I need the ocean! So I am going there. I have not been in a while since I got stuck on going to Las Vegas for vacations. Strangely, Las Vegas seems to be the absolute cheapest vacation you can take. If you go there once or twice, they start giving you free rooms, even if you don't gamble much. So I started going there over and over again instead of making some sort of annual pilgrimage to the ocean. For me, there is just something about being by the sea and seeing how vast and powerful it is. The smell of it and the sound it just takes me to a place that makes me wonder and dream, and it also makes me realize how small and meaningless life can really be. In 10,000 years, that ocean will still be there making that same sound and same smell. So in the grand scheme of things, the small things that stress people out on a day to day basis are really just stupid things to worry about. Sure, that guy that cuts you off in traffic is a real dick, but do you really care?

Anyway, so next week I am going to Vegas for vacation 8-), and then when it warms up a little more, like in a month, I am going to go to the ocean for a few days, and I am going to just sit there and stare at it for hours on end, and see what happens.

Ok, back to the Brutus 10 clone build. So, I decided to climb on the structure and jump around to see what happened. What happened? I think nothing, but at the time I think I sort of imagined that it was a little bendy, so I added more supports. The model has a single vertical support, so as usual I went above and beyond that. Overkill? Probably. Not much to say here, I will let the pictures speak for themselves. At this point, I am getting pretty good at welding. I still lay a stinker every once in a while, but they are few and far between.






So now it was time to add some wheels to the rig. I went with casters that can handle 240 pounds each. So 4 would handle 960 pounds. Again, overkill. The kegs weigh about 30 pounds each when empty. So that's 90 pounds. Under worst case scenario conditions, say I have all 3 filled to the brim with water, that's another 15 (gals) x 8 (pounds/per) x 3 (kegs) = 360 pounds. So now we are up to 450. Factor in the steel structure, and that's another probably 100 pounds. So 550, plus add hoses, connectors, pumps, buttons, lids, plumbing, etc... I could see it being 700 pounds. So 960 pounds of support from the casters should be ample. Also, I went with locking casters so the damn thing wouldn't roll away with my beer in it. So the next challenge was to mount them. I had this idea swimming around in my head as to how to do it, and when I read a a post on homebrewtalk.com about someone doing it the same way, I figured it would work well. The plan, Take some steel, drill a hole in it, and weld a nut on top of the hole, so the threaded stem from the caster can screw into that.





Is this amount of welding overkill? You decide. Do I know any better? nope. I don't recall getting a memo, or seeing any instructions anywhere on how to weld a nut to a piece of steel. Better safe then sorry I suppose.



So then I moved in to plumbing. Some people build these things where their propane or natural gas travels through one of the structural beams. I have little faith in my welding skills, so trying to weld something that can withstand internal pressure of the gas seemed like a bad plan, so from the start, I planned on having external plumbing, and standard black steel pipe seems to be the most widely accepted solution. So a trip to the hardware store later I had all these pieces.

So when assembled it looks like this.



Next, I had to mount the plumbing system to the structure. I located some relatively thick pipe hangers and welded them in place.


By the way, here is what happens when you try to weld really thin stuff, it essentially just burns away.

All in place, nice! It is really starting to shape up. Still a lot of work to do though.

Nostalgia! - I know I have talked about nostalgia quite a bit in my posts, but I am about to do it again. You know how people sit around and talk about the good times? Well, you could be having a good time right now and not know it yet, without the benefit of hindsight. As I wind down my time at my current employer and prepare to go elsewhere, I started thinking about how fun it used to be at my job several years ago. I don't recall feeling particularly fond of those times while they were happening, but looking back now, those were some damn fine times. Maybe because things suck so bad right now. So anyway, it made me think that when I get to my new job, I should try and enjoy it as it happens, rather than having to have it pass, and then think about how cool it was in hindsight. I am going to try really hard.

OK, so more Brutus 10 fun and excitement. Now that I have the top of the frame laid out and welded up, it is time to add some cross members and legs and such, and get this thing looking like a Brutus should.

Welding in the cross members is pretty simple work. I put in a total of 4 across the top, one for each side of the three kegs, and of course the outside of the frame acts as the other two keg supports.

Next came the legs. I bought a shitty 90 degree jig at home depot for 6 bucks to help hold everything perpendiculous while I tacked it in place with the welder. Once tacked, I was able to fill it in right.

So after the legs were on, it was time to get the burners in place. I figured the best thing to do was to just sort of hang them in there. So I took some 1" steel and drilled some holes in it so the burners could be adjustable and welded them to the insides of the frame on the two spots where the burners will be.

You may notice I only have two burners instead of three. Why? Well, you may remember a few posts back when I talked briefly about the mash lauter tun or MLT. The MLT holds the grains and the water at a steady temperature for a certain amount of time. With a properly insulated MLT, there is no need to directly fire this vessel. So I have opted for quality insulation versus direct heat to maintain the temperature level. I'll cover the insulation at a later date. Also, another reason is because I employ a technique called batch sparging, where I let the grains set in a batch of water at the right temperature for a certain amount of time, then drain it into the brew kettle, and then add another batch of water at higher temperature to bring on a different reaction from the grains. I will go over all that stuff later when I do a post on the maiden voyage of this bad boy.

If anyone is keeping score, I promise this will get more interesting once I get past the basic structure build out.

I was drinking a Coke the other day, and began to think about it's color. It was brown. When I pee, it comes out clearish yellow. Where does the color go? Are my guts brown now because I drank too many soft drinks? What about Koolaid and stuff like that? I guess my insides look like a rainbow by now.

Ok, so, to continue my series on the Brutus 10 clone build, the next phase was to get the structure started. Initially I was going to make the next phase polishing up the kegs to make them all shiny and awesome looking. I did start that aspect of the project, but moved on to the structure build because it is more exciting. Since the structure is made of steel, I needed to procure a few new things. First and foremost was a welder.

There are many different types of welders on the market, and they can be quite expensive. My goal was to find a welder that was relatively inexpensive, but one that would still do the job. Without going into too much detail on the various types of welders, I settled on a flux-core welder, because the device was low cost, and I didn't have to mess with separate welding gas tanks, and it would still do what I required. I went with the Campbell Hausfeld flux-core wire feed welder. The welder was 129 bucks, 92 of which was free money I received for doing surveys online for money.



Next I needed a stack of steel to build with. After a quick search around the interwebs, I located speedymetals.com, and settled on 1.5" square tubing with a 1/16" wall thickness. Is this overkill? Probably. Will it look cool though? Absolutely. This steel was $155 shipped. I bought more than I needed because I was almost certain I would screw up a few times, and didn't want to run out. I bought ten 6 foot long pieces.

If you remember from some of my other projects, I purchased a pretty nice Ryobi compound mitre, so to cut all this steel, I simply had to purchase a steel cutting blade for a few bucks.

So after chopping up the steel, I had to weld this crap together. I have welded in the past. I took a metal fabrication class in high school, and then during my college days, I took a few classes in the metal shop. So I am no stranger to welding, but I have not done it in well over 15 years. So I headed to Home Depot and picked up some sheet metal to lay some test beads.

I did more test beads than depicted here by the way, this was just when I chose to take a picture. Next, I moved on to the real welding. First step was to layout the steel, and tack weld it in place. Then finally, weld it all up, and grind it down to make it look nice.

I am trying to blow through all this pretty quick, to keep the articles short, because a picture is worth 1000 words, but there is a lot of information and thought processes I am leaving out. For example, I decided to go with 45 degree angles on the steel, so that the top of the structure would be completely sealed, and have the added structural bonus of sitting on top of the legs rather than stressing my welds by having it all done at 90 degree angles. 3 full kegs of water and grains can be pretty heavy, I'd rather not have it fall on my face.

Also, I am leaving out all the little tidbits I learned along the way, such as, it is probably a good idea to remove the sawdust collection bag from the mitre saw when cutting through steel, because the sparks fly like a mother fucker all over the place. Speaking of sparks, probably should make sure they don't fly out the sides of your steel into a gas can 8-). Also, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS wear your safety goggles and a good pair of work gloves.

Anyway, I have lot of more information like that so maybe I will do a few posts from time to time during the process just dedicated to helpful tidbits, or maybe do one dedicated post filled with all that kinda crap when the project is done.

That is enough for now. If I gloss over something important, please let me know and I will try and cover it in a reply, or with a future post.