I am not intimidated by all-grain!

I went to a beginners class at my local brew store and the teacher was excellent and made an 11 gallon batch. We did the whole thing soup to nuts in about 5 hours. I REALLY want to get into all grain now that I've seen the class! The only thing that is holding me back is the price of the equipment! Looks to be at least around $500 even for converted kegs! Yiikes! Maybe for Christmas? I keep looking at CraigsList!

Check this out: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-stovetop-all-grain-brewing-pics-90132/

I use that method and it cost me all of $55 to go from extract to all grain. $5 for the nylon bag and $50 for the 7.5 gallon brew kettle. On my second try I got 70% efficiency. I am sure it can only get better as I practice.

dude just get a cooler with a stainless steel braid and some vinyl tubing. $17+ $8= $25. The pot is the expensive part but I just bought a turkey fryer w/ aluminum pot for $50. That worked fine until I found a nice 10 gallon pot at a garage sale for $5. Thats really all the equipment you need. Also at least a decent thermometer is very important. I am currently in college (broke) and and apartment (space limited) and that works for me now. I've made about 20 batches and every one has been great. Of course as soon as I get my own place though there's going to be some serious upgrading.

Ya check out youtube and you will see alot of AG brewing done in converted coolers, even how to convert the cooler!

Slipgate said:

I went to a beginners class at my local brew store and the teacher was excellent and made an 11 gallon batch. We did the whole thing soup to nuts in about 5 hours. I REALLY want to get into all grain now that I've seen the class! The only thing that is holding me back is the price of the equipment! Looks to be at least around $500 even for converted kegs! Yiikes! Maybe for Christmas? I keep looking at CraigsList!

Click to expand...

You can probably get a turkey fryer and cooler mash tun setup for between $100-$200. If you never brewed and need to get the basic brewing equipment it'll be a bit more. I've seen kits for as low as $85 not including mash tun or kettle.

Deathbrewers Easy Stovetop method. search for it.

There are many ways to make GREAT beer and they aren't all expensive.

I do all grain in a tiny kitchen. I use two pots, 4 and 5 gallons each. I have one cooler I use for my tun. I use a chiller I made but often use the 'no-chill' method.

sure, when I move out of this apartment, I'll be looking to upgrade. but for now, I'm happy to be able to make beer using grains.

YOU are a go getter. I thought I would hang with extract in our good sized condo and call it that. NOT.

Learning watching more brought me to all grain over a year.

You did it in one night. Watch the threads, read, convert a cooler and you will be good. Enjoy great beers!

~Diz

The equipment pays for itself in my opinion, especially with all-grain. I don't really buy much commercial beer since I started brewing, and batches cost in the 20-25 dollar range. I was spending 8 bucks a six pack for good craft brew...8*4 = $32 a case!!! My 25 dollar batch = $12.50 a case, that's half savings right there. Sure the outlay is pricey, but when I look at it this way I will have saved myself money after brewing for years.

When I went all grain last year, I was already doing full batches using a 30qt turkey fryer that went for $50-60 I think.

Not factoring that cost in all I really needed was an MLT. I built the one using FlyGuy's design for $80 so basically I went from extract to AG for $80.

Slipgate said:

I went to a beginners class at my local brew store and the teacher was excellent and made an 11 gallon batch. We did the whole thing soup to nuts in about 5 hours. I REALLY want to get into all grain now that I've seen the class! The only thing that is holding me back is the price of the equipment! Looks to be at least around $500 even for converted kegs! Yiikes! Maybe for Christmas? I keep looking at CraigsList!

Click to expand...

Yeah definitely keep an eye on CL. I got all of my stuff for less than 200 bucks on CL...

Slipgate said:

I went to a beginners class at my local brew store and the teacher was excellent and made an 11 gallon batch

Click to expand...

It may well cost you $500 to get set up for 11 gallon batches. But if you can settle for the more typical 5-6 gallon you can do it pretty cheap as others have mentioned. If you don't have anything you could do it for under $200 pretty easily.

As everyone is saying, just convert a cooler into a MLT. I think mine cost me $30 total for all the materials.
If you don't have money or room for a turkey fryer you could just boil it on your stove top.
I used to live in a very small place and when I started AG brewing I did 2.5 gallon batches because my stove couldn't boil 6 gallons of wort and I didn't have a place I could put a turkey fryer.

There is nothing wrong with starting small if you have to.

If you lived close, you could buy my cooler I used, have moved to a keg now.

DNW said:

It may well cost you $500 to get set up for 11 gallon batches. But if you can settle for the more typical 5-6 gallon you can do it pretty cheap as others have mentioned. If you don't have anything you could do it for under $200 pretty easily.

Click to expand...

Like others here, I've minimized my investment in equipment. I had an unused 5 gal water cooler so after a few fittings, stainless braid (no stuck sparges so far) and ball valve I had a MLT. $75 for a turkey fryer and 9 gal pot and the two bucket, capper, hydrometer kit for a little more than $50 and I was jumping in the AG method feet first. One thing I would suggest if the 10 gal batch sounds like the way you want to go... My 5 gal MLT was a little small for IPA's, so I graduated to a 48qt Ice Cube cooler ($25). I used the same fittings from the 5 gal and I now have the capability of gathering 12 gal of wort. What I do now is gather the wort evenly in two buckets and do two 6 gal boils since my last batch. It allows me to experiment with yeast and hops additions. I have two that will be ready for the keg this weekend. One has Notty and Cascade as the finishing hops and the other used a Wyeast smack pack (can't recall the yeast offhand, but named after someone like Denny's favorite or something) and Amarillo hops. I've gone from doing one 5 gal batch in 6 hours to two 5 gal batches in less than 8 hours.