seems to have created a good mid range temp envirenment, if you guys think it will be ok for a brewing room then i will start to get it sorted.

will post pics and any dramas i have.

 

Cheers

[WillC1]

gday dereck,

 

Mate have you thought about building a cool room in the shed out of freezer room panels with a cool room evaporator? insulated walls are 150mm thick, and you would be able to adjust temps from 0 upwards very accurately. if using a digital temp control, quite easily maintain brewing temps, then drop temps down for lagering. just a thought