Move to 10 gallon batches with minimum equipment-advice?

Hi there,

I'm currently brewing 5 gallon BIAB batches but have been given the go ahead by the Missus to move my brewing operations to an outside covered balcony area and am itching to start making 10 gallon batches using a cooler as a MLT.

I already have to buy a few things (bigger pot, cooler box) and therefore want to minimize any further investments. Can you guys give me any advice on what I need and how I could set it up? I'm in Japan so lots of Homebrew fittings etc are not that readily available.

What I have

10 gallon pot with ball valve tap
3 plastic bucket fermenters
25' immersion chiller

What I plan to buy

10 gallon rubbermaid cooler ( to which I'll fit a ball valve and false bottom)
70 liter ss pot
Propane gas burner

What I'm thinking about

Pump? Do I need one? How do people move around all the hot liquid without one?

Chiller. Could I use/adapt my existing 25' IC to use to cool 10gallon batches? Do i need a new one?

Setup. Should i go for a 3 tier stem or could I get away with having it all on one level?

Cheers guys

I went through the same thing. The 10G cooler will limit you to about 25 pounds of grain, so you won't be able to do high gravity 10G batches. I originally had a 10G round cooler for 5G batches, but went with the 70QT Coleman Xtreme rectangular cooler. I should be able to get around 42 to 43 pounds of grain to max that out. At Walmart (do you have those in Japan?), the Coleman was only $40, so it's pretty much the same price as the rubbermaid.

I didn't use a pump the first time I used the new system, but I just bought one for pumping through my chiller. Basically, I took the cheesy/cheap way and just had 1G rubbermaid pitchers and transferred liquids that way (with a basin/bus pan under both pitchers so I didn't spill anything). However, it failed on chilling...normally, I had enough height on my BK to allow a gravity drain through my CFC, but my new BK isn't as high now.

Personally, I would upgrade the 25' IC. Either go with a CFC or a larger IC. The 25' IC is going to take a while to chill big batches.

I would not like to chill my 10G batches using an IC. I bought a March pump and built an counterflow chiller using Bobby's methods found in the DIY forum. Life will be much easier for you I believe.

I'm in a similar situation looking to go from 5 to 10gal all grain brewing. Have been using a 25' IC and can't decide if I should re-use the copper to build a CFC or just buy more copper and keep the IC as a pre-chiller. Or use the IC to bring temps down initialy then the CFC to cool to pitching temps.

Moving to a new house on a well so water usage is a concern.

You do not want move a pot with 10 gallons of hot liquid so you will need some type of brew stand or a pump. I use one of the little 12V eBay solar pumps (about $60) and it is useful to recirculate, pump through plate chiller, for cleaning, etc.

"Moving to a new house on a well so water usage is a concern."

Not a problem. All you are paying for is the electricity, not the overhead of a municipal water system. So pump away.

ruralbrew said:

"Moving to a new house on a well so water usage is a concern."

Not a problem. All you are paying for is the electricity, not the overhead of a municipal water system. So pump away.

Click to expand...

We had a really dry summer so lots of people were concerned about wells running dry. Did a triple brew last weekend and used over 80gal water between brewing and chilling.

Sounds like time for a plate chiller...