Pat Whitbeck's Home Brewery Equipment

I have a lot of new equipment I use since creating this page.
Check out the all grain section for more equipment.

My kettle storage cabinet:
This is very handy for keeping much of my metallic equipment dry and dust free in it's garage home. I store my mash tun and converted keg on top of it. I have two cheapo 4 gallon SS kettles, one cheapo 3 gallon SS kettle and a really good 14 gallon SS kettle. I'm not sure of the guage on the good kettle but it weighs about 20 lbs and has a nice lid of the same guage SS. I bought this recently from a member of my brewclub for $40 and a beer. He wanted $100 but the longer the meeting went, the more he drank and the lower I got him to go. Heh heh heh.

Grain and misc brewing equipment storage containers:
I store my grains, malts, hoses, sanitizers (notice the spray bottle of idophor), canes, kegging parts and assorted goodies in the 15 gallon Rubbermaid containers in my basement. I got the nice little postage scale for hops measuring from a friend at work for a bottle of home brew.
My basement temperature runs between 62°F in the winter to 75°F in the summer. I also keep a dehumidifier on all year.
I use the idophor spray on EVERYTHING that touches my wort.

The Malt Mill:
I love my JSP Malt Mill ©. When I first started using specialty grains, way back when, I used a Corona mill with fairly good results. I figured out that I needed to place 35¢ (a quarter and a dime) on each side of the plate holding screws and this stabilized the plates very well. I then sawed off a SS screw and attached my electric drill for speed and less labor intensive grinding. After 2 batches of 10+ pounds I didn't want to hand grind anymore. However, the crush was not perfect and I wanted more. One fine day, along came some spare money and thus entered my Malt Mill ©. In all fairness I must say that I tried all 3 of the big name mills; the Valley Mill, the Malt Mill and the Phil Mill. I prefered the Malt Mill but I know any of the others would have served my purpose also. The mill is very easy to hand crank but I am working on motorizing this one also.

Mash and sparge vessels:
I use a 10 gallon Rubbermaid cooler for a mash/lauter tun most of the time. I normally use the 15 gallon converted keg for my hot liquor tank. I (okay, Steve really did the work) cut the top out with a hand grinder so that my 12" stainless lid fits. I use a 3/4" SS Ball valve for a spigot with a 1/2" barb to attach my sparge hose.

Inside the Mash Tun:
Here's a look inside of my mash tun where you can see the easy masher clone I made with copper pipe, stainless screen and some brass fittings. I used a standard plastic spigot from my old plastic bottling bucket.(Steve did the grunt work on this too, I opened beers and did the design ideas)

Easy Masher Close up:
Here's a shot of the masher removed. (I will post a better picture soon, with some specs)

Propane Cooker:
I use a 170,000 btu Morrone KD26A cooker. This baby will bring 10 gallons of wort to a full boil in less than 15 minutes. Don't turn your back on this one, notice the spillage from last session's boil over. It has a 4" cast iron ring burner that comes apart for cleaning. This is a very sweet unit, sturdy, efficient and surprisingly quiet. I can brew about 7 five gallon batches of brew before I have to refill.($7.50 a refill) I also have a gas grill and always have a spare tank available if needed.

Immersion Chiller:
I made this chiller from 25 feet of 3/4" soft copper and various connectors. I had all the stuff sitting around from an old plumbing job I did. This sucker will chill 10 gallons of boiling wort in about 25 minutes in the summer, 15 minutes in the winter. I have considered building a counterflow chiller, but this works very well for now. I capture the water out and use it to clean equipment.

Here's some shots of my latest Honey Wheat fermenting along happily. (July 10, 1999) I use a large muck bucket about half full of water (add 1/2 cup bleach for mold control in summer) and a frozen 2 liter bottle of water in warmer weather to maintain a steady 65° F fermentation temperature. I also keep the shirt wrapped around it when I'm not taking pictures. Nice head O'foam eeh? That's what I get when I pitch onto the whole pancake from the last batch. My basement smells like a bread factory.Yummy. The troll dolls are my daughters/assistants, Mimi doesn't live here.

Some of my Cornie Kegs:
I presently have ten, 5 gallon pin lock kegs that I rotate. As you can see, I need to brew a bit more. It has been a busy summer with many friends from out of state visiting and they sucked them all dry. I also have about 6 cases of 16 ounce Grolsch bottles and 5 cases of standard 12 ounce bottles. I generally end up with a 5 gallon keg and 4-6 16 oz bottles from a batch. I don't bother with the standard brown bottles unless I'm going to enter a brew in a contest at my local brew club meeting.

My "Beer Safe": (no food allowed!)
Aaah, my very own beer fridge in the basement. I keep my kegs here along with various store bought beers. I made a 6" wooden shelf that enables me to have 4 kegs on tap at a time. I keep bottles under the shelf and I store my yeasts in the door. In the freezer I keep my hops fresh and I also have four 2 liter bottles of frozen water that I rotate in my fermentation buckets. I even have several frozen pint glasses for visitors that insist upon a frosty mug. To each their own eeh?
The beer safe has one tap on the front and I have 2 cobra style picnic taps for the other two kegs. I generally put my favorite brew of the week on the front tap. In this picture there is a Czech Pilsner in one keg and an Irish Dry Stout in the other. Can you say black and tan?

My new Counterflow Bottle Filler and Filter Setup: I just purchased these items (from St. Pat's in Texas) and have used the filter on my newest brews as of August 1, 1999. I haven't had the chance to use the bottle filler as yet, but it will be used to bottle my creations for various competitions I plan on entering.