10g All Grain Setup Pics

I've been putting this setup together for a while, and it's just about done. Took some pics during my last brew day (mmmm, Stout!):

15g HLT keggle on the right (all weldless, thermo, sight glass, SS ball valve)
10g cooler in the middle (copper sparge and lautering manifold)
15g Boil keggle on the left (Bazooka t-screen, SS weldless ball valve)


Copper sparge manifold:


Hose clamp on top that I can loosen up to adjust the height of the manifold to the height of my grain bed:


Lautering Manifold:

Looks nice! I use a stainless braid for lautering, but have you given any thought to flipping your lauter manifold over so that the holes are on the bottom to reduce the dead space?

edit: sorry, didn't mean to cut you off before you were done posting.

809HS March pump with quick disconnects and SS Ball Valve:


25' Counter Flow Chiller w/ QD for pump connection:


Fermentation Chamber (holds 3 carboys or 4 buckets):

Coastarine said:

Looks nice! I use a stainless braid for lautering, but have you given any thought to flipping your lauter manifold over so that the holes are on the bottom to reduce the dead space?

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Yep, that's how I have it set up. I just took the picture before I put it into my mash tun. Works pretty good with all the holes on the bottom, hardly any deadspace at all.

Ah ok, I guess I just got the wrong impression from the angle of the output.

Bazooka t-screen with a DIY copper tube:


HLT outside:


HLT inside:

Coastarine said:

Ah ok, I guess I just got the wrong impression from the angle of the output.

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yeah, that joint is not soldered together, so it rotates freely. Makes it really easy to clean out the mash tun, and rinse out the manifold. I soldered a few of them together just for peace of mind.

Thats a very impressive setup you've got there.

Mind explaining what your fermentation chamber is made of ? Is it just a closet, or do you have some kind of refridgeration built in ?

Mutilated1 said:

Thats a very impressive setup you've got there.

Mind explaining what your fermentation chamber is made of ? Is it just a closet, or do you have some kind of refridgeration built in ?

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The fermentation chamber is made from an old mini-fridge, with a Johnson controller to maintain temps. Everything went under my workbench in the garage. It's constructed out of pine 1x3's, 1/4" Plywood, 1.5" RMax insulation board, and used some of the existing framing of my workbench. I started a build thread here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/new-fermentation-chamber-build-102846/

and way more "in progress" pics here:
Picasa Web Albums - Ben - Fermentation ...

Have you noticed consistent fermentation temps in your fermentation chamber? I would be worried that the side with the fridge would be much cooler than the far side?

I have an old dorm fridge sitting in my garage and I'm hoping to convince SWMBO to do something similar to yours.

drunkatuw said:

Have you noticed consistent fermentation temps in your fermentation chamber? I would be worried that the side with the fridge would be much cooler than the far side?

I have an old dorm fridge sitting in my garage and I'm hoping to convince SWMBO to do something similar to yours.

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I've got a very similar setup. I have a mini fan inside the fridge. When I'm first getting a beer down to temperature (like just after pitching mabe) then I plug the fan into a power strip and also plug the fridge/controller into the power strip. Once i'm just maintaining temps I plug the power strip into the controller and have both the fridge and the fan on the power strip. In other words, for temp changes the fan runs always and for temp maintaining the fan runs when the fridge is running. This evens out the air temp and also speeds up the heat transfer, both from carboy to the air and the air to the coil.

I put a computer fan in there to circulate the air. The fan sits right in front of the "freezer" section of the mini fridge, and blows the cold air to the warm side to equalize temps. The fan was easy to hook up. I found an old 5v transformer power supply from a wireless router and just spliced in the red and black wires from the computer fan. I have a 3-way splitter coming out of the Johnson controller, and have both the fridge and the fan plugged in.

Since I pitch at 70-75F I run my fridge at 60F for the first 3 days, which gets me a carboy temp of 65F. After initial fermentation tapers off, I change the controller temp to 65-70F for the remainder of fermentation.

To think you only started brewing 3 months ago!! WOW U DA MAN!!!!j/j I am coming over to raid your kegger in the middle of the night while you sleep

Jaybird said:

To think you only started brewing 3 months ago!! WOW U DA MAN!!!!j/j I am coming over to raid your kegger in the middle of the night while you sleep

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3 months ago??? I'm coming up on my one year brewing anniversary brother! And if you come over to raid my kegerator, you better wake me up so I can toss a few back!

Very nice set up.


....and yes...you suck...

man i just stepped up to full boil in a turkey fryer but i dont think ill ever understand whats going on in them 3 keg set ups with AG, i guess im stuck with extract for a while. I read alot but still, its says sparge is draining the malt you made off the barley and the sparge things i see sprinkle water into the wort? im just kinda lost and frustrated. I wanna move up to AG someday but i like to know what everythings doing and what its for before I do. Why 3 kegs? and how do you get so much sugar from the barley? I always figure it cant be as sweet as an extract malt kit, afraid my SG would be 1.020

Have you brewed on it yet? If so, did the march pump prime ok? I had a similar setup with a short gravity drop to the pump and it never wanted to prime.

wildwest450 said:

Have you brewed on it yet? If so, did the march pump prime ok? I had a similar setup with a short gravity drop to the pump and it never wanted to prime.

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Yep, works just fine. All I have to do is get a siphon going at the beginning of the brew day, and it will work fine for the remainder of the day. Basically, I just open up the valve on the HLT, then put the "out" hose on the ground and open up the valve on the output of the pump. That pushes all the air out of the system, and then I shut off the pump valve. From that point forward it holds prime.

Beau815 said:

man i just stepped up to full boil in a turkey fryer but i dont think ill ever understand whats going on in them 3 keg set ups with AG, i guess im stuck with extract for a while. I read alot but still, its says sparge is draining the malt you made off the barley and the sparge things i see sprinkle water into the wort? im just kinda lost and frustrated. I wanna move up to AG someday but i like to know what everythings doing and what its for before I do. Why 3 kegs? and how do you get so much sugar from the barley? I always figure it cant be as sweet as an extract malt kit, afraid my SG would be 1.020

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All grain is easy, but it's a little bit daunting at first because of people's complicated setups. Start with your turkey fryer, and just add a Mash/Lauter Tun (MLT). Here's the process in a nutshell:

1. Add crushed grains to MLT
2. Add hot water to grains
3. Stir thoroughly
4. Let sit for one hour
5. Drain first "runnings" into a bucket (bottling bucket works great)
6. Add more water to the MLT
7. Stir thoroughly
8. Drain runnings into bucket
9. Add more water to MLT
10. Drain runnings into bucket
11. Transfer all runnings to boil kettle (from here on out, same as extract)

So really, all you're doing is adding grain and water, then a series of draining/refilling until you get your desired pre-boil volume. For an idea of my initial all-grain setup:

Start simple and cheap! Had this 5g cooler laying around. Added equipment for < $25:


This had just a simple SS braid for the filter, and a cheap brass ball valve and some connecting pieces:


Add water, mash for 60m, then drain into the bottling bucket:


Then transfer into the boil kettle:



Don't give up man, you can do it!

Thank you, that really did help. I guess i was getting frustrated because of the extract directions or the complex AG procedures. I really didnt see anything that showed a step up like this. And if I did i was probably thrown off by the pictures of things I wasnt familiar with. Ill try this but does it give off enough sweetness to make something like 5%? I guess knowing that the malt is super sweet makes me think that grain water wont be, but i never did it before. So you drill a hole in the cooler? and get ss braid and ball valve which im guessing i can get at home depot. Then some tubing that fits it? And washers so it doesnt leak? or do you seal it somehow? Thanks again.

Beau815 said:

So you drill a hole in the cooler? and get ss braid and ball valve which im guessing i can get at home depot. Then some tubing that fits it? And washers so it doesnt leak? or do you seal it somehow? Thanks again.

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This is the thread for you! Complete with part numbers.

Cheap & Easy 10 Gallon Rubbermaid MLT Conversion

Once I made one of these and did a few partial mashes, the whole AG process just "clicked" for me, and now I can't believe there was a time I didn't understand it!

Beau815 said:

Thank you, that really did help. I guess i was getting frustrated because of the extract directions or the complex AG procedures. I really didnt see anything that showed a step up like this. And if I did i was probably thrown off by the pictures of things I wasnt familiar with. Ill try this but does it give off enough sweetness to make something like 5%? I guess knowing that the malt is super sweet makes me think that grain water wont be, but i never did it before. So you drill a hole in the cooler? and get ss braid and ball valve which im guessing i can get at home depot. Then some tubing that fits it? And washers so it doesnt leak? or do you seal it somehow? Thanks again.

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Ditto to the thread above, that's where I got the parts list for my MLT setup. As far as the sweetness goes, the simple answer is "yes". The larger your MLT, the more grain you have, the more sugars you will be able to ferment, resulting in a higher ABV beer. For a 5 gallon batch, my first 5 gallon cooler would max out at 6.5% ABV. For my 10 gallon cooler, I can make a 5 gallon batch at around 1.200! The important thing to remember is that "sweetness" of the wort is a function of how much grain you are mashing. More grain = more fermentable sugars!

Beau815 said:

man i just stepped up to full boil in a turkey fryer but i dont think ill ever understand whats going on in them 3 keg set ups with AG, i guess im stuck with extract for a while. I read alot but still, its says sparge is draining the malt you made off the barley and the sparge things i see sprinkle water into the wort? im just kinda lost and frustrated. I wanna move up to AG someday but i like to know what everythings doing and what its for before I do. Why 3 kegs? and how do you get so much sugar from the barley? I always figure it cant be as sweet as an extract malt kit, afraid my SG would be 1.020

Click to expand...

The sugar from the barley is due to the mash converting starches to sugar from the malted barley. After this, the sparge is meant to basically rinse these sugars out and create the wort. If you are using a typical three keg system, your kegs would be as follows : 1 mash/lauter tun, one hot liquor (sparge water) tank, and one boil kettle. After you get to the boil, the process is pretty much the same. I know all grain can be confusing, especially with a lot of the awesome but more advanced ideas of people on this thread. If you have any questions feel free to PM me and I'll do my best to explain whatever you have questions about. For now, keep on brewin' and cheers!

Thanks for all the above info it def helped... i'm just thinking that if i buy enough grain to make a 1.200, 5 gallon batch and fill up a 10 gallon cooler, its gonna be as expensive as extract. I'm going to do a few full boils w extract then move onto a mash tun without the hot water 2nd cooler. Ill just boil and pour in a second time. Then eventually maybe move onto the 3 kettle AG.

TwoHeads,

Very nice setup and explanation! Jealosy factor going up big time here. Still using almost the same small fridge as my kegerator and just now got a good tiered system going. I like how you organized and presented info. Great Job!

TeufelBrew said:

TwoHeads,

Very nice setup and explanation! Jealosy factor going up big time here. Still using almost the same small fridge as my kegerator and just now got a good tiered system going. I like how you organized and presented info. Great Job!

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Thank you! I think it's all come together really in the last 2 months. After brewing quite a few batches over the winter I've finally landed on my setup. Now I need to get busy brewin' before it gets too hot around here!

how can it get too hot with that fermentation chiller you got there, Isn't that the whole point?

Well, anyways I feel you with the heat we get in the summer since i live only a few miles south, in the same god forsaken valley.

So far, with that warm spell we had a few weeks back the fermentation chamber is still doing well. While the garage was 95F, I was crash cooling some stuff at 37F inside with no problem. Hopefully when the garage is 120F it will still hold at least fermentation temps.

Hello,

Kinda akward posting on a thread that is almost 6 year old. But is your lautering & sparging manifold made of 3/4?

Thanks in advance for getting back.