Can you do an all grain with 1 kettle? - Page 2

**GuldTuborg** · 05-14-2011, 03:35 AM

I do pretty much what is stated above, too. I only have a 32qt pot, 18qt pot, and a 40qt cooler converted to mashtun. No fancy valves or autosiphons. I pick up and pour everything from one pot to the other, or into the carboy.

The only bad part to this process is the second batch sparge. For some reason, I always forget to buy a heat resistant hose/tube of the right diameter. Given that, for the second sparge addition, I usually end up holding a pot of 5-6 gallons of wort high off the ground so my mashtun (on the countertop) can drain into it without excessive splashing/aeration. Considering draining the mashtun can take several minutes, it's not exactly easy or fun. Is it necessary? Maybe not, but I end up counting it as my workout for the morning.

OHIOSTEVE · 05-14-2011, 03:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuldTuborg

I do pretty much what is stated above, too. I only have a 32qt pot, 18qt pot, and a 40qt cooler converted to mashtun. No fancy valves or autosiphons. I pick up and pour everything from one pot to the other, or into the carboy.

The only bad part to this process is the second batch sparge. For some reason, I always forget to buy a heat resistant hose/tube of the right diameter. Given that, for the second sparge addition, I usually end up holding a pot of 5-6 gallons of wort high off the ground so my mashtun (on the countertop) can drain into it without excessive splashing/aeration. Considering draining the mashtun can take several minutes, it's not exactly easy or fun. Is it necessary? Maybe not, but I end up counting it as my workout for the morning.

i might be mistaken but I do not believe preboil splashing is a major concern.anyone else wanna correct me?

TerryM · 05-14-2011, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OHIOSTEVE

Sure you can....heat the strike water in your brew kettle.....mash in and start heating the full volume of sparge water in your brew kettle....collect your first runnings in a clean bucket and do your sparge ( you can either single or double batch sparge) keep collecting your runnings ( after vorlouf of course) in the clean bucket. once you are done, transfer the wort back into your boil kettle and do your boil. easy as pie.. to be honest I almost prefer this to my keggle and outdoor burner and hot liqour tank.

I do the same for 10-gal batches. My first-runnings bucket (6-gal) has an outlet tube attached towards the bottom. After adding the sparge water to my cooler/mash tun and vorlouf-ing, the bucket goes on top of the cooler, and both drain into the kettle (converted keg).

firebird400 · 05-14-2011, 01:25 PM

I use a single pot system I built and designed myself

Check it out http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-new-homemade-micro-brewery-241691/

BrotherJoe · 05-16-2011, 03:35 PM

I do AG with 1 kettle and 2 10gal Gott coolers. One cooler is HLT ( and obviously, needn't be round) the other is the mash tun with a plastic false bottom;

The coolers needn't be round, and they needn't be 10 gal; there are lots of guys with other types.

The only thing is you have to be a bit more on top of things, but, not much. I typically heat a bit extra mash water, then add to it for my sparge water, which I being heating to temp about 20 min before I being sparging. I pump (though I used to just move by gravity) the water from the kettle to the HLT cooler; when that's done, I'm ready to start sparging.

I'm a infusion mash guy, again, there are other ways to do this, and other methods. There are folks in the club with small HLT's that are direct fired and they just keep adding water as they sparge (one of them uses their original 7gal brew kettle as the HLT).