Building a Brew Tower
Having a brew tower or brewing structure is really helpful in keeping your brew day consistent, organized and safe. Unlike the usual step by step instructions on other projects on BrewMoreBeer, I will just explain what went into Black Betty and hopefully that will be enough to inspire you to build something similar. Like Brutus, Wallace and others before her, a named brew tower is a great way to define a structure for easy reference, so we deemed our structure Black Betty.
Black Betty the Brewing Tower
The brew tower project as a whole cost about $140 in materials and a few nights to put together. Which is not too bad for a full blown gravity fed all grain brewing tower. To put things in perspective just a pump alone usually cost around $140. Black Betty’s components are positioned so that no pumps are necessary, the tower uses gravity to move the beer from one stage to the next.
Materials List with Cost
| Steel/Wood Shelving Unit (black friday special at lowes) | $40 |
| Nuts/Bolts/Screws | $25 |
| 2x4x8 x 12 of them | $25 |
| Black Grill Paint | $15 |
| Casters (wheels) | $25 |
| PVC (water filter holder) | $2 |
| Stainless Steel | $8 |
The Components
The left most component in the upper tier is a hot liquor tank burner which is mounted and framed with 2×4 for support and stability.
brew tower top tier
To the right of the burner is a heat shroud that was built to protect the mash tun (plastic cooler) from becoming too hot or even melting. The left side of the heat shroud has a piece of sheet metal to deflect the heat coming off the burner, the right side (facing cooler) has a piece of particle board to act as an insulator.
brew tower heat shroud
To the far right on the upper tier sits the cooler mash tun.
brew tower mash tun to boil kettle
The lower tier can be thought of in two pieces, the boil area and cool down area. The left side, boil area, is a burner with stand that has been mounted and framed with 2×4 for support and stability.
brew tower lower tier boil area
The right side, cool down area, is where the carboys sit and wait to be filled with wort. There is a plate chiller positioned in the middle of the lower tier. This design allows the wort to flow out of the boil pot through the chiller and down to the carboys.
beer tower lower tier
Other Features
A water filter mount was created to hold our water filter for brewing. This helps to stablize the filter from falling over and keeps it mounted so that it can fill the hot liquor tank easily.
beer tower water filter mount
The entire tower is coated in a black grill paint which should have a heat tolerance up to 1200 degrees F.
The tower has wheels that lock on both the upper and lower tiers which allow for mobility and easy storage.
beer tower wheels
The upper tier has a shelf for propane tanks, this allows for easy access to the them.
gravity fed all grain brewing tower
black betty on brew day
Thats about it, if you have any questions or comments about Black Betty or beer towers in general just comment below.
[…] tube. Its also helpful to have a mount for the filter, check out the mount that was built onto Black Betty the brew tower. brewing water filter in […]