New Equipment Set-up?

Ok...want to go all-grain, but don't want to spend a ton of money. I only want to do 5 gal. batches so that should cut down on some of the money. So, what do I need to do an AG batch...from all of your experiences what is the route I should go?

Thanks,
Slappy

At a minimum you are going to need a five gallon cooler, and honestly if you shop around, you'll find good deals on larger ones as well. You'll need the parts to convert the cooler. Either pre-built or using Flyguy's plans.

A large capacity boil kettle 7-8 gallons, but again 10 would be better. A ball valve in the kettle is nice, but not needed right away, you can empty the kettle with a racking cane.

A second pan for heating sparge water is nice, but not totally necessary.

A burner that is going to be powerful enough to boil everything. If you have a good kitchen stove, that might not be a necessity.

Rough estimate on costs.

Cooler: $25-35
Conversion Parts $20
Boil Kettle- $40-60 if you shop around
Burner- $40

All total, about 100-150 buck if you get everything new. Shopping around will save you a few bucks.

From my perspective, the bare minimums are:

1. A mash vessel, minimum 5 gallons in size. Check out the FlyGuy MLT conversion thread for ideas. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/cheap-easy-10-gallon-rubbermaid-mlt-conversion-23008/
2. A boil kettle, minimum 6.5 to 7 gallons size.
3. A burner. It is possible to brew 5 gallon AG batches on the kitchen stove, but it's not optimal. This time of year, burners are plentiful and cheap (google "Turkey Fryer").
4. A wort chiller. Indispensible for chilling 5 gallons of boiling bacteria food.

You can get by with McGuyvering most other parts of the setup (see example here), but getting/making a wort chiller is absolutely essential. If you have some readily available snowbanks, that will work to a point, but even those take a while to cool down, and are anything but sanitary. We made ours for around 35 bucks with copper tubing from Home Depot and a few fittings.

How about an HLT....could I just use my kettle for that and boiling?

Slappy White said:

How about an HLT....could I just use my kettle for that and boiling?

Click to expand...

Yep. Keep in mind that while sparging, you're trying to fill the boiler. If you use a single kettle as HLT and boiler (I do this, for now), you'll need several food-grade buckets to use for transferring sparge water, and holding wort while your boiler/HLT is full of sparge water.