Pics from my first AG batch (cheap AG setup)

There are some pics up in my gallery.

This is my bargain-basement AG set-up:

Keggle
Propane Burner
34 Qt cooler for mash/lauter tun w/ cpvc manifold and plastic in-line valve
2nd cooler jury-rigged w/ no physical modification for HLT
Homemade 2-stage immersion chiller
Aquarium pump + filter + stone for aeration.

I had a short length of SS braid at the end of the siphon tube in the kettle: that clogged too much and I replaced it with about a 14 incher. Everything else worked like a charm.

I can see that my next purchase will be a longer-stemmed instant read thermometer, or maybe I'll just install one on the keggle--that would be nice.

You just called my setup cheap. Or worse.

well for the right price i can build and ship you something like this: http://tinyurl.com/rx9ly but the bottom line is this.....

does it make good beer?

brewhead said:

well for the right price i can build and ship you something like this: http://tinyurl.com/rx9ly but the bottom line is this.....

does it make good beer?

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Exactly: some guys take great pleasure in having shiny, fancy permanent-construction gear. That's fine, but I'm not one of them.

I can see where a three-tiered brew sculpture of some kind could be very handy: there are a couple stages in my process where I need to lift a full mash tun or six+ gallons in the keggle, and it's a PITA. If I did 10 gallon batches I'd need a friend for that purpose alone.

But just as some guys get pleasure from doing it all fancy, I guess I get some similar pleasure from getting the job done simply and frugally.

Hey that looks kinda like the hack job I've been using for years. Primitive but effective! The most modern aspect of my brewing setup is the desktop PC

If that's cheap, them I'm GHETTO baby!

• I just use a big pot, no "keggle" (maybe someday).
• I use a unmodified cooler to mash in and the bucket-in-a-bucket lauter system that Papazian proposed. No fancy MLT w/ manifold for me.
• I've got a single-stage immersion cooler. No dual-stage.
• I shake my wort. Pump, filter, stone???

But I'll tell you one thing - I still make some damn good beer, and I bet you do too!

Lil' Sparky said:

If that's cheap, them I'm GHETTO baby!

I use a unmodified cooler to mash in and the bucket-in-a-bucket lauter system that Papazian proposed. No fancy MLT w/ manifold for me.

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FWIW, the cooler conversion was very "ghetto."

The CPVC manifold was literally a few bucks worth of CPVC.

It has a hose barb output, onto which I clamp a length of high-temp tubing. The tubing goes through a drilled stopper which goes in the hole in the cooler wall. Outside the cooler that tube clamps onto an in-line plastic valve (a couple bucks).

I can even shove an undrilled rubber stopper into the hole in the cooler and still use it as a cooler.

Drilling the stopper w/ a 1/2 inch hole for the tubing was the toughest part of building it.

CWeston - I noticed you're in Manhattan, KS. You don't happen to work at KSU, do you?

EDIT - I found you're page at the KSU website. My MS thesis advisor (Dr. Scott DeLoach) now teaches there in the Computer Science Dept. I don't suppose you know him...

He was hoping I would come there for my PhD, but it looks like I'll be headed to TX A&M this fall instead. He said it's a really nice place and he enjoys it there, but I wasn't able to come out for a visit before I had to make a decision.

Cheers!

Lil' Sparky said:

EDIT - I found you're page at the KSU website. My MS thesis advisor (Dr. Scott DeLoach) now teaches there in the Computer Science Dept. I don't suppose you know him...

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No, I don't know him. I do like KSU and Manhattan (the "little apple") quite a bit. It's a very nice place to raise kids, etc. I've lived in some similar college towns in the midwest and we like this one better.

Good luck w/ your PhD.

cweston said:

there are a couple stages in my process where I need to lift a full mash tun or six+ gallons in the keggle, and it's a PITA.

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I think the word for that is not PITA.... it's CRAZY. Man.... your gonna kill yourself. You need like a 3 step ladder, a couple of milk crates or something ... just to put it a little higher. Gravity is a wonderful thing Look at Dudes pictures... oh and by the way... I'm still waiting for an answer on how the hell you got water all the way up there