Can you do an all grain with 1 kettle?

All the set-ups I've seen use 3.

Anyone have an example?

Gracias!

Yes. Beer In A Bag (or BIAB). Search for BIAB and you'll find tons of good info. There's even a sticky at the top of the all grain section.

Yep, I saw a great write up with pictures on BIAB this morning, and was just looking for it to link for you. Couldn't find it though.

Found it:https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/biab-brewing-pics-233289/

I use one kettle, one [smaller] pot and a mash tun that's a converted cooler for my setup. You need the kettle to be large enough to do the full boil. The second pot just needs to be large enough to heat the sparge water. The cooler needs to be sized properly for your batches (figure your largest grain bill, then add some room for safety)...

Kettle: 32qt aluminum stock pot with 1/2" SS 3-piece ball valve.
Pot: 20 quart SS (scratch 'n dent discounted) to heat the sparge water.
Mash tun 1: 70qt Coleman Xtreme (green) with 12" straight bazooka screen and 1/2" brass ball valve.
Mash tun 2: 40qt RubberMaid round [beverage] cooler with T bazooka screen and 1/2" brass ball valve.

This hardware lets me make any 5 gallon batch I want. I also have a 60 quart aluminum kettle (brass 1/2" ball valve there) to use for 10 gallon batches.

IMO, the three pot method means you need to apply heat, or really insulate, the mash kettle. With the cooler mash tun, you eliminate that need. You can do BIAB with two pots, or one pot one kettle, if you want. There are people that do it in just one pot/kettle too.

I do love having the ball valve on the kettle (which is what turns it from a pot to a kettle). It makes draining into the fermenter so much easier. Once you've done it that way, you will probably never even consider using a siphon again to transfer the wort.

Of course you can do AG in one kettle and you don't have do BIAB either. Most homebrewers have a simple setup that is nothing more that a turkey fryer with ONE kettle, a cooler for a mash tun, and maybe a bucket. Very simple.

Look at these pics from our area from Natl homebrew day...you don't see many multiple kettle setups here do you? Some have them but they aren't mandatory.







Heck we just did a 25 gallon brew for a buddy's wedding using only a cooler, turkey fryer burner and a 30 gallon kettle.

I don't have a ball valve, nor did we have one on the 30 gallon pot, once we cooled the wort we use autosphins to move our beers. For the 25 gallon we use 30 feet of hose and autosiphoned from the driveway through a basement window and into a conical.

Revvy said:

I don't have a ball valve, nor did we have one on the 30 gallon pot, once we cooled the wort we use autosphins to move our beers. For the 25 gallon we use 30 feet of hose and autosiphoned from the driveway through a basement window and into a conical.

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Sounds like a lot more work than what I go through... I did the autosiphon for my first few full boils... Once I fitted the valve to the kettle, that went out the window (well, I still use it to rack to the bottling bucket)...

For reference, I can drain the 5 gallon kettle into primary in under two minutes (more like 60-90 seconds)... Just one more item, IMO, that makes brew day easier on the brewer. Just like using a wort chiller instead of cold water baths.

Sure you can....heat the strike water in your brew kettle.....mash in and start heating the full volume of sparge water in your brew kettle....collect your first runnings in a clean bucket and do your sparge ( you can either single or double batch sparge) keep collecting your runnings ( after vorlouf of course) in the clean bucket. once you are done, transfer the wort back into your boil kettle and do your boil. easy as pie.. to be honest I almost prefer this to my keggle and outdoor burner and hot liqour tank.

OHIOSTEVE said:

Sure you can....heat the strike water in your brew kettle.....mash in and start heating the full volume of sparge water in your brew kettle....collect your first runnings in a clean bucket and do your sparge ( you can either single or double batch sparge) keep collecting your runnings ( after vorlouf of course) in the clean bucket. once you are done, transfer the wort back into your boil kettle and do your boil. easy as pie.. to be honest I almost prefer this to my keggle and outdoor burner and hot liqour tank.

Click to expand...

Yup, steve wrote a great summation of the process that most of us do.

OHIOSTEVE said:

Sure you can....heat the strike water in your brew kettle.....mash in and start heating the full volume of sparge water in your brew kettle....collect your first runnings in a clean bucket and do your sparge ( you can either single or double batch sparge) keep collecting your runnings ( after vorlouf of course) in the clean bucket. once you are done, transfer the wort back into your boil kettle and do your boil. easy as pie.. to be honest I almost prefer this to my keggle and outdoor burner and hot liqour tank.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I did with my first and only AG batch I have done. I have a false bottom fitted to my kettle. Heat my strike water in the kettle, add the grains, mash, then use a couple kitchen pans to heat my sparge water. I vorlauf then fly sparge the entire batch at once. I keep the flame low to no flame during the mash and stir occasionally to keep even heat and accurate temp readings on my thermometer. After sparging to a bucket, I remove the false bottom, clean out the grains and transfer the wort back to the kettle for boiling.

The one thing I ran into that I am going to remedy is scorching on the bottom of the kettle under the false bottom. What I am going to do is get a March pump and recirculate the wort during heating and mashing at a slow rate to keep even heat and circulation of the mash. I think this will keep spikes and drops in temperatures while mashing.

I do pretty much what is stated above, too. I only have a 32qt pot, 18qt pot, and a 40qt cooler converted to mashtun. No fancy valves or autosiphons. I pick up and pour everything from one pot to the other, or into the carboy.

The only bad part to this process is the second batch sparge. For some reason, I always forget to buy a heat resistant hose/tube of the right diameter. Given that, for the second sparge addition, I usually end up holding a pot of 5-6 gallons of wort high off the ground so my mashtun (on the countertop) can drain into it without excessive splashing/aeration. Considering draining the mashtun can take several minutes, it's not exactly easy or fun. Is it necessary? Maybe not, but I end up counting it as my workout for the morning.

GuldTuborg said:

I do pretty much what is stated above, too. I only have a 32qt pot, 18qt pot, and a 40qt cooler converted to mashtun. No fancy valves or autosiphons. I pick up and pour everything from one pot to the other, or into the carboy.

The only bad part to this process is the second batch sparge. For some reason, I always forget to buy a heat resistant hose/tube of the right diameter. Given that, for the second sparge addition, I usually end up holding a pot of 5-6 gallons of wort high off the ground so my mashtun (on the countertop) can drain into it without excessive splashing/aeration. Considering draining the mashtun can take several minutes, it's not exactly easy or fun. Is it necessary? Maybe not, but I end up counting it as my workout for the morning.

Click to expand...

i might be mistaken but I do not believe preboil splashing is a major concern.anyone else wanna correct me?

OHIOSTEVE said:

Sure you can....heat the strike water in your brew kettle.....mash in and start heating the full volume of sparge water in your brew kettle....collect your first runnings in a clean bucket and do your sparge ( you can either single or double batch sparge) keep collecting your runnings ( after vorlouf of course) in the clean bucket. once you are done, transfer the wort back into your boil kettle and do your boil. easy as pie.. to be honest I almost prefer this to my keggle and outdoor burner and hot liqour tank.

Click to expand...

I do the same for 10-gal batches. My first-runnings bucket (6-gal) has an outlet tube attached towards the bottom. After adding the sparge water to my cooler/mash tun and vorlouf-ing, the bucket goes on top of the cooler, and both drain into the kettle (converted keg).

I use a single pot system I built and designed myself

Check it out https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-new-homemade-micro-brewery-241691/

I do AG with 1 kettle and 2 10gal Gott coolers. One cooler is HLT ( and obviously, needn't be round) the other is the mash tun with a plastic false bottom;

The coolers needn't be round, and they needn't be 10 gal; there are lots of guys with other types.

The only thing is you have to be a bit more on top of things, but, not much. I typically heat a bit extra mash water, then add to it for my sparge water, which I being heating to temp about 20 min before I being sparging. I pump (though I used to just move by gravity) the water from the kettle to the HLT cooler; when that's done, I'm ready to start sparging.

I'm a infusion mash guy, again, there are other ways to do this, and other methods. There are folks in the club with small HLT's that are direct fired and they just keep adding water as they sparge (one of them uses their original 7gal brew kettle as the HLT).