New all Grain setup

What would you guys recommend for someone starting in all grain. I have some money to spend but am not opposed to minor projects like a cooler conversion etc.

BTW, I have been doing extracts so I have all of the requisite equipment for that but none for all grain.

Thanks,
Al

If you have the equipment for a full wort boil, you don't need much else. Get yourself a cooler and convert it for a mash tun. Get yourself another pot (at least 20 quart) for a hot liquor tank. Get a mash paddle or a functional equivalent. If you don't already have it, get a good thermometer to check your mash temps (i.e., one with a fairly quick read and with a long probe that's easy to move around the mash). Make sure you have some vessel for vorlaufing (e.g., a pitcher or something like it - I just use a couple of the one gallon buckets). If you have all that together, you're set to go!

That's for batch sparging, by the way. If you want to do fly sparging, you need more gear than that.

If you want to get a little crazy, get a refractometer, but it's nothing but pure luxury.


TL

You wont regret going all grain. Its alot better than extract. I had bought a guys ten gallon setup so most of the stuff was already done for me. I have two 10 gallon Igloo round coolers. One with a bazooka screen. They both have spigots. A fly sparger and a 15 gallon keggle with a turkey fryer and propane tank. If you have the means id suggest going with a ten gallon setup. Hope this helps.

bigjon88 said:

If you have the means id suggest going with a ten gallon setup.

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I agree, absolutely. You can get the square coolers all the time and at a good price. If you prefer the round ones (and I do for some reason), you have to keep an eye out for them. They seem seasonal and, often, they are expensive. I managed to pick mine up at Home Depot for $40. I wish I'd grabbed two!


TL

I learned a lot by looking at pictures...

I like pictures.

A cooler conversion isn't exactly about saving money. Buying the parts at Home Depot as opposed to from a "Kewler Kit" thing is about money. The cooler mash tun is a very simple but effective way to get something you need that works well. You can also, for the most part, "Set it and forget it".

So:

1.) Cooler Mash/lauter tun (I'd recommend 10 gallon)
2.) Propane Burner

With extract you can boil 2 gallons and then "top up" but you need to do full boils with all-grain.

3.) 7.5 gallon pot to hold all your boiling wort

For me, this was included in #2. I spent $40 on a turkey fryer which included a kettle and burner.

4.) Wort Chiller

This isn't something that will cause the fabric of the universe to collapse if you don't have, but there's a LOT of heat in 5 (or more) gallons of boiling wort and ice baths are a HUGE pain in the butt.

5.) Kitchen Probe Thermometer

I spent $10 at Target and got a kitchen thermometer that had a silicone coated wire that could stay in the core of my mash to monitor temps without removing the lid.

That's what I'd say is "basic" for a decently productive AG setup. You can put the wort chiller off a bit if you want, but when you have it you'll CERTAINLY appreciate the time you save.

The rest can pretty much be used from the extract setup. If your spoon is too short for your bigger kettle, you'll need a bigger one obviously.

I need to amend what I said up there before. You don't need to go with a 10 gallon setup across the board. In fact, I don't have that sort of thing, and I doubt I ever will. However, I DO strongly recommend a ten gallon mash tun, so that you have ultimate flexibility with a five gallon batch.


TL

Take a deep breath and ponder where you might want to head with this hobby. then, begin to plan a strategy to get there. And always, purchase a piece for your brewery once, not twice.

One more thing, and I promise it won't break the bank!

Iodine. Costs about 1.99 at your local pharmacy. Use it for your "starch conversion test" (search for that exact string if you need instructions, there's a thread out there) so that you know whether your grains are done mashing or not.

I did my first three brews without it. Now I feel like an idiot, because I guarantee at least 1 of them wasn't done mashing, even though I went ahead and sparged it anyways.

+1 to the remote probe thermometer, I HATE messing with glass thermometers in my mash tun. Paranoia of breakage.

What they all said plus
If you can get bulk grain at a substantial savings over the price of pre-packaged grain, and you brew enough to justify the purpose of ~50 lbs grain at a time, get a grain mill

-a.

Hey, I have a question about setting up a simple, gravity fed all-grain system from an extract setup...

I have a nice 8-gallon SS kettle...could I add a spigot, and use this as a hot liquor tank AND a brew kettle? Concievebly, for a batch sparge setup, you could mash in, set aside your sparge water in a small cooler, and move the HLT down below the mash tun to catch the wort. Or am I missing something?

Regarding the number of burners. I have one burner, could I not use this to heat the HLT, mash in, set aside the sparge water, and move the burner down to begin the boil?

If my thinking is correct, I could get into AG with just the cost of the mash tun, a weldless spigot, and assorted odds and ends.

Any feedback is much appreciated!

Q.

Quercus said:

Concievebly, for a batch sparge setup, you could mash in, set aside your sparge water in a small cooler, and move the HLT down below the mash tun to catch the wort.

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I have 1x 7.5 gal pot right now with a spigot on it. I do exactly what you said.

Heat strike water -> into mash tun.
Heat sparge water -> into spare bucket.
Drain mash tun -> into kettle.
Pour spare bucket -> into mash tun.
Wait 10 min then drain mash tun -> into kettle.
Then boil kettle.

Hot Liquor Tanks are nice, but unnecessary at the point where I'm at. I will get one eventually. When I do, it'll probably be electric heated, and it'll probably have a thermostat of some kind so that I can tell it "heat to 165F" and it'll do just that.

Well, I won't tell it. I'll press a button. Unless I program some voice recognition into that shiz. But that's a topic for another thread. (Heh, I could name it HAL - short for Hot And Laughworthy?)

is the 10gal. round cooler adiquate in volume for doing 10g batches with large grain bills? I though you need a bit larger then boil it down. Or is having a larger mash tun just helpfull for increasing your grain efficiancy?

GIusedtoBe said:

starting in all grain.
Thanks,
Al

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I too went to the buy it once and be done with it school. If you start with three 15.5 gallon kegs, a couple turkey fryers and some welding gear, you are going to have a "ten gallon system" that has a resale value on ebay, and if you take on a big stout or a big Belgian or a big imperial stout you can still run a five gallon batch in one mash and one boil.

I have taken on a couple recipes already that required two mash events and two boils to get five gallons in the fermenter, and that sucks donkey parts.

With a ten gallon brew house, next on my list would be a 7.5 gallon Sanke keg to use as a primary for beers that will be bottled and aged. A fourth 15.5 gal Sanke keg - with spundle valve*- to use as a fermenter for keg/session beer would be next.

With a live in SO you could make 20 different brews every year (200 gallons), and have 32 other weekends wide open for SO stuff, or car stuff, or whatever.

Currently my brew house runs a five gallon kettle, so I can do 5 gallon steep/ pm / extract batches, or 2.5 gallon AG batches. But I can keg.

Definitely quit bottling and start kegging before you go big on the hot side. Cleaning bottles sucks. Sanitizing botles sucks. Filling bottles sucks. Capping bottles sucks. Giving bottles to my friends is cool. Serving my friends my beer from my kegs, well, you can imagine.


*standby for link thingy, and thank you for serving.

Cliffs: This guy figured out how to carbonate his keg beer while it was fermenting (spundle valve), so he is looking at 3 weeks from grain to glass, and he doesn't have to use CO2 from a tank to get the keg carbed. Depending on your friends...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=44344

You don't need to add a spigot to your HLT/boil kettle. I am currently using a 8 1/2 gallon pot for my HLT. I batch sparge in a cooler with a two tier system, MLT on top. I transfer the water from the HLT to the MLT with a 2 quart pitcher until there are about 2 gallons left, then lift up the HLT and dump it in. I have a 1/2 barrel for a boil kettle with a spigot, but after screwing around with it for the first 2 or 3 batches, I now siphon the wort out. I get a lot cleaner wort in the primary that way. Cool, whirlpool, let it sit for 15 minutes, and siphon from the top. You never need to disturb the trub on the bottom.

I agree that you should start thinking about 10 gallon systems now. Eight gallon pots are a pain to boil in because of the hot break. As soon as I got my hands on a keggle, I started thinking about a ten gallon system. Within a week I had a second MLT for the bigger batches.

I am still using my original turkey fryer and 2 coolers, but I have 2 more converted kegs in the garage, and a false bottom under the tree. By new years I will be fly sparging in a direct fired keggle MLT, and by Valentines day it will all be PID controlled. You are going to grow fast. Plan ahead.

You need to specify a $ amount. There are several methods of going all grain, and they all have different monetary levels.

bigben said:

You need to specify a $ amount. There are several methods of going all grain, and they all have different monetary levels.

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Good point an AG setup can start at just a few dollars to $1000s.
For a couple dollars you can use a sparge bag and bottling bucket to do your mashing and boil in a couple smaller kettles on your stove.
For about $100 you can convert a cooler and get a turkey fryer. This system can get good efficiency and is not too difficult to use.
For a few hundred you can build a 3-tier setup that is easy to use but still requires some labor.
For a few thousand you can build a 20gal system with pumps and some automation to make your brew day go smoother and more consistently.
I'm at about the $100 level but dream of bigger things.