Making the Stand Portable

After building the stand with dimensions that could fit in my downstairs storage, I decided it was time to make it even more portable. The idea came to me during last years "Brew-In" with the Draughtboard. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to brew at somebody else's house or back yard?

I don't exactly own a truck so it was time to improvise. The car I did have was a Honda CRX. Even though its only a two seater, its got lots of cargo room. The measurements of the back of the car are 40x36x19 inches. The brewer stand on the other hand was 68x18x38. There was no way to get this thing in safely without disassembly into smaller pieces. If I could split it into two chucks, it might just fit.

the brewery cuts to be made.

So that's what I decided to do. At the part of the stand that raises up to the mash tun, I would separate it into the base which had the boil kettle and HLT and the top which raised the mash tun.

I fashioned some custom fitting that would allow the tubing to fit nicely together when assembled and come apart without any hassle. Since the stand was all made from stainless tubing, I decided to make smaller tubing that I could weld inside the tubing and the other end slip into the opposite tubing. Not very difficult to do

detail of the junctions.

Once separation was complete, I worried a little about the stability of the mash tun. By cutting it into two separate pieces, I worried the bottom legs would simply bow outward and the how hot mash collapse. My paranoid fix it was to weld a couple of small rods to keep this sort of thing from happening.

The brewery after separation.

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