Home brew supplies gets a new home

By scot in Home Brewing, Lounge on Tuesday, November 7th, 2017

Scratch built shelves to house all my home brewing supplies.

I have been home brewing for ten years, give or take. It has been a wild ride. During that time I have tried many techniques, some fads and some that have built the foundation of how I continue to home brew.

Some of the techniques that I tried needed new equipment or adjustments to equipment that I already had on hand. Nonetheless, the accumulation of supplies had taken up a good portion of one basement corner. Everything was neatly on the floor but, due to size, the sheer amount of square footage eaten up was ridiculous, besides, it still looked messy. A thorn in my eye.

For a couple of months I had thoughts of creating some type of shelving. The shelving would solve multiple issues/problems:

  • Get everything off the floor. We have had water seepage in the past.
  • Give us back some room in the basement. We need more room for ball handling drills.
  • Turn the neat messiness into just neatness.

The shelves were inspired by shelves a friend had built in his basement to store all of his wife’s stuff. The unit would allow my grain storage, which on wheels, to easily slide in and out on the bottom while the plastic container protects against water. The upper shelves would allow for carboys, kegs, kettles, etc to fit together nicely.

After eight hours of work, fourteen feet of shelving had been completed. The shelving was put together using the following:

  • 2″ x 4″ – used to anchor the back part of each shelf to the wall.
  • 1″ x 4″ – used to create the horizontal structure for each shelf.
  • 1/2″ plywood – for the shelf top, ripped to 18″ wide.
  • 1″ drywall screws – secured the plywood.
  • 2 1/2″ screws – secured all 1″ x 4″ pieces to each other via toe-nailing.

I used all screws in order to allow for this to be taken apart. The 10′ shelf was on 24″ centers while the 4′ shelf was on 16″ centers. This was due to the fact of wanting to place bottled beer on the 4′ section. It is much sturdier. All legs were 24″ in height (this forced the kegs to a top shelf).

After cleanup, it was time to load up all the supplies into their new homes. A few rearrangements later and I think I had a good configuration.

There was the added bonus of ease of access to the supplies as well. Now I know I never need to purchase another carboy. Enjoy!

Useless Fact: Louis Chevrolet, the founder of Chevrolet, died bankrupt and poor working as a mechanic for the company he started.

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