Here is a couple of thoughts from doing this before. Your RO system, you may want to consider adding a hydrolic pump to it, it uses the waste water to increase pressure on the incoming side of the membrane. It increases the rate of production and decreases the amount of waste water you create. Pressurizing the conical for water storage, bad idea. RO storage tanks are generally at 7psi. Anything above that reduces production. The conical would need to be vented and have a way to shut off. Most open storage tanks use a float switch. Also, it will take a long time to make enough water to fill it, like 24 hours. Are you going to have it connected to the garden hose that long? You have a kegland flowmeter inline to shut off incoming water, but it may not operate correctly at that flow rate, the incoming water may not spin the impeller at the correct rate. If you want the conical pressurized you would need a post RO booster pump that is set about the pressure of the conical. Overall waste water. You do not want a P trap, it could freeze. You do not need on or a vent du to not connecting to a sewer. You do need an air gap between the end of the waste water pipe and your collection container. What about making a manifold that your different waste sources could plug into? That way you could use flexible hose and disconnect when it is not needed to get them out of the way. Lastly, hot water for cleaning is very helpful. Some options are a large electric kettle, an induction burner and a pot, or a propane on demand hot water heater. They are not that expensive and are considered portable. That would give you hot water to clean anything you wanted to when you needed it without a long wait.
This is great detail thank you so much! Sounds like the consensus is I should ditch the idea to use the MiniUni as my RO tank. I'll go back to using the one that it came with. I like the idea of creating a manifold for the wastewater hoses to connect to. Probably safer too as they won't slip out and spill all over the brewery. Thanks again!
Great set up and a really great plan. Couple of things I know are, you only need a P-trap if you’re going into sewer to stop the gases from coming back in to the house if you’re just discharging outside you do not need one but make sure the opening has a screen or something to keep critters out For your slope or pitch it doesn’t need to be as drastic as you think just about 1/8 inch per foot. I like the idea of saving that water for cleanup. If it’s clean water. keep up the great work it’s shaping up nicely.
Thanks man! Good call on the screen for the pipe and I'm glad you mentioned that about the pitch because it will be easier for me to fit it on the rack with a smaller angle
My only contribution is to make sure the garden hose is rated for drinking water. You’re talking a very similar setup to mine. House to garage via hose
I too have a Brewtools B40 as well as many Kegland products which I have set up in my garage. Below are some thoughts from your video I placed my RO system in my ceiling space and use a Brewzilla 3.1.1 as my HLT. This works very well and its inbuilt pump is very useful. I tried to use the Kegland Fill-o-metre just like your diagram however my RO system did not produce enough pressure for it to work. I collect my RO water either directly into the B40 or into the HLT. After trying many locations I settled on resting my Brewtools Counter Flow Chiller on a small shelf about 2 feet above the table my B40 sits on. This is ideal relative to the B40 left hand ports. My freshwater is distributed via a 4 way manifold mounted to the wall above my head to keep it out of the way. My RO system and Counter Flow Chiller both drain to an external rainwater tank. This water is then used on the garden and reused for chilling.
Actual licensed plumber here giving my two cents. I'll try to follow the video as it goes. 1. For the water feed line, if you live in a warmer climate just run a pex line underground about 1-2 ft to the shed from your house. 3/4in or preferably 1in. If you have pex water lines in your house, it'll be super easy to hook up yourself. If not, spend the couple hundred dollar on having a plumber add a tee + a threaded valve to your water main. Or do it yourself if you are comfortable with plumbing. If you are in a colder climate, that's still an option but much more involved. If you decided to go the hose route make sure you waterlines have a bit of backslope to them for draining out come the colder months. Also on this point don't use sharkbite fittings. Invest in a pex tool and use pex fittings. Sharkbits have their place, but if one is going to leak you know it's gonna be the one in the worst spot. 2.If you want any sort of pressure at all, you need an RO rated pressure tank. Water is not a compressible fluid. That RO tank has an air bladder in it that gives you the pressure coming from an average drinking water faucet. You could 100% fill the mini uni with RO water, but you'd have to rely on gravity to feed the RO water where it needs to go. That would also require you adding some sort of air admittance valve to the mini uni to actually drain it. 3. I would 100% recommend getting a small 120v tank style water heater. Hot water is nice. Especially when it's pressurized. 4. Do not need a ptrap on the waste lines, or a vent. Would definitely recommend a grate of some sort on the outlet to protect against critters. If you do go to a collection system in the future that may change things, but that is your future self's problem.
Shaping up nicely! I think the others have already given really good input on the plumbing, and I think you're on the right track there. I have had a lot of luck just using a Digiboil 65L as my sparge water tank and there's plenty of fittings options there to help you pipe it where you need it. That doesn't get you pressurized water but gravity fed has worked well for me feeding the hot side of the B80 once you prime the line. I know you don't need more dilemmas when it comes to space management, but there's no substitute for a good sink with a higher pressure sprayer. I've seen some clever setups where the sink is fed with a garden hose, and the sink well covered with a butcher block to double as a work area if you need to reclaim that space during the brew day too. Another thought is cheating a bit and locating the sink near the shed and bringing items to it, but not sure if your climate will tolerate an outdoor sink without freezing issues. Might be handy for pets/gardening/chores that way too?
I did a similar shed brewery build. One thing that worked pretty well is a quick-disconnect garden hose connection (courtesy of Amazon) where the exterior hose connects to the shed wall. It's great to be able to just plug your hose into your shed and not worry about getting a nice threaded seal, because as long as you have a dedicated hose, you can use thread tape on the quick disconnect adapters to prevent leaks on the garden hose threads. But every non-taped garden hose connection in my brewery has been a nightmare. Constant leaks. I've replaced the hoses, replaced the nozzle, replaced the O-rings. Some days I might get lucky, but most days I'll have a leak or two somewhere. If I were to start over, I would look for a way to do quick disconnects directly to PEX and avoid GHT entirely. For drainage, you do need a P-trap, or you'll end up with spiders mushed into the inside of your cleaning nozzle or something. Venting probably isn't necessary, but for $22 you can get a PVC air admittance valve from Home Depot that tees into your drain easily and will let you rest easy knowing that an inspector would be proud of you. I built my shed on top of a gravel foundation, and made a small leech field setup where the drainage goes through ABS pipes with a bunch of holes drilled through them, over the gravel. With this setup I don't think I've ever poured enough water down the drain for it to even leak beyond the shed walls, and I like that the gravel provides a filtration layer. You could do a similar thing with a French drain. Lastly, for me a utility sink is an absolute must-have. I constantly need to rinse things off, spray things down, dump things out, toss wet rags somewhere. The difference between lugging kettles into my kitchen from the shed versus spraying them down in the brewery is the difference between ending brew day in a good mood or a bad mood.
In my new space my condenser run off and chiller water out are on the same “out” hose with a three way garden hose splitter with built in ball valves to prevent back flow when one or the other are in use. The same for chiller in and condenser in. Currently i run one hose into the brewery and one hose out into a bathroom floor drain down the hall. It works really well. If it was me i would skip the RO water into the mini uni sparge tank and just fill the B40 with your mash and sparge water together so you can get everything to temp more efficiently and take advantage of the countdown feature then just pump the water from the kettle to the miniuni using the etched markings in the kettle as a guide. This will also make adding your salt additions easier. The brewtools element is super slow bringing cold water up to 80°C and does a far better job at maintaining temps. Perhaps since your system is smaller it maybe easier but for me its pretty slow. I would just use buckets for cleaning and crack that window for the steam from the mash when necessary.
Brilliant! I like the idea to heat the spare water and mash water together and then just pump it back to the MiniUni. I was wondering how efficient that heater would be. Thanks man!
You could use a duo-tight flow stopper on the gas side of your mini uni20 to stop flow when full. If it fails you do have the ability to route a line to a safe over flow spot. Another idea, but maybe harder to incorporate is a float valve. I use them on my 55 gal drums to stop flow from my RO system then gravity feed over to the brewery. Maybe some sort of an auxiliary, open to atmosphere very small kettle (like an asparagus cooker) mounted to a height adjustable rail (or monitor arm) that can fill to an adjustable height based on volume needs.
Brother I dont have the answer to the questions you asked but one thing I know is that you can and should hook water from your house to the brewery. The hose sounds like and extra step to the brewday. Its not a difficult thing to do with pex. Unless you live in an area where winters are bad.
I work with 2x 60l barrels in my brew room. I can fill them with a long hose (50l cold water). Then I circulate through my counter flow chiller with a small aquarium pump and eventually collect the hot water in my second 60l barrel. Towards the end I either finish cooling in my fermenter or connect my 30l cooling water (4°C) for my fermentation temperarure control to my cfc. My steam condenser is also using the barrels as a water source and a 24V pressure pump is then recirculating/pumping the water through the nozzle of the condenser... one way or the other you get warm water for cleaning (40-50l warm water). Happy to give you more details...
As for the drain, I found a vevor maceration pump intended for a toilet, but works well when dealing with grain, hops and other solids. It has multiple inlets and has its own internal sensor that tells it to pump only when needed. I found mine on walmarts website and was SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper compared to other places....maybe 50-60 bucks if i recall. Looks like there may be an updated model, but is still relatively cheap for a simple & effective solution for what could be expensive and complicated.
Put 1-1/2" on a slope along the floor and put Tee where drains are, then run pipe vertically to height needed. I did that in my basement, drain to sump pump from iron filter, RO, water softener and hot water tank, plus ground water from higher level basement... Works great! Instead of having bunch of pex laying on the floor from previous owners. 1/4" slope per foot. The whole pipe ended up going 22' and I have 4 vertical runs, also plan to add brewing sink.
Do you have room for a utility sink on the exterior of the brew shed? Having a large sink makes clean up soooo much easier! You'll just want to install a three way valve on the supply line so you can drain the faucet during the winter to keep everything from freezing. Also, small electric water heaters are relatively cheap and easy to tuck out of the way, like up on a shelf or in a cabinet, if you're needing hot water on demand for cleaning!
New to the channel and I was really thinking you needed our "emergency help" to give a funny name to one of your fermenters or whether or not you needed to put googliy eyes on your neoprene covers. While I'm no plumber or whatever you need here, I am glad I'm following your channel because it's bound to increase my knowledge! (PS I didn't really understanding anything you said here... and that's awesome. I'm learning!)
Wow the new brewery is really coming along! My system is offgrid (also in CO) so things like power and water consumption are very important. I have two water tanks. One for cooling water and smaller one for clean water. The cooling tank is 60gal and has a 3/4hp pump that cycles the water through the equipment and back into the tank. I use iodine to keep it from getting funky and drain it twice a year. The 30gal clean tank works like your setup except I have a floor drain that I use for "clean" water removal. It drains into my septic leach field. Having 2 tanks really cuts down on my water usage.
Hey Dan! A couple thoughts about your plan: RO produces a lot of waste water so make sure that it gets drained far enough away from your shed and that it shuts off both the RO and the condensate side when you've reached the volume you're looking for. Also I think those pressure tanks usually have an air bladder in them so I dont think you'll get much pressure in the tank without compressing air since liquids don't compress., Like others have said, if you have a p-trap full of water you risk it freezing, but then that's also a risk for everything else in your shed when temps get cold enough. Using your kettle as a wash basin makes sense for after brewing, but it prevents you from being able to wash things while you're mashing/boiling/cooling. Maybe you could have a temporary space for another kettle on a cart or something, but then you need another way to heat the cleaning water. Although waste water from the chiller will be very hot to start so maybe reuse that? Finally if you have dogs I'd be careful about where you dump hop material as it's toxic to them.
Thank you! Good point about not being able to clean effectively while I go. I'll have to think about that! I'm also rethinking my idea to use the miniuni as the RO tank. Might go back to using the tank it came with
Hi Dan, Good job so far! For your waste water (counterflow chiller and steam condenser) I would allow for collection of this warm/hot water to reserve for cleaning at the end of the brew, so some vessel to the LHS with an overflow and/or ability to divert when full, and a pump to use then with a spray head...
Hi Dan, Congrats on the new digs! We watch all you videos. I am currently setting up my brewery as well and i agree the water supply is the biggest issue, an idea that i am using from another home brewer is i will be running hose from the R/O system using Duotight fittings with a float ball clamped to kettles or fermenters so i can fill my Brewtools F100 and F150 and Hot liquor tank and boil kettle. I will just move it from tank to tank. My R/O i purchased has a booster pump so it should produce 100 gallon ever 24 hours. My waste water is being dumped same as you. I know space looks big when its empty but the walls close in quick with all your equipment so separation of hot side and cellaring is common if you can but not always possible you have a lot going on there. I also agree with the previous post you only need a p trap for sewage but! Vermin will find a way in if you don't have something to block them, we epoxied wire mess on the end of the pipe, what a shame to have an infestation. I also agree with another post that you may not want to remove the pressure tank from the R/O especially without a booster pump the Blatter is what give you pressure. Once the Tank/Blatter is drained you will then see how much or little flow you will have. I like you idea about the counterflow chiller being mounted the way you did. I will have to change my set up in that regard. I also use a wet dry shopvac to suck out all valves and hoses and kettles after cleaning and rinsing. I don't know what i would have done for years without that vac. Good luck Dan what ever you come up with we are all eager to see.
Really like how this space is coming together. I used a garden hose twice for bringing the brewing water into my garage, and while it made things easier, the water had this awful rubber hose taste. Hopefully your filter will take care of that?
Sounds like a great plan to me! I am also not a plumber but I don't think you need a P-trap if it is just for waste water and it's not connected to a sewer, to keep gasses out- but I would suggest a screen to catch any grains etc at the top of the drain to limit clogging. I wonder if you can add some-sort of a small sink or bowl to your current table (not sure if you mentioned the actual drain's structure), not so much as a functioning sink but just to use as the start to your drain system. Maybe you can put a floor drain in, that would be ideal. In a pinch you could always use a bucket of some sort to catch waste water and an automatic pump attached to a hose that goes out of your window or a drain too. You might want to think about winter water supply though, I know it gets pretty cold in Colorado so you may have some expanding and contracting along with frozen hose lines to contend with. I am excited to see what you come up with, and then see it in action. Cheers!
You dont need a P-trap, only for sewer gases, though it can also prevent bugs from flying in and up into the shed via the drain so it wotn hurt having one. As for venting, you shouldnt need a vent, though its based off the flow if the water out, and as long as your not dumping water out of all 4 waste water exits at the same time, one of those can be used as a vent, if you find that youre not draining fast enough, or getting a backfill, you can add an air admittance valve as a vent. Other than that the rest of the layout looks and sounds fine.
Only thing I may caution about the drain is you probably don’t need a p-trap, but it might prevent any unwanted guests climbing up the drain pipe once it dries. I may be paranoid, but having had critters get into my brewing equipment once, I would try to figure out any possible way to keep access closed off.
Vent yes! P trap isn't needed, but I would look at some way to collect "Grey Water " and use it for a garden. Also I'd love to see you take on more simple brews, with more ready available ingredients.
I would do some research on a flow meter for the RO system. Some of them will be very inaccurate on the low flow rate for RO EDIT: the minimum for the Kegland Fill O Meter is 1 litre/minute. I know my RO system fills about 49ml / min so way below the 1 litre per min minimum. Obviously YMMV
Just confirming what @mrmathman said; I tried the same thing and found out that the Fill-O-Meter will not work on the RO flow rate. I even spoke to KegLand about it and it is just too low to work. I ended up using food grade barrel with float valve to store the RO water and then I can use the Fill-O-Meter when pumping from the barrel into my kettle.@@HopsANDgnarly
When you heat water under pressure you need to take waters expansion in consideration. Water does not compress (much) under pressure so when it gets warmer it expand and you might get very hot leak or even "explosion".
Your plan seems pretty solid. I don't think you need a P trap on the drain because that's mostly to prevent sewer gasses from coming back up, which you aren't connecting to. I recently installed a little dump basin in my brewing area that runs at a slope down to the sump pit and I didn't put a P-trap on it. No issues so far. I think your drain will run better if you extend the PVC line up towards the ceiling to vent it. It will avoid any suction/backpressure problems that will slow down the water flow. Just like how you are putting a faucet on the outside to connect your water supply hose to, you might want to add a valve on the PVC pipe as well to keep critters from getting up into your drain pipe. Collecting sanitizer/PBW into a bucket is a good idea. You might consider doing the same with your chiller water and use that to clean/sanitize with. You can connect a small RV water pump with a pressure switch built into it so you have on-demand flow for cleaning. I did this on my rain barrel and it works amazing. I also use a $40 electric bucket heater off amazon to heat my sparge water. It's not pretty but its effective and cheap. I also brew 3 batches at a time and it does fine heating the sparge water for all 3 batches in my 10gal pot I used to use as a boil kettle.
@@HopsANDgnarly well it’s weird cause I have some of your same ideas before started watching your videos. I do appreciate what you do keep up the good work
Personally, I love a huge stainless steel sink (or at least a bath tub lol) for washing/sterilising on the go of fermenters, equipment etc. If you're happy with washing in your kettle however then go for it. I'm no plumber but your plan seems sound. I'd wait to see what the actual plumbers say about water pressure and flow rates before committing though.
Nice build so far, for your drain you don’t need a vent, that is to prevent sewer gases coming back into the living space. A vent however yes otherwise it’s like pouring out of a soda bottle. You’re gonna want volume for your water feed line. So 1/2” probably won’t be enough. I’d go with 3/4”. Also you garden hose will need to be drinking water rated or you’ll get that plastic smell and taste in the water. Cheers 🍻
Just an idea thrown out, you can use your condensed water from your boil for some cleanup and washing kettles out, it's already hot. Just have to collect it, it could free up some space during draining, yes, I think you should have at least a vent and probably a p-trap
Not a plumber. Are you connecting a garden hose from the house to the spigot you're putting in to feed the shed? Will there be pressure drop? RO systems need a lot of pressure to work at the stated gallon/hr. I just wonder if you'll need a pressure booster pump before the RO system, but I guess that can be left to trial and error.
In a perfect scenario you would pull the RO water out of the MINIUNI 20 from the bottom to the pump. By pulling that water from the bottom, pressure is unnecessary as your pump will pull vacuum by being primed. If water fills the suction line, it will be pumped. You can also save the water from that RO, heat it, and use it for cleaning. Cheers
Yea a pump might be the way to go. Someone else recommended heating all my water in the kettle then pumping the sparge water into the minuni. I like it
@@HopsANDgnarly I welded a bottom port into all of my Spike Flex plus fermenters specifically to kill two birds. I heat sparge water in the Spike Flex+ fermenters, then use them. I believe heating my sparge to 180 kills any bugs, and I haven't been proved otherwise. By the time the boil is over I have lost 10 degrees on the sparge water. Then use that same fermenter for fermentation. Sounds complicated, but it's not really. Cheers.
I am no plumber either… You might need to consider some sort of in-line pump below the mini Uni and as far as the runoff goes because you can use gravity. I’m thinking you should be OK. Cheers, Dan.
That's the tough part but I'm not sure I'll be able to overcome this. I've always relied on a garden hose for one thing or another in brewing so I'm hoping it's not a huge inconvenience. Might have to work around the weather and be diligent about disconnecting the system
I have heard that you shouldn’t store RO water in stainless for longer than a day or it can strip the passivation. Just something I’ve read, I’m not sure if it’s really an issue - but it’s worth looking in to.
P trap isn't necessary for the drain since you aren't connecting to an actual sewer. Traps basically keep sewer gases out. No sewer=no sewer gasses. Plus, the water in your trap would freeze. Unless this space is heated? Good luck Braj. Brew shed looks killer
The plumbing make sense but as mentioned before, the t-trap will probably freeze. A non-return valve (Google translation) insted of the t-trap, prevents stuff/animals from geting in and cant freeze. We use these alot in sweden for bigger pipes but I know there are for smaller aswell. Hopefully this make sense, not used to talk work in english😅
I can answer the P-trap question for you. You don't need a trap in the line at all. The purpose of a trap is to prevent sewer gas from coming into your house from your sewer piping that has all kinds of nasty stuff connected to it, like your toilet(s). The other place you might find a trap would be in an air conditioner condensate drain if you have an electric air handler/furnace. In that case, the condensate drain is on the negative pressure (sucking) side of the fan and the trap is used to prevent the fan from sucking air back through the drain line and preventing the water from draining. The water sitting in the trap creates just enough resistance (water weight) to prevent the fan from doing that and allows the water to drain normally. The down side to water sitting in a trap like that is that things tend to grow in there and will eventually clog the trap because there's not enough water pressure/velocity to be self cleaning. People with gas/oil furnaces generally should not have a trap in the air conditioner condensate drain because the evaporator coil is mounted on the positive pressure (blowing) side of the fan.
1. No P trap is needed. Vents will help the water drain faster but are not required. 2. RO Reject water will be pressurized and can be routed to the main drain 3. Add a Backwater valve on the end of the pipe to prevent any animals from entering the pipe. 4. A 4" x 2" Eccentric Coupler would be a good inlet for the drain hoses 5. The filling of the RO system needs to have some mechanical or electrical control to shut it off when the Mini Uni is full. You will flood the shed at some point if you don't. I would recommend a brute 20-gallon placed above the support rack that is filled by a float valve. Add a bulkhead and a hose to the bottom of the tank to have fast filling on demand RO water. You can add a flow meter on this hose if you want to have accurate filling.
The fill-o-meter has an integrated solenoid valve that shuts off the system once the programmed water charge has been completed. Given that the RO water supply is not normally connected, he shouldn't need any other shut-off mechanism. A manual valve is always a good idea, though.
If you are brewing frequent back to back batches, I'd reccomend collecting and reusing your waste water from the heat exchanger and condenser for strike water of the next batch or heated cleaning water. Full disclosure, I live in a place where water or energy can't be wasted so perhaps not relevant to your climate? I personally collect and store all water for re-use and utilise the hot water post exchangers wherever i can. I don't have freezing temperatures to contend with to be fair to your situation
p-trap in your case isn't needed, except that it would help bugs and animals from entering the shed through the drain. So if you cap it off after brew day, you could avoid it. I'd say for a 10 foot run of drain, vent could also be avoided. A decent sized hole filled with drain rock can hold a lot of water on the outside of the shed.
If you're just dumping the water outside, I don't think you need a P-trap or vent. Those are mostly to prevent sewer gasses from coming up into your house. I'd also be concerned about water in your P-Trap freezing since you are in an outbuilding. I WOULD make sure your run off pipe terminates sufficiently far from the building though (maybe 5 feet or so). Just because the ground slopes downhill doesn't mean water won't come back and pool around your foundation.
Ah makes sense, I'll skip the P trap. And good call I wouldn't have thought about the water going that way. Do you think something like a french drain would help pull it away?
@@HopsANDgnarly A french drain or a drywell at the exit of your discharge pipe would help minimize surface water. Definitely a good idea if you can implement it.
In my opinion you don’t need a p-trap to run water straight outside. A p-trap is used when running water to a sewer line to keep the smell and sewer gas from coming back into your system
Storing RO water in stainless steel may not be the best option, specially if there is also air inside the tank. It might be quite corrosive. As far as i know it is better to store RO water in plastic. Have a look into that Impressive setup!! Looking forward to see more progress! Cheers
I would advise against connecting your domestic water supply directly to the MiniUni in any way and making it a pressurized tank. You risk either over-pressurizing the tank or creating a vacuum when transferring to your kettle. Your locale might consider this an unfired pressure vessel. You could keep the top off with an air gap to the fill valve. Use a “garden hose” that is rated for potable water. Stay safe and use a licensed professional if you are unsure of your ability to comply with your local building codes.
Marshal from Brülosophy once said: you dont have to wonder that when you use a garden hose to put water into your kettle that the final beer will probably taste like a garden hose ;) Since then i avoided using a garden hose :P
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Here is a couple of thoughts from doing this before. Your RO system, you may want to consider adding a hydrolic pump to it, it uses the waste water to increase pressure on the incoming side of the membrane. It increases the rate of production and decreases the amount of waste water you create. Pressurizing the conical for water storage, bad idea. RO storage tanks are generally at 7psi. Anything above that reduces production. The conical would need to be vented and have a way to shut off. Most open storage tanks use a float switch. Also, it will take a long time to make enough water to fill it, like 24 hours. Are you going to have it connected to the garden hose that long? You have a kegland flowmeter inline to shut off incoming water, but it may not operate correctly at that flow rate, the incoming water may not spin the impeller at the correct rate. If you want the conical pressurized you would need a post RO booster pump that is set about the pressure of the conical. Overall waste water. You do not want a P trap, it could freeze. You do not need on or a vent du to not connecting to a sewer. You do need an air gap between the end of the waste water pipe and your collection container. What about making a manifold that your different waste sources could plug into? That way you could use flexible hose and disconnect when it is not needed to get them out of the way. Lastly, hot water for cleaning is very helpful. Some options are a large electric kettle, an induction burner and a pot, or a propane on demand hot water heater. They are not that expensive and are considered portable. That would give you hot water to clean anything you wanted to when you needed it without a long wait.
This is great detail thank you so much! Sounds like the consensus is I should ditch the idea to use the MiniUni as my RO tank. I'll go back to using the one that it came with. I like the idea of creating a manifold for the wastewater hoses to connect to. Probably safer too as they won't slip out and spill all over the brewery. Thanks again!
Great set up and a really great plan. Couple of things I know are, you only need a P-trap if you’re going into sewer to stop the gases from coming back in to the house if you’re just discharging outside you do not need one but make sure the opening has a screen or something to keep critters out For your slope or pitch it doesn’t need to be as drastic as you think just about 1/8 inch per foot. I like the idea of saving that water for cleanup. If it’s clean water. keep up the great work it’s shaping up nicely.
Thanks man! Good call on the screen for the pipe and I'm glad you mentioned that about the pitch because it will be easier for me to fit it on the rack with a smaller angle
My only contribution is to make sure the garden hose is rated for drinking water. You’re talking a very similar setup to mine. House to garage via hose
I could not find a drinking water rated one here in Norway; but using PEM instead wasn't difficult
I too have a Brewtools B40 as well as many Kegland products which I have set up in my garage. Below are some thoughts from your video
I placed my RO system in my ceiling space and use a Brewzilla 3.1.1 as my HLT. This works very well and its inbuilt pump is very useful. I tried to use the Kegland Fill-o-metre just like your diagram however my RO system did not produce enough pressure for it to work.
I collect my RO water either directly into the B40 or into the HLT.
After trying many locations I settled on resting my Brewtools Counter Flow Chiller on a small shelf about 2 feet above the table my B40 sits on. This is ideal relative to the B40 left hand ports.
My freshwater is distributed via a 4 way manifold mounted to the wall above my head to keep it out of the way. My RO system and Counter Flow Chiller both drain to an external rainwater tank. This water is then used on the garden and reused for chilling.
Actual licensed plumber here giving my two cents. I'll try to follow the video as it goes.
1. For the water feed line, if you live in a warmer climate just run a pex line underground about 1-2 ft to the shed from your house. 3/4in or preferably 1in. If you have pex water lines in your house, it'll be super easy to hook up yourself. If not, spend the couple hundred dollar on having a plumber add a tee + a threaded valve to your water main. Or do it yourself if you are comfortable with plumbing. If you are in a colder climate, that's still an option but much more involved. If you decided to go the hose route make sure you waterlines have a bit of backslope to them for draining out come the colder months. Also on this point don't use sharkbite fittings. Invest in a pex tool and use pex fittings. Sharkbits have their place, but if one is going to leak you know it's gonna be the one in the worst spot.
2.If you want any sort of pressure at all, you need an RO rated pressure tank. Water is not a compressible fluid. That RO tank has an air bladder in it that gives you the pressure coming from an average drinking water faucet. You could 100% fill the mini uni with RO water, but you'd have to rely on gravity to feed the RO water where it needs to go. That would also require you adding some sort of air admittance valve to the mini uni to actually drain it.
3. I would 100% recommend getting a small 120v tank style water heater. Hot water is nice. Especially when it's pressurized.
4. Do not need a ptrap on the waste lines, or a vent. Would definitely recommend a grate of some sort on the outlet to protect against critters. If you do go to a collection system in the future that may change things, but that is your future self's problem.
I would go as big as you can on both the inlet PEX & the drain lines. At least 3/4" on the PEX & 2" on the drains.
Shaping up nicely! I think the others have already given really good input on the plumbing, and I think you're on the right track there. I have had a lot of luck just using a Digiboil 65L as my sparge water tank and there's plenty of fittings options there to help you pipe it where you need it. That doesn't get you pressurized water but gravity fed has worked well for me feeding the hot side of the B80 once you prime the line.
I know you don't need more dilemmas when it comes to space management, but there's no substitute for a good sink with a higher pressure sprayer. I've seen some clever setups where the sink is fed with a garden hose, and the sink well covered with a butcher block to double as a work area if you need to reclaim that space during the brew day too. Another thought is cheating a bit and locating the sink near the shed and bringing items to it, but not sure if your climate will tolerate an outdoor sink without freezing issues. Might be handy for pets/gardening/chores that way too?
I did a similar shed brewery build. One thing that worked pretty well is a quick-disconnect garden hose connection (courtesy of Amazon) where the exterior hose connects to the shed wall. It's great to be able to just plug your hose into your shed and not worry about getting a nice threaded seal, because as long as you have a dedicated hose, you can use thread tape on the quick disconnect adapters to prevent leaks on the garden hose threads. But every non-taped garden hose connection in my brewery has been a nightmare. Constant leaks. I've replaced the hoses, replaced the nozzle, replaced the O-rings. Some days I might get lucky, but most days I'll have a leak or two somewhere. If I were to start over, I would look for a way to do quick disconnects directly to PEX and avoid GHT entirely.
For drainage, you do need a P-trap, or you'll end up with spiders mushed into the inside of your cleaning nozzle or something. Venting probably isn't necessary, but for $22 you can get a PVC air admittance valve from Home Depot that tees into your drain easily and will let you rest easy knowing that an inspector would be proud of you.
I built my shed on top of a gravel foundation, and made a small leech field setup where the drainage goes through ABS pipes with a bunch of holes drilled through them, over the gravel. With this setup I don't think I've ever poured enough water down the drain for it to even leak beyond the shed walls, and I like that the gravel provides a filtration layer. You could do a similar thing with a French drain.
Lastly, for me a utility sink is an absolute must-have. I constantly need to rinse things off, spray things down, dump things out, toss wet rags somewhere. The difference between lugging kettles into my kitchen from the shed versus spraying them down in the brewery is the difference between ending brew day in a good mood or a bad mood.
In my new space my condenser run off and chiller water out are on the same “out” hose with a three way garden hose splitter with built in ball valves to prevent back flow when one or the other are in use. The same for chiller in and condenser in. Currently i run one hose into the brewery and one hose out into a bathroom floor drain down the hall. It works really well.
If it was me i would skip the RO water into the mini uni sparge tank and just fill the B40 with your mash and sparge water together so you can get everything to temp more efficiently and take advantage of the countdown feature then just pump the water from the kettle to the miniuni using the etched markings in the kettle as a guide. This will also make adding your salt additions easier. The brewtools element is super slow bringing cold water up to 80°C and does a far better job at maintaining temps. Perhaps since your system is smaller it maybe easier but for me its pretty slow. I would just use buckets for cleaning and crack that window for the steam from the mash when necessary.
Brilliant! I like the idea to heat the spare water and mash water together and then just pump it back to the MiniUni. I was wondering how efficient that heater would be. Thanks man!
You could use a duo-tight flow stopper on the gas side of your mini uni20 to stop flow when full. If it fails you do have the ability to route a line to a safe over flow spot.
Another idea, but maybe harder to incorporate is a float valve. I use them on my 55 gal drums to stop flow from my RO system then gravity feed over to the brewery. Maybe some sort of an auxiliary, open to atmosphere very small kettle (like an asparagus cooker) mounted to a height adjustable rail (or monitor arm) that can fill to an adjustable height based on volume needs.
Brother I dont have the answer to the questions you asked but one thing I know is that you can and should hook water from your house to the brewery. The hose sounds like and extra step to the brewday. Its not a difficult thing to do with pex. Unless you live in an area where winters are bad.
Don’t need a p-trap since sewer gas will not be a concern. Might consider drinking rated hoses (white RV hoses)
I work with 2x 60l barrels in my brew room. I can fill them with a long hose (50l cold water). Then I circulate through my counter flow chiller with a small aquarium pump and eventually collect the hot water in my second 60l barrel. Towards the end I either finish cooling in my fermenter or connect my 30l cooling water (4°C) for my fermentation temperarure control to my cfc.
My steam condenser is also using the barrels as a water source and a 24V pressure pump is then recirculating/pumping the water through the nozzle of the condenser... one way or the other you get warm water for cleaning (40-50l warm water). Happy to give you more details...
I like this concept! I’ll have to think about where I could put a collection barrel
As for the drain, I found a vevor maceration pump intended for a toilet, but works well when dealing with grain, hops and other solids. It has multiple inlets and has its own internal sensor that tells it to pump only when needed. I found mine on walmarts website and was SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper compared to other places....maybe 50-60 bucks if i recall. Looks like there may be an updated model, but is still relatively cheap for a simple & effective solution for what could be expensive and complicated.
Put 1-1/2" on a slope along the floor and put Tee where drains are, then run pipe vertically to height needed.
I did that in my basement, drain to sump pump from iron filter, RO, water softener and hot water tank, plus ground water from higher level basement...
Works great! Instead of having bunch of pex laying on the floor from previous owners.
1/4" slope per foot.
The whole pipe ended up going 22' and I have 4 vertical runs, also plan to add brewing sink.
Do you have room for a utility sink on the exterior of the brew shed? Having a large sink makes clean up soooo much easier! You'll just want to install a three way valve on the supply line so you can drain the faucet during the winter to keep everything from freezing.
Also, small electric water heaters are relatively cheap and easy to tuck out of the way, like up on a shelf or in a cabinet, if you're needing hot water on demand for cleaning!
Regularly check for humidity. I have seen to many circuits turn to dust in humid environments.
New to the channel and I was really thinking you needed our "emergency help" to give a funny name to one of your fermenters or whether or not you needed to put googliy eyes on your neoprene covers. While I'm no plumber or whatever you need here, I am glad I'm following your channel because it's bound to increase my knowledge! (PS I didn't really understanding anything you said here... and that's awesome. I'm learning!)
Hahaha (*orders googly eyes for fermenters*)
Wow the new brewery is really coming along! My system is offgrid (also in CO) so things like power and water consumption are very important. I have two water tanks. One for cooling water and smaller one for clean water. The cooling tank is 60gal and has a 3/4hp pump that cycles the water through the equipment and back into the tank. I use iodine to keep it from getting funky and drain it twice a year. The 30gal clean tank works like your setup except I have a floor drain that I use for "clean" water removal. It drains into my septic leach field. Having 2 tanks really cuts down on my water usage.
Nice! That's good inspiration I'd love to get some big tanks set up for collection and reuse!
Hey Dan! A couple thoughts about your plan:
RO produces a lot of waste water so make sure that it gets drained far enough away from your shed and that it shuts off both the RO and the condensate side when you've reached the volume you're looking for. Also I think those pressure tanks usually have an air bladder in them so I dont think you'll get much pressure in the tank without compressing air since liquids don't compress.,
Like others have said, if you have a p-trap full of water you risk it freezing, but then that's also a risk for everything else in your shed when temps get cold enough.
Using your kettle as a wash basin makes sense for after brewing, but it prevents you from being able to wash things while you're mashing/boiling/cooling.
Maybe you could have a temporary space for another kettle on a cart or something, but then you need another way to heat the cleaning water. Although waste water from the chiller will be very hot to start so maybe reuse that? Finally if you have dogs I'd be careful about where you dump hop material as it's toxic to them.
Thank you! Good point about not being able to clean effectively while I go. I'll have to think about that! I'm also rethinking my idea to use the miniuni as the RO tank. Might go back to using the tank it came with
Hi Dan, Good job so far! For your waste water (counterflow chiller and steam condenser) I would allow for collection of this warm/hot water to reserve for cleaning at the end of the brew, so some vessel to the LHS with an overflow and/or ability to divert when full, and a pump to use then with a spray head...
That's a really good point! It's already warm, might as well reuse it.
Hi Dan, Congrats on the new digs! We watch all you videos. I am currently setting up my brewery as well and i agree the water supply is the biggest issue, an idea that i am using from another home brewer is i will be running hose from the R/O system using Duotight fittings with a float ball clamped to kettles or fermenters so i can fill my Brewtools F100 and F150 and Hot liquor tank and boil kettle. I will just move it from tank to tank. My R/O i purchased has a booster pump so it should produce 100 gallon ever 24 hours. My waste water is being dumped same as you. I know space looks big when its empty but the walls close in quick with all your equipment so separation of hot side and cellaring is common if you can but not always possible you have a lot going on there. I also agree with the previous post you only need a p trap for sewage but! Vermin will find a way in if you don't have something to block them, we epoxied wire mess on the end of the pipe, what a shame to have an infestation. I also agree with another post that you may not want to remove the pressure tank from the R/O especially without a booster pump the Blatter is what give you pressure. Once the Tank/Blatter is drained you will then see how much or little flow you will have. I like you idea about the counterflow chiller being mounted the way you did. I will have to change my set up in that regard. I also use a wet dry shopvac to suck out all valves and hoses and kettles after cleaning and rinsing. I don't know what i would have done for years without that vac.
Good luck Dan what ever you come up with we are all eager to see.
Thank you! This gives me a lot of great ideas!
Really like how this space is coming together. I used a garden hose twice for bringing the brewing water into my garage, and while it made things easier, the water had this awful rubber hose taste. Hopefully your filter will take care of that?
Yea the filter and I might need to use a special drinking water rated hose that someone else mentioned here
@@HopsANDgnarly Thats what I did, bought food grade hose from Kegland, and it’s been great.
Sounds like a great plan to me! I am also not a plumber but I don't think you need a P-trap if it is just for waste water and it's not connected to a sewer, to keep gasses out- but I would suggest a screen to catch any grains etc at the top of the drain to limit clogging. I wonder if you can add some-sort of a small sink or bowl to your current table (not sure if you mentioned the actual drain's structure), not so much as a functioning sink but just to use as the start to your drain system. Maybe you can put a floor drain in, that would be ideal. In a pinch you could always use a bucket of some sort to catch waste water and an automatic pump attached to a hose that goes out of your window or a drain too. You might want to think about winter water supply though, I know it gets pretty cold in Colorado so you may have some expanding and contracting along with frozen hose lines to contend with. I am excited to see what you come up with, and then see it in action. Cheers!
These are great ideas! I screen sounds like a must have
You dont need a P-trap, only for sewer gases, though it can also prevent bugs from flying in and up into the shed via the drain so it wotn hurt having one. As for venting, you shouldnt need a vent, though its based off the flow if the water out, and as long as your not dumping water out of all 4 waste water exits at the same time, one of those can be used as a vent, if you find that youre not draining fast enough, or getting a backfill, you can add an air admittance valve as a vent. Other than that the rest of the layout looks and sounds fine.
Only thing I may caution about the drain is you probably don’t need a p-trap, but it might prevent any unwanted guests climbing up the drain pipe once it dries. I may be paranoid, but having had critters get into my brewing equipment once, I would try to figure out any possible way to keep access closed off.
Vent yes! P trap isn't needed, but I would look at some way to collect "Grey Water " and use it for a garden. Also I'd love to see you take on more simple brews, with more ready available ingredients.
You got it! Any idea how I'd vent it?
OATY makeS an inline vent that works with 1/2 pipe, or 2". Just need a tee and the room, its about 3" tall.
I would do some research on a flow meter for the RO system. Some of them will be very inaccurate on the low flow rate for RO
EDIT: the minimum for the Kegland Fill O Meter is 1 litre/minute. I know my RO system fills about 49ml / min so way below the 1 litre per min minimum. Obviously YMMV
Ah good to know! Thanks!
Just confirming what @mrmathman said; I tried the same thing and found out that the Fill-O-Meter will not work on the RO flow rate. I even spoke to KegLand about it and it is just too low to work. I ended up using food grade barrel with float valve to store the RO water and then I can use the Fill-O-Meter when pumping from the barrel into my kettle.@@HopsANDgnarly
When you heat water under pressure you need to take waters expansion in consideration.
Water does not compress (much) under pressure so when it gets warmer it expand and you might get very hot leak or even "explosion".
Damn good to know! TY
Your plan seems pretty solid. I don't think you need a P trap on the drain because that's mostly to prevent sewer gasses from coming back up, which you aren't connecting to. I recently installed a little dump basin in my brewing area that runs at a slope down to the sump pit and I didn't put a P-trap on it. No issues so far. I think your drain will run better if you extend the PVC line up towards the ceiling to vent it. It will avoid any suction/backpressure problems that will slow down the water flow. Just like how you are putting a faucet on the outside to connect your water supply hose to, you might want to add a valve on the PVC pipe as well to keep critters from getting up into your drain pipe. Collecting sanitizer/PBW into a bucket is a good idea. You might consider doing the same with your chiller water and use that to clean/sanitize with. You can connect a small RV water pump with a pressure switch built into it so you have on-demand flow for cleaning. I did this on my rain barrel and it works amazing. I also use a $40 electric bucket heater off amazon to heat my sparge water. It's not pretty but its effective and cheap. I also brew 3 batches at a time and it does fine heating the sparge water for all 3 batches in my 10gal pot I used to use as a boil kettle.
This is great! A pump with a pressure switch is a brilliant way to access saved cleaning water - definitely going to consider that!
Looks very good I don’t think you need any changes on your lay out great job . I will be woke on my brewing shed in August
Thank you! I hope this project is giving you some ideas. I'm having a blast
@@HopsANDgnarly well it’s weird cause I have some of your same ideas before started watching your videos. I do appreciate what you do keep up the good work
Personally, I love a huge stainless steel sink (or at least a bath tub lol) for washing/sterilising on the go of fermenters, equipment etc.
If you're happy with washing in your kettle however then go for it. I'm no plumber but your plan seems sound. I'd wait to see what the actual plumbers say about water pressure and flow rates before committing though.
Nice build so far, for your drain you don’t need a vent, that is to prevent sewer gases coming back into the living space. A vent however yes otherwise it’s like pouring out of a soda bottle. You’re gonna want volume for your water feed line. So 1/2” probably won’t be enough. I’d go with 3/4”. Also you garden hose will need to be drinking water rated or you’ll get that plastic smell and taste in the water. Cheers 🍻
Just an idea thrown out, you can use your condensed water from your boil for some cleanup and washing kettles out, it's already hot. Just have to collect it, it could free up some space during draining, yes, I think you should have at least a vent and probably a p-trap
This is a good call!
Not a plumber. Are you connecting a garden hose from the house to the spigot you're putting in to feed the shed? Will there be pressure drop? RO systems need a lot of pressure to work at the stated gallon/hr. I just wonder if you'll need a pressure booster pump before the RO system, but I guess that can be left to trial and error.
Yep that's the plan and that's a good call. Might need to play around with that
In a perfect scenario you would pull the RO water out of the MINIUNI 20 from the bottom to the pump. By pulling that water from the bottom, pressure is unnecessary as your pump will pull vacuum by being primed. If water fills the suction line, it will be pumped. You can also save the water from that RO, heat it, and use it for cleaning. Cheers
Yea a pump might be the way to go. Someone else recommended heating all my water in the kettle then pumping the sparge water into the minuni. I like it
@@HopsANDgnarly I welded a bottom port into all of my Spike Flex plus fermenters specifically to kill two birds. I heat sparge water in the Spike Flex+ fermenters, then use them. I believe heating my sparge to 180 kills any bugs, and I haven't been proved otherwise. By the time the boil is over I have lost 10 degrees on the sparge water. Then use that same fermenter for fermentation. Sounds complicated, but it's not really. Cheers.
That’s a great idea!
I am no plumber either… You might need to consider some sort of in-line pump below the mini Uni and as far as the runoff goes because you can use gravity. I’m thinking you should be OK. Cheers, Dan.
Good call maybe I should just try a pump under there and forget the pressurized tank
You should consider the garden hose you use. Many "garden hoses" are not rated for drinking water quality.
Something to consider, are you going to want to run water to a hose faucet in the winter when pipes could freeze?
That's the tough part but I'm not sure I'll be able to overcome this. I've always relied on a garden hose for one thing or another in brewing so I'm hoping it's not a huge inconvenience. Might have to work around the weather and be diligent about disconnecting the system
We have the same problem... have to stop brewing during the winter in a similar type shed. Otherwise we'd have to have heat in the shed.
I have heard that you shouldn’t store RO water in stainless for longer than a day or it can strip the passivation.
Just something I’ve read, I’m not sure if it’s really an issue - but it’s worth looking in to.
That’s a good call! TY
P trap isn't necessary for the drain since you aren't connecting to an actual sewer. Traps basically keep sewer gases out. No sewer=no sewer gasses. Plus, the water in your trap would freeze. Unless this space is heated? Good luck Braj. Brew shed looks killer
The plumbing make sense but as mentioned before, the t-trap will probably freeze.
A non-return valve (Google translation) insted of the t-trap, prevents stuff/animals from geting in and cant freeze. We use these alot in sweden for bigger pipes but I know there are for smaller aswell.
Hopefully this make sense, not used to talk work in english😅
Makes perfect sense! Thank you!
I can answer the P-trap question for you. You don't need a trap in the line at all. The purpose of a trap is to prevent sewer gas from coming into your house from your sewer piping that has all kinds of nasty stuff connected to it, like your toilet(s). The other place you might find a trap would be in an air conditioner condensate drain if you have an electric air handler/furnace. In that case, the condensate drain is on the negative pressure (sucking) side of the fan and the trap is used to prevent the fan from sucking air back through the drain line and preventing the water from draining. The water sitting in the trap creates just enough resistance (water weight) to prevent the fan from doing that and allows the water to drain normally. The down side to water sitting in a trap like that is that things tend to grow in there and will eventually clog the trap because there's not enough water pressure/velocity to be self cleaning. People with gas/oil furnaces generally should not have a trap in the air conditioner condensate drain because the evaporator coil is mounted on the positive pressure (blowing) side of the fan.
1. No P trap is needed. Vents will help the water drain faster but are not required.
2. RO Reject water will be pressurized and can be routed to the main drain
3. Add a Backwater valve on the end of the pipe to prevent any animals from entering the pipe.
4. A 4" x 2" Eccentric Coupler would be a good inlet for the drain hoses
5. The filling of the RO system needs to have some mechanical or electrical control to shut it off when the Mini Uni is full. You will flood the shed at some point if you don't. I would recommend a brute 20-gallon placed above the support rack that is filled by a float valve. Add a bulkhead and a hose to the bottom of the tank to have fast filling on demand RO water. You can add a flow meter on this hose if you want to have accurate filling.
The fill-o-meter has an integrated solenoid valve that shuts off the system once the programmed water charge has been completed. Given that the RO water supply is not normally connected, he shouldn't need any other shut-off mechanism. A manual valve is always a good idea, though.
This is killer! Thank you so much for all these details!
I wish the Uni from brew tools was 15 gallons instead of 13.2
If you are brewing frequent back to back batches, I'd reccomend collecting and reusing your waste water from the heat exchanger and condenser for strike water of the next batch or heated cleaning water. Full disclosure, I live in a place where water or energy can't be wasted so perhaps not relevant to your climate? I personally collect and store all water for re-use and utilise the hot water post exchangers wherever i can. I don't have freezing temperatures to contend with to be fair to your situation
p-trap in your case isn't needed, except that it would help bugs and animals from entering the shed through the drain. So if you cap it off after brew day, you could avoid it. I'd say for a 10 foot run of drain, vent could also be avoided. A decent sized hole filled with drain rock can hold a lot of water on the outside of the shed.
Thank you this is super helpful!
If you're just dumping the water outside, I don't think you need a P-trap or vent. Those are mostly to prevent sewer gasses from coming up into your house. I'd also be concerned about water in your P-Trap freezing since you are in an outbuilding.
I WOULD make sure your run off pipe terminates sufficiently far from the building though (maybe 5 feet or so). Just because the ground slopes downhill doesn't mean water won't come back and pool around your foundation.
Ah makes sense, I'll skip the P trap. And good call I wouldn't have thought about the water going that way. Do you think something like a french drain would help pull it away?
@@HopsANDgnarly A french drain or a drywell at the exit of your discharge pipe would help minimize surface water. Definitely a good idea if you can implement it.
In my opinion you don’t need a p-trap to run water straight outside. A p-trap is used when running water to a sewer line to keep the smell and sewer gas from coming back into your system
Awesome! Thanks!
Storing RO water in stainless steel may not be the best option, specially if there is also air inside the tank. It might be quite corrosive. As far as i know it is better to store RO water in plastic. Have a look into that
Impressive setup!! Looking forward to see more progress! Cheers
This is a good call I’ll check it out 🙏🏼🍻
I would advise against connecting your domestic water supply directly to the MiniUni in any way and making it a pressurized tank. You risk either over-pressurizing the tank or creating a vacuum when transferring to your kettle. Your locale might consider this an unfired pressure vessel. You could keep the top off with an air gap to the fill valve. Use a “garden hose” that is rated for potable water. Stay safe and use a licensed professional if you are unsure of your ability to comply with your local building codes.
This is great advice! Thank you! 🍻
Marshal from Brülosophy once said: you dont have to wonder that when you use a garden hose to put water into your kettle that the final beer will probably taste like a garden hose ;) Since then i avoided using a garden hose :P
Hahaha in this case it’ll be filtered into RO water so hopefully I won’t run into any weird flavor issues