MNBugeater

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I have been looking at trying AG in the near future. Just trying to read as much as I can understand the process. I have been looking at the dual Gott type cooler setups. I looks like a good start. I have a few questions and assumptions if someone wouldnt mind answered and confirming...

Why the two coolers? I saw a GREAT post by a member [sorry forgot name] but he posted great pics of his process with a SINGLE cooler.

1) Boil Water
2) Add water to grains in cooler
3) Steep @ 158ish for 60 minutes
4) take runnings, recycle till clear
5) run off into brew kettle
6) sparge off 2nd runnings into brew kettle
7) make beer (boil, hops, adjunsts, etc.)

So I get this and it seems simple to grasp and a good place to start for me.

My questions are

1)I see the two cooler setups offered, what is the second cooler for and where does it fit in?
2) When you are mashing at 158 how do you adjust the temp if its in a cooler and you need to raise the temp either to keep it in the mash in range and then to do mash out at 170ish, how do you raise the temp if its not on a burner?

I think thats all for now. Thanks

MNBugeater

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mpetty

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The second cooler is just used to hold hot water as it drains from cooler 2 into cooler 1 (the sparge), and then from cooler 1 into the kettle. You need it because after the 1st runnings your kettle has wort in it, and you can't use it to hold clear water anymore.

When you heat your sparge water, heat ALL of your sparge water, and move it to cooler 2 (or a bottling bucket).

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MNBugeater

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And you heat the sparge water in the same kettle that you heated your mashing water and after you have dumped that into cooler #1, then you refill your kettle, heat sparge water and put that into cooler #2 so its ready to sparge ? Do I have that right ?

Thanks...

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david_42

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That's right. I have a cooler, but only use it for holding sparge water. I'd recommend putting boiling water in the holding tank and adjusting the temp just before adding it to the mash tun by adding cooler water. A little extra work over having three big kegs and burners, but a lot easier on the back.

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Baron von BeeGee

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I use a single cooler even though I have two. Since I batch sparge I find it just as easy to dump the sparge water from the pot I heated in to the cooler as to dump it into another cooler and then drain it into the mash cooler. For fly sparging the second cooler would be the way to go.

I use the aluminum pot that came with my turkey fryer for heating the mash/sparge water which goes in my cooler and drains into my ss kettle.

Dude

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You'll eventually see abbreviations for these "coolers" too. The second cooler you are talking about is the Hot Liquor Tank, or HLT. The first cooler is the MLT, or Mash-lauter Tun. Both are just brewing terms for what they do. Evidently once plain water hits the second cooler, we can't call it water any more, it is liquor.

You'll sound really smart if you use these terms A LOT.

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hoppy

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This one-cooler setup is the one I am familiar with. Originally, I would use cheesecloth to put the grain on so it would drain - then I went to an old, well-washed section of a sheet because it was cheaper. Someone mentioned a false bottom in a previous thread - is the false bottom for the bottom of the mash tun cooler?

MNBugeater

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HA.. thanks. I'll make sure i use those terms. At least I'll SOUND like I know what Im doing. So the term liquor or hot liquor is really JUST Water ?? Like the water in the sparging tank thats heating up is called Liquor ?? Thanks

I think im smarter already just saying liquor three times

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Baron von BeeGee

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As long as we're being technical...no. But it would be for the bottom of a MLT (mash-lauter tun). Or a lauter tun. In a fancy brewery the grains and hot liquor are mashed in the mashtun, then transferred in total to the lautertun with some type of false bottom/filtration where the wort is runoff and sparged. However, most homebrewers (and some breweries, I think) mash and lauter in the same vessel (or MLT as it is often referred to).

cgravier

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there is also a name for the vessell inbetween the lauter tun and the kettle, i cant think of the word though its on the tip of my tongue (dysnomia) dave miller uses it...