Cheap(er) way to go from extract to AG 3 tier

Hi all. I am looking for a cheap way to go from extracts in the kitchen to all grain in the garage. I already have a decent burner and a great 7 gallon stainless boil pot. I was thinking of just getting 2 7 gallon rubber maid coolers with ball valves and rigging a shower head for fly sparging. I know one of these coolers can be used for a MLT, but is it a good idea to use one as a HLT as well and save a boatload of money?

If you used a rubber cooler as a HLT how would you heat the water?

Using wood I built a gravity feed system. It utilizes two burners, one for the HLT and one for the brew kettle. The brew kettle and the HLT are keggles, the MLT is a round cooler that I built following the instructions on this site.

If I fly sparge I just put a piece of aluminum foil on top of the MLT water and trickle sparge water out of the HLT on to it, seems to work great. However I found little difference between fly sparging and batch sparging so I usually batch sparge.

In Utah kegs are hard to find so Keggle creation is difficult. If you have any trips out of state soon you may want to check craigslist before you go.

Go with 10 gallon cooler for MLT, you will not be disappointed.

I actually did this myself. I have a 42 qt pot and a nice burner outside. I converted a 10 gal rubbermaid cooler into my MLT using the techniques that can be found here in the forums. As cfonnes presents, you cannot heat up the water in the mash tun directly but heating it up and then putting it in the cooler worked fine for me. I just took a bit longer to make sure my temp was where I wanted but but once I added grains and got everything normalized it only fluctuated a degree or two for the hour I was mashing. I'll be converting a 5 gal cooler into a HLT and just stick to batch sparging for now. All in all I went from doing partial mash to AG for less than $150

My thinking was I could get the water up to temp in my boil pot, and transfer to the cooler I would set up as a HLT. Connect the "shower head" fly sparge contraption and open the ball valve and wait for gravity to do her thing. I know it would be tedious to transfer the hot water and hurry up and get it going, but once I get the lid on I don't expect to have any severe temperature drops while the water is in the HLT...

Your idea is sound as long as you don't mind transferring the water by hand.

I prefer batch sparging for its simplicity. I have a cooler MLT, and I bought a 3gal cheapie pot for my sparge water. I'll mash with around 5gal, then run that in my kettle and sparge with the 3gal of water. You could darned near put your sparge water in a HDPE bucket if you're batch sparging since you'll be adding it fairly quickly anyway.

You'd better have Fermcap S (or AT) if you are going to do a full boil on wort for a 5gal batch. You'll be starting with 6-6.5gal and that won't leave much room in that 7gal pot. You could also go with a higher gravity and smaller volume and then dilute into the fermentor, you'll lose a little efficiency and need a touch more hops but it can be done.

I really like brewing AG, it adds another dimension to the hobby and you can save some money if you find the right supplier.

Why do you wanna go three tier, why do you wanna fly sparge?

If you want cheap, don't go with a two cooler setup and batch sparge instead of fly.

My ghetto brew-rig, featuring the 15 dollar harbor freight folding workbench and milk crate. This and a half gallon pitcher is all I use.



Been doing AG with it for 5 years. And it was a pretty cheap setup.

Lower middle class rig at best Revvy. You'd need to use car parts as tables for it to qualify as ghetto. Plus you'd want a pit bull in the pic somewhere.

I have the same cooler, but without the ball valve. I just installed a rubber grommet from a minikeg and shoved plastic hose through that. You put the end of the hose up through the handle to prevent it from running. Lowering hose below liquid level to drain.

I brewed 20+ batches on a setup just like Revvy's. I've since built a more complicated system which makes my brew days more consistent, but the beer is necessarily better. I had a rectangular cooler, rather than the tall-water cooler style, but that was the only difference.

To go from Extract to All-Grain you need:
-A pot large enough for full-batch boil (sounds like you have that)
-A burner that can heat said pot (sounds like you have that)
-A wort chiller because ice baths and top-off water don't really work with full-batch boils.

That's it for the must haves. You can do a BIAB with that setup. For just $50 more you can build a mash tun out of a cooler. Either the water cooler style like Revvy's picture shows, or the rectangular style. I personally highly recommend building a mash tun. It makes life easier.

I think you're right, Revvy. I guess I wasn't looking for cheap per se, but cheaper than a stainless HLT and a dual burner stand. The three tiers would mean no pump. As for the fly sparging i don't have a good answer as I have no experience to compare the two. The coolers themselves are only about $50 or so. I think I will just get a 10 gallon Igloo for a MLT, try it out, and see what shakes loose...

Revvy said:

My ghetto brew-rig, featuring the 15 dollar harbor freight folding workbench and milk crate. This and a half gallon pitcher is all I use.

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my first tier is a couple planks of wood on saw horses. The second tier is the third step down on my deck.

Long live ghetto brew rigs. Gravity doesn't care what it looks like.

Do you want cheap or do you want 3 tier or 2 tier? Cheap is brew in a bag. It's a full all grain brewing without lots of extra equipment. You have the burner and pot so all you need is a couple of paint strainer bags and a good (accurate) thermometer. Look for posts on BIAB or "brew in a bag" and you will see that you can accomplish all grain with what you already have.

I' ll go with 7.5 gal cooler, 10 is biggerthan you need for 5 gal batch, and 7.5 will let you do bigger beer than a 5 gal.

I' just building a plastic(a fermentor pail) hlt electric for ~100$ (that would be 60$ for you in the states), I use it as the top tier, mash in the cooler and boil with gaz in the kettle.
The Hlt got a 1500W element that heat 5gal in about an hour, letting me do my grain etc... I use half of that for mash in, fill it back to 5 gal and take about 30 min to heat back to sparge temp.
A PID controller(ebay) with temp probe that you just pitch in the pail and an SSR(ebay) to control the element.
A weldless ball valve to witch I wired my ground for the gfci
Just make sure to plug that in a GFCI 15A plug.

Major plus is that it's really cold here in winter so not having to open the garage door to heat mash in water is really cool.

That' s the cheapest you can do for 3 tier

Revvy's setup is pretty much how I have done it in the past. But after moving and selling off my original equipment (wish I hadn't done that), I have been doing BIAB as others on here mentioned, and am quite happy.
So my vote is if you are trying to go cheapest for now 1) BIAB, but if you are bound and determined to make a mash tun, go Revvy's route.
You can always save up more money later on to go three tier if you still want to.

bkorver said:

Hi all. I am looking for a cheap way to go from extracts in the kitchen to all grain in the garage. I already have a decent burner and a great 7 gallon stainless boil pot. I was thinking of just getting 2 7 gallon rubber maid coolers with ball valves and rigging a shower head for fly sparging. I know one of these coolers can be used for a MLT, but is it a good idea to use one as a HLT as well and save a boatload of money?

Click to expand...

Simple 5 gal all-grain:

1. Cooler mash tun (with DIY manifold or braid)
2. Something to set the mash tun on for gravity drain into boil kettle
3. Second pot (around 4gal) for HLT
   -aluminum works good, because it's light for dumping/batch sparging
4. Full boil kettle
5. Full boil burner
6. Volume measuring device for each kettle (I use a stir stick with graduations every quart...big pot one side, little pot other side)
7. Chiller (although not necessary, I used an ice water bath for a long time)

Sound like you are mostly there! Everything else is up to you and your preferences.

It doesn't have to be a big three tier monstrosity** or a fancy single tier with pumps. Those setups are great, but not necessary. If you are going to go to 10gal, then the necessities are a bit more involved because of the weight at those volumes (one cannot simply lug around a 15gal pot filled with 11 gals of wort weighing in around 125 lbs)

All of my stuff for 5gal batches slides together after it's dried, and I can carry it in two hands (except a lid or two and the burner).....braid and tun bulkhead w/hose in bottom of round cooler, aluminum kettle slips in on top with misc. brew day stuff inside it (refractometer, vorlauf measuring cup, etc.). Boil kettle gets the chiller and hop spider and stir sticks and other misc. stuff (lighter, water filter, etc.).




**monstrosity is an affectionate term, and is in no way meant to be taken as derogatory or offensive. Some thee-tiers I'm pretty sure could come to life and start taking over the world as in transformers, while other are most definitely sleeper aliens....so just be careful where you get your parts for building one, as you could be responsible for the demise of our kind!

Well, last night I bit the bullet and bought a 10 gallon rubbermaid and followEd FlyGuy's diy post to the letter. I think I will also take Revvy's advice and batch for a while and get some batches under my belt and go from there...