Hello from Long Island

Hi everybody,

I Googled Homebrew forum and here I am. I'll give you a quick bio.

Angry Turtle Brewing comes from my being an alumnus of the University of Maryland. I have been homebrewing for about 12 years now. I am an extract brewer, but the main reason I joined here was that I am looking to make the jump to all grain, so I'm hoping to get a lot of advice about equipment, procedures, etc. from this forum. I have brewed mostly ales, as for all but the last year of my brewing experience I was an apartment dweller, and was unable to ferment at lower temperatures. Now that I am a homeowner, I am overdue in putting a second fridge in my basement to brew lagers. This past X-mas, I converted a mini fridge into a 2 tap homebrew kegerator. Outside of X-mas gift batches, I will never bottle again!

I'm looking forward to expanding my brewing knowledge, and hopefully I can help out some of the newer homebrewers.

Slainte!

Welcome to HBT!
Do you have an idea of how you want to approach AG? We have a lot of folks with a variety of systems from simple to complex. We will be glad to help you dive into all grain.

Welcome! This is a fun forum, and tons of information to be found!

Lots of cool guys........and Yooper too!:cross:

Welcome! You came to the right place. I used to spend summers on Long Guyland at Grandma's and remember Jones Beach very well. Still have relatives on Staten Island and in Massapequa.

Enjoy the forum and we look forward to helping you with your first All Grain beer.

RichBrewer said:

Welcome to HBT!
Do you have an idea of how you want to approach AG? We have a lot of folks with a variety of systems from simple to complex. We will be glad to help you dive into all grain.

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I think starting off simple and getting more complex as I go is probably going to be my best bet.

Thanks for the welcome, guys!

Angry Turtle Brewing said:

I think starting off simple and getting more complex as I go is probably going to be my best bet.

Thanks for the welcome, guys!

Click to expand...

Probably start with a cooler mash/ lauter tun then.
Do you have any AG equipment yet?

From a fellow Long Islander, hello!!! This is a great site that took me from brewing virgin to all grain and a keggle in 4 monhs!

RichBrewer said:

Probably start with a cooler mash/ lauter tun then.
Do you have any AG equipment yet?

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I have no specific AG equipment yet. I saw the cooler mash/lauter tun conversion directions in the Home Brew Wiki section. I think I'll have a go at making one of those. I do have some general equipment questions.

1) I know my 4 gallon extract brew pot isn't going to be big enough. How big of a brew pot should I be looking for? I am probably going to stick to 5 gal batches. Also, I've always used SS pots. Can I get away with aluminum, or should I stick with SS?

2) This is kind of tied to question 1. I have looked at a few turkey fryers on line. I have seen ones with 26 qt. SS pots, and 30 qt. aluminum pots. Based on the metal compostion of the pot, I could get a turkey fryer or buy a bigger SS pot and get a camping propane burner. Thoughts?

3) This may be a stupid question, but where do AG brewers brew? I know my kitchen stove isn't going to be enough, so I have to move outside. Do you brew in your garages? On the patio/deck? In the driveway? Are you out in the open, or do you use some kind of shelter?

4) From everything I have seen, the cooler mash/lauter tun I am going to make is most conducive to batch sparging, meaning I don't need any kind of fancy sparging arms or the like, correct?

5) I definitely need a wort chiller. Any suggestions on what kind works best?

Thanks in advance for the help. Sorry it took a while to continue the conversation. I was traveling for work most of last week.