What do YOU use to do AG?

Cookiebaggs said:

Yeah, the old AMF 74-57 160 quart planetary mixers. They are built like a sherman tank. 1/4 inch plate steel frame. I just rebuilt the one two years ago.

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Those are gorgeous. And here I was thinking I'd be all stud-like picking up a battered 20qt Hobart at the restaurant supply auction.

Take care,
Chad

Great idea mrk305! I have a valve because at the time I didn't have a better idea. I bristled at the price.

I did come up with an improvisation for a false bottom for my 5 gallon Igloo cooler (the one the hbs sold me was too small, fits the Rubbermaid, not the Igloo). I had the Sam's Club set of Wolfgang Puck stainless steel mixing bowls with lids, and the 10 inch lid made an excellent false bottom. I have a 6 inch piece of hose that attaches to the inside of the the valve. I drilled .25 inch holes in the plastic lid and cut a piece of soft screen to fit. I jammed the lid into the mash tun and it crimped with the low spot right at the hose opening, leaving practically no dead space.

Your wife will get mad if you take one of her lids, but in my case I'm the wife so I have complete sovreignity over mixing bowl lids.

I boil in an anodized aluminum turkey fryer, but since propane is so expensive and where I live natural gas is so cheap I boil on one of my high performance burners on my kitchen gas range. The pot clears the GE Spacesaver by one inch.

I am new to brewing, and I am wondering, what do you guys do with two coolers? What does the second one do?

15 Gallon Igloo Cube Cooler MLT, copper manifold
Keggle
Bayou Burner

10 Gallon 'Deluxe All-Grain Kit' from NB
10 Gallon Polarware Kettle
XL Immersion Chiller

10 gallon Rubbermaid with a SS braid
5 gallon Rubbermaid with a SS braid
Propane Bayou Classic Turkey Fryer
9 gallon SS brew pot with valve and thermometer
Barley Crusher
Immersion Chiller

Brewpastor said:

...I am really wanting to built a smaller system with a flat bottomed kettle that I can fix with a chiller/whirlpool....

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I'll trade ya...

But you'll have to throw in some cash to even things out a bit...

7.5gal s/s Bayou Classic kettle with "custom" (e.g. I barely got it installed) valve.
Bayou Classic burner

48qt Igloo (two of them) - one dying, one brand new and waiting conversion

Phil's CFChiller

JSP MaltMill
Not enough Ale Pails
and sexy sexy BeerSmith.

Picture = 1000words

Edit: Hey chriso you took my mash tun and turned it into a cooler!






Cheers

Chad said:

Those are gorgeous. And here I was thinking I'd be all stud-like picking up a battered 20qt Hobart at the restaurant supply auction.

Take care,
Chad

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Hmmm...my dad owns a hobart agency. I never thought to ask him about pots for a brew kettle. I've seen some large mixing bowls at my Dad's office, but no kettles...maybe he's just holding out, because he doesn't want to sell it to me at cost when he could charge a customer 5x that

Although I did ask him to keep an eye out for any old scales (a lot of times customers ask him to take the old scale off their hands when he installs a new one).

wop31 said:

Edit: Hey chriso you took my mash tun and turned it into a cooler!

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LOL. I bought that one before I started brewing, I picked it up in July for a boating trip. Namely, we took a pontoon boat out, then we floated for 8 hours.

I thought about using it for my next MLT but it wouldn't handle a 10gal batch, I don't think... Plus I have the spare 48 qt handy. Oh well!

HotbreakHotel said:

I am new to brewing, and I am wondering, what do you guys do with two coolers? What does the second one do?

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Warning generalization ahead.

Most of us bought a 5 Gal. cooler and realized it was too small so we got a bigger one. And now we have 2.

I'm sure there are some exceptions.

5 gal mt (works for medium gravity need to find a 10gal round)
21 qt enameled steel hlt
7.5 gal aluminium boil pot
160,000 btu turkey burner
25' 1/4" ic (adding an other 25' next week)

chriso said:

LOL. I bought that one before I started brewing, I picked it up in July for a boating trip. Namely, we took a pontoon boat out, then we floated for 8 hours.

I thought about using it for my next MLT but it wouldn't handle a 10gal batch, I don't think... Plus I have the spare 48 qt handy. Oh well!

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It can handle a 35lb grain bill, i know that much. Only if you do one infussion though.

Cheers

wop31 said:

It can handle a 35lb grain bill, i know that much.

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Woot, I might use Big Red instead, the other one has a funk aroma, and would work better for bev'ges. I think it definitely feels more solid, less flex-y. Thx for the idea!

HLT- rectangular cooler
MT- 5 gal Rubbermaid cooler w/ Phil's false bottom / sparge arm
32qt ss pot
Bayou Classic Burner
25' copper immersion chiller (homemade)
2- 8gal Brewcraft plastic fermenters
2- Son of Fermentation Chillers (homemade)
5- Corny kegs
2- 2L flasks for starters

29 qt rectangular cooler, stainless braid.
7.5 gallon SS turkey fryer set.
20 ft 3/8ths immersion chiller.
heat the mash and sparge in the 7.5 pot, runoff into brew bucket, dump in 7.5 for boil.

10g igloo cooler w/ perforated plastic false bottom
10g SS kettle with SS false bottom and welded ball valve
7.5g Al turkey fryer pot w/ weldless ball valve as HLT
crappy immersion chiller

My porch plus a wooden stool makes a great 3-tier setup for now. I'll probably hold off on upgrading until I buy a house and can build a single-tier 10g system with pumps.

-D