Beer Shed

I moved to Lisa's house at the end of April, and with all the pre-move prep and the actual move, I haven't brewed in quite a while. I was astounded at how much brewing stuff I had -- 26 cornie kegs, 6 sanke kegs, 6 6.5 gallon fermenter buckets, 6 5.5 gallon buckets for this and that, 16 gallon jugs for specialty grain storage, 3 beer fridges and a chest freezer, and more. After seeing all the crap I have for brewing, Lisa generously gave up the garden shed for a brew shed. It was mostly being used for storage, so we sorted through all the stuff, which was mostly pictures and mementos from her parents. After getting it all cleared out, I had an electrician wire the shed for 110V and put in some outlets and lights. Then I insulated the walls and put up peg board on 3 sides. The 4th side has built in shelves, so I didn't put peg board behind them. Now it's a rather sweet brewing place.

To top it all off, Lisa had a friend of hers make an awesome sign. The color matches the trim on the shed, and it was sized to fit nicely on the door.

There is still some gardening stuff in the shed, which makes sense since the garden is right on the side. There is a water faucet outside on the corner of the shed.

I did the first brew in the shed yesterday, and it went well. Brewing inside with propane is a little dicey, but I opened the windows and ran a big box fan, so the shed stayed reasonable for temperature and there was plenty of fresh air to dissipate any carbon monoxide or other nasties from the burners. I'm going to do a few more modifications. I'm going to add an exhaust fan at each end in the existing vents. That will help pull the heat out and pull in more outside air. I'm also going to get a carbon monoxide detector just to be safe.

I have a little more work to do for moving in. I have a better conroller for the freezer, one that will do heat and cooling. Right now I have an old Johnson analog controller, which works fine for one or the other, but since this freezer is now my only fermentation area, I want to be able to heat as well as cool. At my old house, I just hauled the buckets to the basement for ales, since it was always right at 65F. So now I have less space, but I don't have to haul full buckets up and down the stairs.

Awesome sign that Lisa had made. Dick has some sort of a cutter that he feeds an svg file and it handles up to a 4' x 4' sheet of metal.

Water is on the left, power comes into the shed on the right by the rose bush. Garden is to the right.

Almost moved in in this picture. Lights, storage, pegboard, pretty sweet set up. I built a cabinet for the grain mill and to hold the 3 drawers. Chest freezer is for fermenting, fridge is for hops storage and lagering. No taps in here, need to fix that.