The Stand

    
The stand is finally here!  In all honesty... it's been at the house for a couple of weeks now but I just now have had some free time to unveil it.  It's a little raw you'll see but hopefully you get the idea.

The stand can hold 3 pots with up to a 21" base diameter.  The pots for this build have a 17" base so they'll fit comfortably in between.  Along the back is a piece of steel that will help conceal some of the plumbing and aide in the mounting of the burners.  The front has two brackets where I'll mount the pumps and there's enough room from the bottom rack to the top rack to comfortable store the pots when not in use.

The whole thing is getting a fresh paint job using a primer base and a flat black enamel for the color.  There's been a lot of debate on whether or not to paint it.  The deciding factor came down to the fact that after only two weeks of sitting on my back patio, I had to spend about two hours just sanding all of the surface rust off of this thing.  The paint, I'm hoping, will act as a rust repellent and help keep maintenance down a bit.  The top portion, where the heat will be concentrated, will be painted in high temperature engine paint  after being coated with a special primer.

The whole stand sits on 6 inch casters that are bolted to the stand using flat steel plates that were welded to the frame.  I have to give a big thanks to my friend Mark for doing all of this work.  The welds are perfect, the steel is strong, and this thing is going to make some magnificent beer. 

I'm going to have to change gears a little bit going forward in the next couple of months.  It turns out that attempting to build the stand in the middle of winter in South Dakota poses some challenges. Most notably the fact that we seem to have a blizzard every week.  That being said, the next few updates will focus on the conversion of the kettles. 

I'm also going to start doing some brewing.  It's tiring doing all of this work and I think it's time for a home brew.  Spring is on the way and it's almost time to start thinking of lawnmower beers! Until then, maybe we'll brew up one more big winter beer for this harsh winter season.