I finally got it done. My original aidea was to get it done as cheap as possible by doing the work. I brewed a golden strong last week and beat efficiency by .05 and pretty much stoked.
I have a tig so I did all the welding myself.
Boil kettle: basic keggle with 300 mesh hop spider from utahbiodiesel. Cool thing is the dip tube is copper pieces that I tig'd together- no solder!!
HLT: You can see I went with a bottom drain with the keg flipped upside down. Used 1/2" SS x10" pipe, tapped into the neck of the sanke keg spout, welded a cap on from flat stock. Dont have any left over water when I'm done so no messing with the HLT. Site glass was a SS elbow welded on, with a piece of 3/4 lexan from Mcmaster Carr (cost about 6 bucks each), Threaded the plasic and screwed it in. My buddy will cut out some numbers on his vinyl machine on of these days. The coil is a 3/8" wort chiller. I originally was going with 1/2 SS tubing and plumb it out the side to make a permanent HLT. 1 the tubing was too hard to bend so I shitcanned the idea, and 2, the wort chiller is now multi use If I need it to be. Note I welded a barb and quick connect on the wort chiller to make it easy to attach. I recommend using a wort chiller vs a dedicated HLT.
I usually run the herms for last 15 minutes or so, then I sparge with
the HLT running the hot water through the coil then into the tank- no
cleanup!! The sparge sprayer is a piece of 1/2 stainless steel tube
with 12x1/16" holes drilled in it that fits through a hole in the lid. Quiet the eloquent setup.
Mash tun is a Keg, bottom draining, with jaybird false bottom. You can't really see but both the HLT and mash tun have 1/4 stainless steel tubing welded into the keg so I can stick a digital thermo in there, or a PIDs probe later on if I decide I need to go automatic.
The Keg has been wrapped in 2" styrofoam (sides/bottom), that was cut in strips, and then filled in with spray foam. The front looks worse than the back but I coated it with some siliconized rubber roof paint I had. Once heated with a normal brew It will only loose a couple degrees on a cold day even without the herms. With it, it very controlled and I don't get big temp swings
I went with 2 brewstands vs One. 1. I didn't want the mash tun next to the burners, and 2. I wanted to be able us my burner tables for fish frys/cookouts. Stand was only 50 bucks with wheels costing 20. It heavy duty 2 " square tubing with 3/4 round bar to hold the kegs. My stand for the mash tun is a old base to my komodo grill that I re-welded with plastic shelves. The paint is the ultra high temp that doest burn, even in the direct blast of the burners
You don't see a plate chiller that I clamp to the square tubing under the boil kettle for wort chilling. Grinder-its a 1954 coffee mill that weighs about 150lbs and is all cast. I have to use 2 cups rice hulls per brew but I get good efficiency from it.
The backside of the stand. I used black steel for the burners connected to custom crimped tube(I have a crimper) a most importantly a place to hang the gas so I can wheel the entire thing around fully loaded. The burners are just 10 dollar bayou classic that scream like the jet I fly.
I really like it. Its a lot smaller than a 3 place stand that most have and can cook other things if needed.
Bottomline its so nice hitting a switch