How do you fellas organize all your brewing stuff?

Not very well organized. Or should I say, it's a somewhat organized clutter. At least my software keeps a list of what I have, and I update it every time I buy more stuff, etc.

Base malts all fit in one bin in their original bags, specialty malts in another container, also in the original bags, and for every recipe I have to rummage through to find what I need.

My spoons, thermometer, hydrometer, airlocks, some hoses, kettle lids, and bucket lids all fit in one big box. My water treatment chemicals and salts, pH meter and calibration solutions, and refractometer go into another box. My kettles and fermenters are on shelves.

And then there is the beer. I have a regular refrigerator with the equivalent of about 2.5 cases of various beers, meads, and ciders -- like 1 or 2 bottles of each. And then I have friggin 7 or 8 cases of more beers, meads, and ciders just sitting on 5 or 6 shelves in the basement next to the fermenters.

And when my fermenters are actually fermenting, as they all are right now... they could be anywhere in the house that the temperature is right. Currently they all sit in the basement next to all the shelves.

I have a separate HUGE box full of empty clean bottles, probably have like 200-300 bottles in there of various shapes and sizes, many Grolsches but most not. I bottle 95% of my beer, but I have a uKeg now which stays in the fridge all the time whether in use or not, that's the only way to permanently reserve the space -- currently it just has sanitizer in it but will be filled next week.

Hops and yeast are mostly in the doors of the beer fridge. I have several years' worth of homegrown hops still to use up but I've made good progress on them over the past year.

I lager in the basement. Currently I have 2 lagers going at 67 F and they'll both be great as I've sampled or brewed before and I know I can get away with it. S-189 and S-23 are fine at room temp. If doing lagers at more traditional temperatures, I still use the basement which falls to about 50-55 F in middle of winter, perfect. I don't lager in the fridge.

I don't own a turkey fryer burner, chiller, stir plate, pumps, filters, or big kegs or CO2, so I save a ton on space that way actually. I brew on the kitchen stove and chill in a tub sink water bath in the laundry room.

If I showed pictures, you'd see that it's all a bit of a scattered mess. But it's somewhat organized. I'm fortunate to have space in the basement. And I don't think I'll change to improve organization at all -- I'm far too lazy for that.

 

Mis en place. Very important.

Food grade buckets with a sealing lid are pretty much the best thing ever . Really, every brewer should have a few. They hold grain like a pro. I mean specifically made for food, mine have a rubber gasket and you need a mallet to tighten or loosen. Serious business.

Hops go in the freezer where they belong. In a zip lock so I can find them under the shrimp, meatloaf and what else.

Hardware in a bucket. Bigger hardware like the mill,, filters, on a shelf. And some stuff lives in the keggle, because if I am boiling I am going to need that chiller. Tubing. Simple. The banjo is under the deck, where you store the propane.

All of that on a basement shelf rack. The kind from Lowes that say 500 pounds per shelf but the bullshit particle board is maybe good for 50. That kind.

I'm not a particularly organized member of society but I hate scrambling during a brew. It's not terribly difficult I think.

Mis en place. Very important.

I reccomend buying quality storage units,, good heavy plastic.. Preferably the kind that will nest. With solid lids. These will cost quite a bit more than the cheap crap you can get at Dollar General but they do not crack or fall apart and will last years. Decades. Well worth it. If they are clear the contents are obvious, otherwise label it. We have thrown out too many storage crates to count.
Cheers

 

Very poorly. I've been threatening to organize for years. Still haven't gotten off my duff to do it. I'm starting to think I am not serious about it.

 

Replies so far bring to mind ‘orderly disarray’, much like my own modus operandi.
My stuff is in totes/containers/buckets scattered about in various rooms.

These 27-gallon totes from Lowe's have worked well for me. They're sturdy and stackable. I marked the lids with black sharpie and marked the sides with silver sharpie; Brewing, Bottling, Grains, Junk Drawer.

The brew tote has most of the smaller things needed for brewing and fermenting; hop/grain bags, hop spider, misc tubing, thermometers, hydrometers, kettles < 5-gallons, measuring cups/spoons, heating wraps, etc.

The bottling tote holds the vinator, drying tree, priming sugars, bottle caps, and (again) misc tubing.

The grains tote is mainly base malt either in original packaging (if it seems well-sealed) or in 5-lb bags vacuum sealed by me.

The Junk Drawer has rotating stock of all sorts of seldom-used items and overstock.

Larger kettles (with wort chillers inside) are on a rack of four shelves in the guest room. It also holds 5-gallon buckets like these with gamma lids. Those buckets have roasted and other specialty grains, cacao nibs, vanilla beans, coffee, etc…..all vacuum sealed. The buckets are about $5, but the lids have recently gone up in a big way at Lowe’s. I think I paid about $7 - $8 a few years back, they’re now $25/ea at Lowe’s ($10 on Amazon).
If you go that route, get a mallet (rubber) as previously suggested.
Also, measure the height of your buckets before buying the shelving. Tidy Cats litter containers with the flip-top lids are useful for vacuum sealed items or things that don't need to be protected from changes in humidity. My buckets w/gamma lids are 15" tall, as are the litter containers.

Fortunately, the area above the pantry in the kitchen is 3’ x 8’ of 2" x 6” boards, with enough open space above that to store all my fermenting buckets, empty bottles, bench-style capper, two mash tuns and other larger items.


The rolling island keeps the grain mill, misc spray bottles, scales, and another fermentor. It's made from old pallets and scrap lumber scavenged from my boneyard or from construction sites (with permission). All-in cost was about < $25, with the bulk of that for swivel caster wheels from Harbor Freight.


If I had a garage at my brewhouse, everything would be there.

 

I try to keep things organized within my brew stand as much as possible.

 

Brewing area which is a stand I built for mash fun propain tank and burner next to woodshed. Woodshed hold brew kettles, additional brewing tools and a jug of premodern starsan.

old barn holders hop freezer scale grain Mill and a old aluminum tool box. You know the kind that fit in a pickup truck. That holds grains.
Another aluminum trash can holds unused sacks of grain.

sounds organized till you see it.

oh yeah, cellar holds fermenters full or cleaned. Lotsof bottles full or clean bench / table with heating pad for winter ferment

 

Forgot to mention hops. All stored in a freezer. If the original packaging doesn't look up to snuff, they get vacuumed and resealed.

 

organized chaos, mostly.
I have a couple big rolling tubs for base grains, others are in a rubbermaid storage container.
kettles mostly nest, as do ale pails and such. other things also live in a retired one of those.
I have a cabinet on the wall that contains most of my small goods, and another shelving rack holds medium sized stuff.
|Brew table is a repurposed crate, held our wood stove when it was shipped, and most of the tubs and such live under there.