Jeff Halvorson’s Brewing System

My system is housed in my “Brew House”, a detached workshop which while lacking running water does have natural gas heating, cable TV, and plenty of power (110V/220V). Water is either bucketed down or run through 50′ of food grade RV hose.It is a simple three vessel setup with ring burners (Superb) for the HLT and mash and a jet burner (King Kooker) for the boil. The SS pots are all 15 gallons; the mash and boil are Polarware pots with false bottoms while the HLT is a cheaper Italian model. Sparge water and recirculation is done using two March pumps which are connected using high-temp hosing and polysulfone quick-disconnects. Wort is chilled using a Blichmann plate chiller and pumped directly into a 12.2 gallon SS conical fermentor. The conical lives inside an upright freezer with Ranco thermostat which provides cooling in the summer and a heater for the winter.This system was designed as a single-tier setup however it currently is being used in a two-tier configuration for simplicity. Future improvements are to plumb the ring burners to natural gas, redesign the hood to better collect steam, and add additional temperature stable areas for beer storage (secondary, lagering, etc..).