500 to spend please help.

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FoulMouth

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Ok first what i have.
8 gallon brew pot
Propane burner
Copper wort chiller
1 keg
1 reg
1 co2
10 gallon cooler, not set up for a mash tun yet
A fertmenation chest
A 7.2 cubic freezer
2 6 gallon better bottles
1 5 gallon glass carboy
--------------------------------------------------
I need 2 temp reg for fermentation chest and freezer. So 2 johnson temp controls needed equals $160 leaving $340. The freezer and the fermentation chest are on opposite sides of the room. The freezer for the keg and bottles and even cold crashing when theres room need johnson to keep around 38. The fermentation room i am trying to keep around 70 and need the other johnson to control that.
I would like to focus on better batches so temps are important, but would like to use the cooler and get into all grain. The problem is i dont have a HLT and i have a cooler that needs ball valve, false bottom, and sparge arm of some sort. So what do i do i also would like to get into 10 gallons by summer as well. Thanks for the help always easy spendimg others money lol.
 
Sorry I don't know the link however, there is a thread on here about adjusting chest frezeers to specific degrees...With that temp control is out of the budget.
 
I'd look into an oxygenation system. You can pick one up for around $50. I think that along with good temperature control, oxygenation is a key to healthy fermentation. Healthy fermentation = better beer! I had great results after switching to oxygen from the typical shake for 5 minutes deal. If you only have one keg I would maybe pick up just one more for now so you have no lag time waiting for your next beer to carb up.
 
Have 1 keg set up.

only reason i said that was because then you could finish beer in one and drink on the other, or carb up in one and drink the other

refractometer are worth every pennie of 30usd
 
If you havent gotten into all grain yet, I would 110% do that! You'll never regret making the jump. Cheaper ingredients, more control, better product! Really, all you need is at least a 40qt cooler to convert to a mash tun (about $40) or you could buy one premade from a HBS.

I posted a similar question a couple months ago and the best response I got was 'Mentally, go through your brew day, figure out what part of the day is the biggest pain in the a** and fix it!'
Think wort chillers, extra fermenters, cappers, bottle trees, extra kegs, another cO2 tank, maybe a pump... make life easier!
Worst case scenario, i can give you my PayPal info, and you can share the wealth ;)
:tank:
 
Grainmill, manifold and valve for MLT, a couple sacks of base malts, and a great quality instant read thermometer (thermapin). You should be able to get all of that for around 350 and will get you going comfortably into all grain.

Now without a HLT and a sparge arm you'll need to batch sparge. But I think that the above are more important. Just my .002
 
I'll rec the AG jump as well. You can get everything you need and more for the money you have. Before you buy 2 Johnsons, check out that thread about modding the on-board freezer thermo. It'll save you money to use elsewhere.

Like...

If you want to make the jump to larger batches (10-15 gal), buy a cooler that will hold 100 quarts. 25 gallon tun will easily do just about any 10 gal batch. I have a 10 gal cooler, and it just ain't big enough for the batches I want to do. You'll want a good paddle to go with that, and you'll need copper tubing and fittings to do your sparge manifold (unless you do PVC - either way, it adds up). Bayou Classic has some VERY big pots for not a lot of money...25 gallon pot for about $150-160. Aluminum, but 10 ga thickness (2.5 mm). Wrap it up in hot water heater insulation, insulate the lid and drill/install a bulkhead & a thermowell, and you have the makings of a direct-fired tun.

Buy a refractometer and an accurate digital thermometer.

A stir plate rig.

Any of those would be decent investments.

Also, the ebay aquarium controllers work really well, and are way cheaper than the analog Johnsons. You can buy them here. I have two, and they work like a charm. They also look cooler than the analog box...people see my ferm boxes and always ooh and ahh over the pretty LEDs...
 
If you are a DYI person you can save some money on the johnson controllers by going with a 2 Gang mounted STC-1000. I made two of them for ~$60, so that would save you ~$100. There are a few great threads on those here.

That said, you should get the gear for all grain. If you plan on doing bigger batches later make sure that the equipment you buy now will work for the bigger batches. So get a pot large enough to do 10 gallon or larger.

With the gear you already have, you should be able to go all grain well within the budget. I would throw a false bottom or SS braid in the 40qt cooler you have. The 32qt pot would make a good HLT.

I would also invest in a grain mill and a couple of sacks of 2-row. You can save some money by buying in bulk. It also helps with brew days when you may be low on funds to buy the 2-row grain because you have already bought it.

A few kegs may be nice as well. You can naturally carb the kegs while you are working on your other one. Like CopperPots said its really about what would make your life easier. For me it was getting a plate chiller, pump and going electric. If you get a pump make sure that you make quick disconnect high temp hoses.
 
prrriiide said:
I'll rec the AG jump as well. You can get everything you need and more for the money you have. Before you buy 2 Johnsons, check out that thread about modding the on-board freezer thermo. It'll save you money to use elsewhere.

Like...

If you want to make the jump to larger batches (10-15 gal), buy a cooler that will hold 100 quarts. 25 gallon tun will easily do just about any 10 gal batch. I have a 10 gal cooler, and it just ain't big enough for the batches I want to do. You'll want a good paddle to go with that, and you'll need copper tubing and fittings to do your sparge manifold (unless you do PVC - either way, it adds up). Bayou Classic has some VERY big pots for not a lot of money...25 gallon pot for about $150-160. Aluminum, but 10 ga thickness (2.5 mm). Wrap it up in hot water heater insulation, insulate the lid and drill/install a bulkhead & a thermowell, and you have the makings of a direct-fired tun.

Buy a refractometer and an accurate digital thermometer.

A stir plate rig.

Any of those would be decent investments.

Also, the ebay aquarium controllers work really well, and are way cheaper than the analog Johnsons. You can buy them here. I have two, and they work like a charm. They also look cooler than the analog box...people see my ferm boxes and always ooh and ahh over the pretty LEDs...

I like saving money :) but not confident on wiring. If you can break it down with the mini temp controller i would be happy.
 
FoulMouth said:
I like saving money :) but not confident on wiring. If you can break it down with the mini temp controller i would be happy.

Read the thread some more seems pretty simple.
 
Read the thread some more seems pretty simple.

It is, but you can confuse yourself quite easily. Fortunately, my best friend is a decent electrician. But if you follow the diagrams in the thread, it should work. An advantage is that you have both hot and cold sides. So if you want to do a saison, you can rig a $4 light fixture and get a reptile bulb to get the temp up to where those belgian yeasties like to go. Also, you can do ales in the garage in the dead of winter. One issue I never saw in explicitly mentioned in the build thread is that even when you have everything hooked up right, it won't work...immediately. There is a compressor delay on the cold side. That means when you turn it on the first time, you have to wait out that delay (pre-set at 3 min IIRC, but you can change it) before your cold air will start up.

Here's my ferm rig...

When the weather warms up, I'm going to do a couple of mods to it. I'm going to open up the hole in the cold box baffle to allow more air flow across the coils. I'm also going to extend the cold air duct work of the lower left box to run all the way across and down to the floor. Right now, the return is right next to the inlet, so the cold air just flowing right back out again without circulating through the box.

But the controllers work great!
 
Make the jump to all grain! Buy some keg shells and some more propane burners and rig up a simple single teir all grain setup.
 
Any other ideas. I am thinking two more kegs for the freezer w/hoses gas control and so forth, temp controls, refractometer, more beer to brew and some small misc.
 
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