My Brewzebo

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

AdeDunn

Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2017
Messages
1,818
Reaction score
936
Location
Wolverhampton
I've posted about this before, however with a few discussions recently that have ended up with folks recommending brewing outside, I figured now is a good time to mention this again. I switched to brewing outside myself this time around, and purchased a Gazebo from Amazon for the purpose, one of these: Event Shelter Gazebo with Side Panels (not actually available on Amazon any more it seems). Then added some plastic leg weights filled with water into the pockets on each corner.

It was a pig to put up (took 3 of us to do it), and it's BIG, but it's turned out to be awesome! Lots of room to work in, and a good sun shelter for just sitting out in. Also, with the guy ropes pegged and tied, it managed to survive those storms that we had, WITHOUT been taken down. It just shifted around a little. Nerve wracking for sure, but it survived with just some wear under the leg weights where it rubbed whilst shifting.

We've also added some rubber mats in there, so when the ground is wet I can walk around without walking in the water etc. Means I can chuck water around with near impunity. ;) If you are thinking of brewing outdoors, I can't recommend this more highly.

IMG_20200919_123200.jpg
IMG_20200919_123310.jpg
IMG_20200919_123301.jpg
 
Cool, be good if anybody else brewing outside in a gazebo posts pics too, maybe give folks unsure the inspiration to give it a try. athumb..

Not all of us can have a shed. lol
 
Oh, I’ve got a shed and a garage but they’re both full of “stuff”! :laugh8:

No garage here, and at some point before moved in some neighbours attempted to dismantle the small brick "shed at the bottom of the garden, and what's left of the roof is full of holes and on it's way out... It's still full of tools etc though, like my electric cultivator (aka that thing that tries to kill me when it hits a stone in the soil...). What I don't have is one of those lovely brew sheds, or a man cave. ;) I even have to share my Brewzebo, hence the buckets full of fire logs, and the covered barbecue (which is what the fire logs are for) which doubles as a table when I'm brewing....
 
I usually only do the boil outside but the gazebo does come in handy when it rains (which it often does where I live!)

I did brew in my shed a couple of times but the roof developed a white mould!

20200829_172650.jpg
 
I usually only do the boil outside but the gazebo does come in handy when it rains (which it often does where I live!)

I did brew in my shed a couple of times but the roof developed a white mould!

Good idea boiling outside. Back when I had my ACE, I used to mash 1 end of the room, lauter into an FV bucket, then move my ACE to the other end under the hood for the boil, as yeah it's the boil that's the problem, mashing only gives off a little bit of vapour. I wouldn't want to do that any more though, as lugging heavy buckets of wort around isn't much fun for me. ;)

It's funny, on US sites the Americans think we're odd brewing indoors, and even more so for using electricity to do it... But then, if you look at the US models of things like the Klarstein brewers, the wattage on them is really low, with reviews saying how they can barely get a boil on them, plus I believe gas is cheaper over there than it is here (I mean actual gas here, rather than petrol, just to clear up any confusion for anybody from the US reading this. lol).
 
I bought a gazebo to brew under years ago and it's been invaluable. The trouble is, where I live now, it's most likely blowing a gale too and the more it gets used, the more difficult it is to put up and take down on my own. The shed does have quite an overhand on it though, so fingers crossed, that'll do.
 
Yeah, I can't put mine up (or take it down) on my own, takes 3 of us. lol

Luckily I have my wife and 2nd oldest daughter to lend a hand. ;) As I mentioned though, it survived the storms we had, with winds up to about 47mph ish..

I brewed during ones of them.... lol Although I reckon the winds had died down a little, as it wasn't moving around quite as much...

IMG_20200819_120500.jpg
 
I built mine for two reasons primarily to keep the afternoon sun off the house, outdoor entertaining and cooking outdoors. Just happens to come in handy for brewing, as we don't have harsh winters it is good for all year round.
002.JPG
 
Yeah, and we have these things called Clouds which do a grand job of keeping the Sum off the house. :laugh8:

They keep the sun of ruddy everything... lol We have trees too on our back, it takes a heck of a hot and sunny day for it to get hot in our back garden! This also means during storms you have to worry about falling branches too, buuuut on the flip side they give a fair bit of shelter from rain. Oddly they seem to make the wind worst as it just forms eddies rather than blowing in just the one direction..... They also interfere with satellite TV reception, when we had Sky our dish had to be moved to the front of the house on an extended pole (ooh err Matron...). The neighbours on one side don't mind though as we let them keep the leaves that interfere with theirs trimmed (on our side), we're nice like that. lol ...

There's the others reasons why I need a gazebo to brew under: To keep leaves, branches and alder cones out of my beer (the amount of tree seeds that blow in through our open windows is bonkers!!). To stop the birds that like to sit in the trees (ruddy big wood pigeons mostly....) from pooping on me or in my beer.... :laugh8: I only half jest, one pooped on my wife once when she was sat on our bench out there.... lol
 
Back
Top