What do YOU use to do AG?

I have been perusing this site a lot lately about AG brewing, and it has really peaked my interest. I am just curious what people use personally to brew AG. Do most people use the turkey fryer set-up, even though it is aluminum? I really want to make a 5-gallon gott type mash tun, but I can't find really clear directions on how. Just wondering what people's opinion are! Thanks!

Jason

I use a rectangle cooler made using this as a starting point.

I boil using a turkey fryer from Wal Mart, there is nothing wrong with aluminum.

9 gallon SS Italian Kettle w/ ball valve for my boil.

5 gallon SS kettle to warm mash water and sparge water.

1 Bayou Burner

1 Propane tank

10 gallon Rubbermaid (Gott style) cooler with SS Braid and ball valve as M/L tun.

A table, lighter, spoon, paddle, ingredients, tubing and time for the rest.

Looking to build meself a brewing scuplture w/ HERMS next.

- WW

I use a 10 gallon Rubbermaid cooler as my mash tun.

I also have a cheapola (bottom of the line) Bayou Classic turkey fryer with a 6.5 (maybe 7.5?) aluminum kettle.

I use 2 turkey fryers and a 48qts rectangular cooler.
Read this
http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

9gal SS brewpot with a SS valve and large thermometer installed.
125,000btu turkey fryer (makes Tim Allen 'arh arh arh' sounds)
i have both a 5 and 10 gallon MLT made from rubbermain Victory coolers
25' immersion chiller

barley crusher is being delivered today. then i just need my oxygen system and I'll be playing with the big boys!

10 gallon cooler MLT
keggle (15 gallons)
210k btu banjo burner
50' IC

10 gallon igloo orange cooler for my MLT, works great!
My burner says it's 142,800 BTU's....I dunno, but it does have it's own electric ignition, no lighter needed!
6.5 gallon AL pot that came with the burner, both were $20 total!
Card table, stool to put MLT on
7.5 gallon bucket to collect running of wort
big paddle for the mash, bin spoon just cause, auto-siphon....ummm
and big plastic bin to cool wort in ice bath....next toy is totally an imersion chiller

I have a 7 gal SS pot on a 65,000 btu burner for a HLT, a 20 gallon cooler with copper manifold for the MLT and a 15 gal SS pot on a 150,000 BTU burner for the boil ending in a 20 foot CFC. All gravity fead with weldless ball valves.

I use this (and had a lot of fun building it!):


EDIT:
OK, now I've figured out the picture thing. Boy is my face red.:cross:

10gal round igloo cooler w/ braid
turkey fryer and alum pot
immersion chiller

IIRC the DIY forum has a conversion thread.

Pretty minimalist setup:

• 5 gallon Rubbermaid mash tun w/false bottom (purchased from Morebeer.com)
• 8 gallon stock pot + 4.5 gallon stock pot for mash/sparge water
• 6.5 gallon plastic fermenters
• 5 gallon glass and Better Bottle carboys
• Immersion chiller

I brew in my kitchen on an older electric stove. It takes a little longer but I can read, catch up on work and not worry about the neighbors thinking I'm brewing up some crystal meth in the back yard. It works.

Chad

Igloo Max Cold 50 qt. rectangular cooler with CPVC manifold.
Turkey fryer set up, using the aluminum pot that came with it for sparge water heating.
40 qt. heavy aluminum pot form a restaurant supply house for the boil. I have a keggle in mid-conversion.
Homemade immersion chiller.

Jayfro21 said:

I have been perusing this site a lot lately about AG brewing, and it has really peaked my interest. I am just curious what people use personally to brew AG. Do most people use the turkey fryer set-up, even though it is aluminum? I really want to make a 5-gallon gott type mash tun, but I can't find really clear directions on how. Just wondering what people's opinion are! Thanks!

Jason

Click to expand...

That was my first set up. Turkey fryers are on sale everywhere now...tis the time to burn the house down whilst frying a turkey that's too big for your pot.

Got a traditional Rubbermaid setup (helps that I work for the Corporate Office)
Also bought an 8-gal SS boilpot with brewmometer. Built the stands myself from 2X3s from home depot.

Electric Keg HLT
Cooler MLT
Keggle
30K BTU propane burner

50qt. rectangular cooler converted to MLT with SS braid
Turkey fryer (aluminum)
Immersion chiller
1 five gallon glass carboy
2 6.5 gallon buckets

The turkey fryer will soon be replaced with a 20 gallon SS converted medical oxygen tank that I scored on craigslist. However I must first upgrade my heat source. I'll probably need a Banjo Burner to bring a 15 gallon batch to a boil! I'll need some more fermenters at that point too...

I use a 5 gallon cooler with a stainless steel braid in it. I boil my wort in an 8 gallon pot on my kitchen stove. I have three other pots (2 gallon, 3 gallon, 5 gallon) I use for various purposes like holding sparge water and for doing decoctions.

36 qt square igloo cooler (got cheap at a yard sale)
Stainless braid (attached to a piece of copper tubing run through a rubber stopper in the cooler drain hole)
Turkey fryer - Came with a 30 qt SS pot (got it on closeout in the middle of the winter)
Cool in the bathtub with ice (I'd like an immersion chiller but I'm getting 5 gallons cooled to pitching temp in 45 min. It helps that my tap water is 50 degrees).

I have a 5gal Rubbermaid cooler with SS braid and Kewler Kit for a MLT. I heat my water in a 20qt pot on the stove and boil in a 30qt Al turkey fryer. Cool with an immersion chiller.
Inexpensive and effective. It could be cheaper but I am very happy with the upgrades I have made and don't expect to make too many more on the brewing side in the near term.

I was using a stopper and short piece of copper in my cooler but I bumped it once an drained out a 1/2 gal of wort on the kitchen floor before I noticed it. After that I invested in a more secure option.
Craig

5 Gallon Rubbermaid Cooler with copper manifold
7.5 Gal. Turkey fryer setup with extra pots for water and extra runoff
2 burner propane camp stove
Copper Immersion Chiller

CBBaron said:

I was using a stopper and short piece of copper in my cooler but I bumped it once an drained out a 1/2 gal of wort on the kitchen floor before I noticed it. After that I invested in a more secure option.
Craig

Click to expand...

That's a concern of mine. I lost a couple of tablespoons once when I knocked mine. Anyway, it's cheap and it works until I can get a more permanent solution.

48qt Rubbermaid MLT with SS Braid (looking at making a manifold)
2 Ring Burner with 5g pot for strike/mash/sparge water
40L Electric tea urn for boiling
Copper immersion prechiller and wort chiller (need a bigger chiller, cooling takes like 45 mins without prechiller about 30 with it :-S)
2 x plastic fermenter buckets
2 x 6g Better Bottles

Hmmm. lemme see.
Turkey frier
5 gallon Igloo cooler (wish I had bigger)
30 ft IC
15 gallon keggle
Various other toys including but not limited to, refractometer, PH meter,
temp controlled lager fridge.
a very understanding wife.

2 10 gallon round coolers (Mash Tun w/ SS braid & HLT)
1 25 gallong ss kettle with Hopstopper
1 bigazz banjo burner
1 pump
1 plate chiller

I've got a 48 qt rectangular cooler with a copper manifold connected to a ball valve - I put a mesh bag around the manifold to keep all the gunk out

7 gallon aluminum pot for the boil

6 gallon ss pot to heat water

one turkey fryer - bayou classic

two propane tanks

DIY fermentation chamber - it gets hot in HI - blocks of ice keep temps stable

five gallon carboy

racking bucket, racking cane

DIY plate stirrer - two corny kegs - small refrigerator (but no taps) - still have to open the door to pour a glass

Still need two taps and a grain mill

Turkey Fryer, 9 gallon SS kettle with a a false bottom I rigged up by putting the basket that was meant for frying into a large grain bag. Believe it or not this works really great as a mlt, and of course doubles as a kettle. Corona grain mill (this I will improve b/c it is a pita, but it gets the job done), large plastic tub to use for ice baths. Also two 3 gallon kettles to do a split boil inside when the weather is really bad. So yea my ghetto setup works pretty good, as I said the only thing I plan to upgrade on is the grain mill.

10 Gal Rubbermaid MLT (flyguy's design)
30qt Alum kettle and turkey fryer (Bayou Classic from HomeDepot)
50' 3/8" diameter immersion chiller (homemade)
6 gal better bottle primary
5 gal better bottle secondary
no barley crusher (yet)

2 Rubbermaid coolers with Flyguy's bulkhead/ball valve setup
Keggle
3 buckets
2 carboys
refractometer
I-chiller
55k burner (i think)
Barley Crusher

and 60 pounds of Pale 2 row stored in a "Vittle Vault" gasket lidded food container!

Here's what I use.

HLT has a thermosight w/ digital thermo.
MLT has a thermosight w/ digital thermo + false bottom.
Homemade "sludge sack" for straining hops in the boil kettle.
March pump for recirculating wort during temp steps and during chilling.
Counterflow chiller to cool the wort (+ pumping ice water during the summer)

Looks like the majority here use ye olde standard cooler/mash-lauter tun (mine's a 10 gal round one) approach and use some kind of propane-fueld burner to boil (mine's the Bayou Blazer or whatever). It seems to work.

But, the next stage....

How many here have taken your cooler-based system and developed that into a HERMS system?

edit: sorry for the attempted hijack. I started a new thread asking this question.

heres what i use.

I just built a new mashtun out of a rectangular cooler.



Instructions can be found here.

I use a converted keg to boil in with a turkey fryer burner and a plate chiller to chill.

i use a 12 gallon cooler w/ a copper manifold

My Setup.

Steam mashing with a pressure cooker and MLT.



HLT and fly sparging.



HLT is also my boil keggle



IC in action.

Dude, do you brew at work, or is that your house?!

I have a serious case of lust for those mixers in the background.

Chad

98EXL said:

Dude, do you brew at work, or is that your house?!

Click to expand...

I brew at work. SWMBO likes that!

Chad said:

I have a serious case of lust for those mixers in the background.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the old AMF 74-57 160 quart planetary mixers. They are built like a sherman tank. 1/4 inch plate steel frame. I just rebuilt the one two years ago.

I use some stuff in my garage, metal stuff mostly. Metal that shines all pretty like.

I am really wanting to built a smaller system with a flat bottomed kettle that I can fix with a chiller/whirlpool. I need a pilot brewery!

I don't even have a valve on my MLT. I stuck 5/16 ID tubing through the drain hole of my 48qt square cooler (snug fit), then stuffed a 5/16 barbed male hose connector in the tubing (expanding the OD of the tubing), and gave it a good tug from the outside. Connected SS braided hose to other end of the barb and thats it.