what would you purchase next?

I recently purchased this..

tommyguner03 said:

I recently purchased this..

Way out of my budget but this thing is awesome!! 15 gallon blichmann.
I am asking you would you purchase (make) wort chiller, mill (barley crusher) or mm2(3).. Or update on my cheap mash tun which works fine?

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Didn't mean to post same pic three times

Sweet pot. You gotta have a wort chiller no?

I would make or buy a wort chiller. You can mill or have it sent milled and you are saying your mash tun is fine so that leaves the obvious. Gonna be a PITA to try and get 10 gallons of beer chilled in an ice bath not to mention the awesome post after you get out of the hospital for those lovely burns you picked up on that faithful brew day when your buddies no showed or got bored and left the lifting to you.

I do love my mm3 though Thing is not cheap but definitely spring for SS rollers when you do. Seriously though get a wort chiller or the otehr option is sanitized frozen bottles I guess? Not sure I would want the plastic in my wort though.

Wort chiller all the way man! Or you could build a counter flow chiller! Easy decision IMO! Invest in a chiller of some sort!

yeah what i have to do is drain out the wort in separate pots and put them in an ice bath.. the blichmann says not to submerge pot in water or ice. the temperature gauge could crack and break. ive had my grain milled for me from lhbs and from other brew sites and i am not hitting good effiencey. any where from 60% to 70ish.. everytime i get the grain milled it looks like it was an uneven crush.?? maybe i'll flip a coin on this and go from there

a wort chiller is a must have with a big pot.

You have a blichman pot...and no wort chiller or mill?....Hmmm..

Given your current chilling method, it seems like a no brainer to get a wort chiller.

yeah i know dumb of me.. i just bought the kettle a week ago and brewed with it once so far. now for wort chiller i would have to get 50ft instead of 25?

I think that it would be in your best interests to DIY a counter flow chiller.

felixio said:

i think that it would be in your best interests to diy a counter flow chiller.

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+1

Screw them all!!!! You need a conical! Jacketed of course and a glycol chiller. Then you don't need the extra chiller. Go big or go home right? Or get a morebeer hot and cold conical

I think that it would be in your best interests to understand how much easier it is to build an immersion chiller. ;-)

I would definitely go for a chiller, though I'd probably push you towards a plate chiller...

JadeMonkeyStang said:

I would definitely go for a chiller, though I'd probably push you towards a plate chiller...

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Not to hijack the thread but I'm trying to line up all the equipment to do the bigger AG batches and currently have no wort chiller. I've been looking into it a lot, and have found there are several ways to go with no real definitive answer to sway you toward a particular chiller. Immersions are easy to clean and sanitize maybe not as efficient as the others. Plate Chillers depend on plates but more importantly size of the plate and are a pain to clean however more efficient than the immersion. Counterflows bigger pain to clean, more expensive but probably a little more efficient at cooling than a plate chiller. The kicker is with all of them is if your ground water is too warm none of them do a good enough job anyway. I've heard of getting an immersion chiller then putting that in an ice bath then hook up another chiller of your choice to cool the wort...PITA!

Long story short buy a wort chiller...? Btw, nice brew pot.

No brainer and not just any wort chiller get a plate chiller as with a pot that size a immersion may not cut it and for the price difference between a counter flow and a plate ..... Just go for the plate chiller it's more efficient and easier to clean/sanitize.

thanks for all the feedback. a co worker gave me 25ft of copper tubing so on that note im going to do a diy wort chiller and hope it works well. i do like the idea of the plate chiller i may put more thought into this

ok i have finally made my purchase of a plate chiller and a barley crusher!.. and now i cant wait to be in the dog house