Academy fry cart?

[rack04]

Has anyone used this fry cart for homebrewing? I'm wondering if it will hold a couple of keggles.

http://www.academy.com/webapp/wcs/store ... er&Ntk=All

[BigWally]

I have seen several people using those. Bill Lawrence has one very similar that he had modified with another tier to hold his hot liquor tank.

[Bill Lawrence]

It certainly will, I have brewed countless batches of bad beer on mine. I however had my modified and built a tower between the burners so I could use gravity to drain my Gott cooler mash tun (which is famous by the way). The modifications did not modify the weight the cart can bear however so if you use it "stock" I think you will be well pleased. Although not as "sexy" as some of the store bought rigs I have seen, from a price/utility standpoint, I think my system is beautiful. By the way, they sometimes put that item on sale although I suspect just before the holidays might not be the best time to purchase. Of course, you can also use it as a turkey frier should you be into that sort of thing.

[rack04]

It certainly will, I have brewed countless batches of bad beer on mine. I however had my modified and built a tower between the burners so I could use gravity to drain my Gott cooler mash tun (which is famous by the way). The modifications did not modify the weight the cart can bear however so if you use it "stock" I think you will be well pleased. Although not as "sexy" as some of the store bought rigs I have seen, from a price/utility standpoint, I think my system is beautiful. By the way, they sometimes put that item on sale although I suspect just before the holidays might not be the best time to purchase. Of course, you can also use it as a turkey frier should you be into that sort of thing.

Got any pics? Do you pump from the HLT to mash tun? How do the wheels hold up to the weight of two full kegs?

[Bill Lawrence]

I don't have any pictures but yes, I pump hot water up into the mashtun (and I batch sparge incidentally). I mounted my March pump between the burners just below the table level, it works out just fine (some don't like the way I hooked up the electricity but you know, sometimes you just need to live dangerously). I have never had any problems what so ever with the wheels or anything else related to the cart, one of the better purchases I have made I must say (I bet I have been using it for 7 to 8 years). The only problem with a system like this is that it is a pain to take to a brewday but then I never considered brewing a spectator sport anyhow.

[mtodd]

Exact same cart that I use as well. Snagged mine at Academy in Lewisville 8 or 9 yrs ago on sale for $99 or so. It was a sight seeing my trying to get it home in a 1999 Ford Escort ZX2. I had to lay the passenger seat all the way back and squeeze it in there and it had me all pushed up against the driver's side door.

[rack04]

I think I'll monitor the price for a little while and hopefully it will go on sale. How are the burners? Can they easily be swapped out with something like a banjo burner? My plan would be to fill the hlt from a filtered garden hose, heat to strike temp, gravity drain into cooler mash tun, drain runnings into a fermenter, pour into brew kettle, and then gravity drain from brew kettle into fermenter. This way the only heavy lifting I'll have to do is transferring wort from the mash tun to the brew kettle.

[groovyslick]

I use one.. I like it but I got it on sale for $89. the dislikes are the cheapo wheels and I can see relpacing the burners at somepoint. but structurally it works great for keggles.

[rack04]

How are the wheels attached? Wonder if they are easily upgradeable.

[mtodd]

Mine still has the original wheels and burners and that is after a 5 or 6 yr layoff from brewing and being stored outside part of the time over the years. The burners have a nut and bolt on the bottom that hold them on. The wheels are just bolted on the angle iron....should be easy to remove and put something else on but you would have to extend the legs on the opposite end if you put on larger wheels because then the unit would not be level.

[Bill Lawrence]

Well, what I did was have a tower built between the burners that my mashtun sits on. I have a keg on one burner that is my hot liquor tank and the other keg is my boil kettle. What I do is heat water up, mash then once I have converted, pump hot water up to the mash tun to sparge. I also use my pump to recirulate then I just gravity drain the wort from the mashtun right into my boil kettle. When the boil is done, I pump the hot wort through my wort chiller and into my fermenter, I have done it so many times I don't even think about it any more. The only thing I can't do is add heat directly to my mashtun but I get around that by doing decoctions or boiling water infusions if I want to heat things up. I never have to lift alot of liquid, you really don't want to design your system such that you ever have to lift hot wort, besides the risk of getting scalded, your back will thank you for it. I personally think batch sparging is the way to go, it's easy, you don't loose much in the way of extraction, and it allows you to keep the ph where you want it to avoid extracting tannins and ruining your beer. Oh yeah, I use the stock burners, they work just fine. Really once you get your processes down it's more about timing, in my system it takes 30 minutes to take 3/4 of a keg full of water from ground water temperature to boiling. If you add those high output burners, you might get into issues with exess heat.

[rack04]

Decided to pick one up with some Christmas spending cash.



Hopefully I'll have a chance to test it out this weekend.

You'll notice that the HLT doesn't have any fittings installed. That's because I haven't bought them yet but I know of a good place to buy them. I think I'm going to install a whirlpool return on the BK and a drain valve, sight glass, and thermometer on the HLT.

[MixnMatchBrew]

Looks good and very usable.

[rack04]

Any tips on how to mount pump on this from someone who has one?

[Bill Lawrence]

Well what I did is mount the pump in the middle, between the burners. If you are using a March pump, it needs to be below the level of the liquid since those things are not self priming. Depending on how you want to deal with the electricity I guess you could also mount the pump on one of the legs. Incidentally, bear in mind that when the burners are running, things get hot and you could easily melt the wires if you are not just a bit careful (been there, done that, got the t-shirt).