I need a hot liquor tank

I did my first AG a couple of days ago and heated my mash water in 3 pots and my sparge water in 4 pots on an electric stove. It was a big hassle getting them all to the same temp. So I need a hot liquor tank of some sort.

I don't want to use a burner. I can't brew outside and having one burner going in my apartment for the boil is crazy enough. And I want something cheap.

So I'm thinking of either modifying another cooler with a spigot, or putting a hot water element in a plastic pail. What do people think of these methods?

Any other ideas?

Re the pail, Can I get 110v heating elements?

Cheers, Jaf.

I would look for a kettle on Ebay and Craigslist before I did that. Seems like that would be cheaper.

I was thinking of installing two 110V elements inside my HLT and then wrapping it in insulation. I would put mine on a Ranco ETC to control it and have some sort of stirrer going inside to evenly dispurse the heat. I have really been needing to do this for my brewery as control over my final sparge water is almost non-existant for me.

The second cooler is a good way to go. You can fine-tune the temperature while the mash is in progress.

Do a search on "heat stick" for other ideas.

Um why didn't you just use your brew pot?

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Ryanh1801 said:

Um why didn't you just use your brew pot?

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+1... I'm relatively new to AG as well, and what I've been doing is using my brewpot to heat mash water, then heating the sparge water in the brewpot during the mash, and then collecting the wort in a spare 6.5g bucket. once the last batch of sparge water goes into the MLT, I can collect the remainder of the wort in the brew kettle while dumping in the wort from the bucket.

That's not to say that I wouldn't use a HLT if I had a spare kettle, but I certainly don't consider it a necessity...

david_42 said:

The second cooler is a good way to go. You can fine-tune the temperature while the mash is in progress.

Do a search on "heat stick" for other ideas.

Click to expand...

I second that. Works well for me.

I just use a spare 3.5 gallon pot that I have sitting around and a small 2 gallon pot if I need it. Never had that much trouble getting the two pots to the same temperature or within a degree or so. 4 pots though is a bit much. I suggest using your brew pot like some people in this thread have mentioned...

If you have your own water heater and access to it have you considered cranking that sucker all the way up and seeing how hot it will get the water? It just might get the water plenty hot for Mashing without having to buy more equipment.

After your finished drop the temp. back down to 120*F for normal operation.

If I did something like that I would lower the temp and attach a hose to the bottom spigot to flush all sediment out of the tank first.