All Grain Equipment

Hi,

So I've done about 3 batches of wort bladder kits and am a little interested in trying to do an all grain batch. I need to know what equipment i should buy and how much it'll run me down too. Thanks so much

You can dive into all-grain pretty cheaply, if you start with BIAB-style brewing. Basically, you just need a pot large enough to mash in, a mesh bag to hold your grains as they mash, and you're all set! I also use a bucket to press the wort out of the grain, but that's optional. You can always just suspend the bag for like 10-15 minutes and let it drain.

I have no mash tun, HLT, etc. Just a big pot and a mesh bag. You'll also need a burner capable of doing a boil that large. I have a gas stove that works well enough, but have a propane burner on the way. If you have an electric stove, you may need a propane burner.

If you really want to dive into all-grain full on, then you can worry about the other items (mash tun, HLT, etc.). BIAB is the easiest, cheapest way to find out if all-grain is for you.

Look for the BIAB sticky at the top of the all-grain forum. LOTS of great info there.

you could spend $100 or $10,000. Whats your Price Range? My Set up:
Bayou Burner $45
10g Igloo style HomeDepot Cooler MashTun $40
CPVC Manifold $10
Bargain Fittings Ball Valve Kit $10
7.5g Aluminum Pot (can't remember the cost).

I'd like to keep things under 200. Around 100 would be really nice.

Haydn-Juby said:

I'd like to keep things under 200. Around 100 would be really nice.

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Good luck. Even a low cost system adds up quick. You could do it for 100 bucks, but I guarantee you'll notice 100 bucks worth of stuff that would make your beer and life better halfway through your first batch. 200 is feasible, you'll end up spending 4-500 at least in the long run.

I was doing extract for while and moved to BIAB as the next step. It was a relatively inexpensive (about $100) and easy transition, plus the beer came out great!

I already had the big ticket items like propane burner and keg (which I cut the top off of) though.

You can easily do it for under $100, assuming your stove can get the job done. My jump to AG BIAB was a $75 35 quart aluminum pot from Canadian Tire (I see you're from Quebec), and a $8 bag from my LHBS store. Its possible you could even find a cheaper pot, I've definitely seen some our American friends talk about pots as cheap as $30-40, but for me that was all I seemed to be able find locally and it works great.

Eventually I'd like to add things like a wort chiller, but its in the -20 range here now, so a quick chill in the sink and then a pot sized hole in a snow bank gets it done pretty well. For draining the pot I picked up a metal colander for I forget (under $10) that fits over my pot and I rest the bag in, but I don't even count that. Its just a useful household kitchen item that happens to get used more for brewing

5 gallon igloo type cooler used from craigslist. $10
Bottling spigot. $3
Brass garden hose fitting. $5
Toilet supply braided line. $9
Metal vegetable steamer used from goodwill for false bottom. $1
Discounttommy ebay Corona mill. $28

Done. Batch sparge with a thinner mash (1.4 qt / lb) and you're good to about 11 lbs of grain.

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Edit..you can brew in a bag with a $4 paint strainer bag too.

So I can do it all from a pot and no mash tun? Could somebody tell me the order of operations with just a pot. Kinda like instructions? Thanks sooo much too I really appreciate all your guys help so far

EDIT: i also already have a primary and secondary fermentor from my extract batches too.

Look at the top of this forum for the BIAB sticky thread. Great instructions, pictures, everything you need to know.

IkeKrizzule said:

Look at the top of this forum for the BIAB sticky thread. Great instructions, pictures, everything you need to know.

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There's an Australian biab forum too. Tons of great info and spreadsheets.

http://www.biabrewer.info/

I started all grain with a 20 qt pot that I had used with extracts, added a grain mill from discount tommy on Ebay and a paint strainer bag from Home Depot and did a 2 1/2 gallon batches. I can fit that pot into my sink for cooling or better is to put it in a plastic tub filled with water (watch that the water isn't too high or your pot will tip over). In the winter I can add snow to the plastic tub for extra cooling. My initial cost to try was under $30. I upgraded to a 30qt turkey fryer so I could do full volume boils on a 5 gallon batch but my total cost is still under $100.

Im looking at getting this

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/biab-3-gallon-system.html

Seem good?

Haydn-Juby said:

Im looking at getting this

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/biab-3-gallon-system.html

Seem good?

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It seems expensive for what you get and it's limitations. I bought a turkey fryer that had a 7 1/2 gallon pot and a burner for about $60 and a pair of paint strainer bags for about $4 and can do a 2 gallon batch or a 5 gallon batch if I want. I can do the 2 gallon batch on my kitchen stove is I want or I can take the burner outside and brew a batch out there.

Northern Brewer doesn't ship to Canada. Canadian online retailers you might want to look at might be hopdawgs :http://hopdawgs.ca/Equipment/Brewing-kettles?product_id=370 or Ontario Beer Kegs http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/Nine_Gallon_Two_Weld_Brew_Pot_p/9gallon-2weld.htm but keep in mind you're going to be paying around $15-20 shipping on top of whatever the website states.

That's why buying local is better if you can. I stand by my Canadian Tire pot recommendation, or if you can find a restaurant supply store in your are or LHBS that sells pots. If you do order from one of the websites be sure to add on some grain/hops/yeast. Once you get to a certain point shipping doesn't get too much higher.

Spintab said:

Good luck. Even a low cost system adds up quick. You could do it for 100 bucks, but I guarantee you'll notice 100 bucks worth of stuff that would make your beer and life better halfway through your first batch. 200 is feasible, you'll end up spending 4-500 at least in the long run.

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This is really a brew philosophy thing more than anything else. I invested about $100 in moving from extract to AG, which I've been doing for quite a while now. The only additional purchases for me were a $20 corona mill, a $40 cooler, and a $15 braid/ball valve. I already had probably $2-300 invested at that point in extract brewing (12g SS pot, wort chiller, banjo burner, hoses, hydrometer, etc, etc), but the jump to AG was actually pretty cheap.

Of course you can always find things to spend money on. The question is whether or not you need to.

What size of boiling pot should i get to do a 3 gallon batch? Thanks again.

Haydn-Juby said:

What size of boiling pot should i get to do a 3 gallon batch? Thanks again.

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I'd suggest a 7 1/2 or 8 gallon. The reason for that is you can make a 3 gallon batch in that pretty easy but if you decide later to do 5 gallon batches they won't fit in the smaller pot and the price won't be much different.

RM-MN said:

I'd suggest a 7 1/2 or 8 gallon. The reason for that is you can make a 3 gallon batch in that pretty easy but if you decide later to do 5 gallon batches they won't fit in the smaller pot and the price won't be much different.

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+1 for this. You'll find as you go that the amount of time required to brew doesn't increase significantly as you move from 3 gallons to 5 gallons (or even to 10 gallons). You might want to start out small so that you don't end up with a bunch of mediocre beer, but eventually you'll probably want to go up to 5 gallons or even 10, depending on how many people you brew for and how quickly you consume. If you buy a 5 gallon pot, chances are you'll regret it a year from now.

RM-MN said:

I'd suggest a 7 1/2 or 8 gallon. The reason for that is you can make a 3 gallon batch in that pretty easy but if you decide later to do 5 gallon batches they won't fit in the smaller pot and the price won't be much different.

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Ask me how much fun it is to clean up a pile of rock hard high gravity boil over off the garage floor. I tried, and almost succeeded in boiling a 6.8 gallon batch in a 7.5 gallon pot. Something about the viscosity of the wort makes the bubbles explode out of the kettle at random instead of a nice consistent bubbling like the same volume of water would do.

Would anybody have any recipes I could do in a 3 gallon size or happen to know any good recipe books for this type of brewing?

Haydn-Juby said:

Would anybody have any recipes I could do in a 3 gallon size or happen to know any good recipe books for this type of brewing?

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Find a five gallon recipe and use 60% of everything except yeast. Use the whole packet/vial still.

Would a recipe have to change whether it is made with a mashtun or the BIAB style that i'm going to do?

no. you can still use whichever method you would otherwise. With scaling recipes you just reduce/increase the amount of ingredients to the batch size. so from 5 gal to 1 gal you would 1/5 of everything with the same ratios of each ingredient.

Thanks sooo much you guys are really a great bunch of people.

I might just head up to my local brew store tonight. I've never really seen to much all grain equipment around but i know they've got some hop pellets so maybe they'll have some grains in the back room or something. Thinking bout making a good ole Brown Ale

Haydn-Juby said:

Thanks sooo much you guys are really a great bunch of people.

I might just head up to my local brew store tonight. I've never really seen to much all grain equipment around but i know they've got some hop pellets so maybe they'll have some grains in the back room or something. Thinking bout making a good ole Brown Ale

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Iif they don't have the grains on hand ask if they can order them for you. You might have to wait (I did) but if they can come in on a regular shipment you may not have to pay shipping.

The limitation my place had was they could only get Breiss pale malt and it was quite a bit more expensive than Rahr pale malt. It was still better than getting it shipped UPS.

I bought my pot here:
http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/update-international/apt-32/p4854.aspx

It appears they do ship internationally. And the pot is nice, heavy, thick, and durable. Make sure to pick up a lid, too, should you want one. If you want a different size than the 32-quart, just look under aluminum stock pots. Lots of choices for decent prices.

If you go aluminum, make sure to put a layer of oxide on the pot by just boiling some water in it for a little bit. It'll get a little darker below the water line. That oxide layer helps protect the pot from acids.

Actually if you look at their shipping page it clearly states "We do not ship outside of the United States at this time.È

Bummer... hope you find a good pot, OP! I'm sure there's a place that will ship to your location.

One thing you could consider: I began my all grain adventure doing BIAB with two relatively cheap bayou classic aluminum 5 gallon pots, which worked great. I could do two mashes if i wanted to do a really strong beer, or just use one pot to mash in and the other for sparging. When I felt like it was time to go beyond BIAB, I simply modified one of my 5 gallon pots to turn it into a nice mash tun. I bought the weldless brewmometer, a weldless spigot, a bazooka screen, and drilled a couple holes, and presto! I even slightly increased the size of the steam hole on the lid so that I can stick my long probed thermometer into the mash to get another temperature reading from a different spot. It's a pretty sweet mash tun. I then just bought a used 7.5 gallon pot to do my full boil in.

Just think about how you may want to upgrade your setup in the future and see if you can buy something that can be upgraded.