AG or bust.

Alright. Can't wait for the "necessary" equipmenent. I am going to try some SERIOUS improvisation. Any input on my "procedure" (other than what a PITA that is going to be) greatly appreciated. I am determined (almost...) to do this, so, help me make it work, or forever hold your peace.

Okay. So, what have I got. well...

This is the plan so far:

I will mash in my 5 gallon cheapo ss pot. I will bring the water to strike temp than move it into my rigged up styrofoam jacket I just made. I tested and it holds the temp for an hour with half a tank of water, so full of grain and water should be even better (?)

Sparge. I will attach my ss braid to the end of a piece of copper tube which will serve as a racking cane. The braid and cane will be in the improvised mashtun from the beginning btw. I will sparge by siphoning (yes, I know PITA) into my old ceramic on steel pot.

After sparging is complete I will dump the grains, rinse the pot. I will then divide the wort 3.75 gallons in my 5 gallon ss, 2.25 in my ceramic pot (it has a chip at the top inside, so I do not want to fill it too high) Divide the hops proportionatly once I figure the math. Boil in two pots.

Cool in the two pots, one in each sink basin. I am hoping two pots with less volume will chill more quickly as I do not yet have a chiller.

Add to carboy and procede as usual.

Recipe:

Spiny Norman's Best Bitter

Safale S-04 - Whitbread Ale yeast

5 lbs. of Maris Otter
2.25 lbs. of British Two-Row
.75 lbs. of Crystal 50-60L
.08 lbs. of Chocolate
.75 oz. (21.3g) of Challenger (7.0%) boiled for 60 minutes.
.25 oz. (7.1g) of East Kent Goldings (7.7%) boiled for 20 minutes.
.25 oz. (7.1g) of East Kent Goldings (7.7%) boiled for 15 minutes.
.25 oz. (7.1g) of Fuggles (3.2%) boiled for 15 minutes.
.25 oz. (7.1g) of Fuggles (3.2%) boiled for 0 minutes.

OG 1.042
FG 1.010
IBU 34

Add 3.00 gallons of water at 175 F to raise mash to 157 F.
Sparge with 4.25 gals. water to yield 5 gals. after boil & chill.
Total mash volume with grains is 3.66 gallons.
6.25 gallons in boiling pot prior to boil with 1.034 gravity.
7.27 gals. of water with a 60min. boil. (edit: oky I can not really explain these last two lines, new program, I have not figured it all out yet)



Make any sense? Am I completely off track? Tips to make it slightly smoother (not including buying more equipment) Anything I am missing (other than my mind)

It will probably be a while before I go for it. I did the numbers and since the ingredients will be quite a bit less than my ususal bill, I think this will allow me to go ahead some time in the next couple of weeks. Any help appreciated. Considering this forum got me in this state of mind I figure the least you all can do is push me completely overboard...

You the man. Sounds like you have it figured out. Congrats.

Not only will that work, but you'll only need to change to make it easier for you.

boo boo said:

Not only will that work, but you'll only need to change to make it easier for you.

Click to expand...

Change what? Do you have a suggestion?

knights of Gambrinus said:

Change what? Do you have a suggestion?

Click to expand...

Just a decent mash tun. Convert a cooler. Won't make your beer better, just make it easier to work with.
You could also get a ton of other things to make life easier, like a larger kettle, turkey frier, etc.

A discarded 48 qt ice chest, 10 ft 1/2 in cpvc and 2 1/2 inch pipe brackets for a good MLT. total cost, around 5 bucks. It will make your day much easier and fun. You seem to have everything planned out to the letter and shouldnt have any problems otherwise. Sounds like your going to have some terrific beer in a couple weeks!

Okay, been thinking about it and I have some other possible make do plans.

First I thought, hmmm, I would like to use my mlt setup, it would be much nicer, so, I could do several things. First I thought perhaps I could rig up another 2 gallon cooler I have, divide the grains in half and mash in 2 coolers at once. Although that would require making another manifold for the othe cooler. I do have a little copper pipe laying around, so maybe. Remember, the goal is to do this with what I have on hand now and not buy anything. So this would require some fabrication.

Then I thought I could mash half of it in my already setup mlt. Dump the spent grains and start again with the other half. Extra time commitment there. Then I started thinking maybe I could mash half one day and then the other half and the boil the next day...

OR there is the so called Texas 2 step. Basically brew two half batches over two days adding the second batch to the alrady fermenting 1st batch.

I would like to make this as "easy" as possible while still meeting my goal of not having to add anything (yet) equipment wise.

Which way sounds the most feasible way of doing things while still being somewhat relaxed and fun to you folks?

Any other ways anyone can think of that I could go about this?

My concern with your original idea is trying to siphon using a racking cane from the bottom of the pot/mash tun.

It's sometimes hard enough to get a good sparge using the force of gravity through an SS / manifold.

I'd say that the $18.00 5-gallon cooler at Sam's (what I use) and your SS braid setup would be well worth it.

No immediate need for a weldless spigot as you can see here:

I'd hate to have you spending your afternoon sucking on a siphon hose or lugging around multiple buckets of partial batches.

Just a thought.

BierMuncher said:

I'd hate to have you spending your afternoon sucking on a siphon hose or lugging around multiple buckets of partial batches.

Click to expand...

Me neither. That is why I started thinking of new plans. Still sticking to my work with what I have intention. I did see a 48 quart rubbermaid rectangle cooler at the local famil dollar for $18. I figured that was way too big, and again, that $18 is reserved for ingredients.

Yeah, I do not want to wait til I can get the equipment necessary, but I also realize if it is too much of a pita it might be too discouraging for my first AG. Guess I could just do some 2.5 gallon batches. That seems wrong to me in some ways though, all that work for half a batch. I guess it is better than nothing though and only temporary. I'll have to think about this more. Maybe half batches are the way to go for now. Hmmmm...

koG - if you are up for a road trip, I'd probably let you use my 10 gal MLT and banjo burner (both unused as yet!) at my house. Of course, that would mean transporting wort back to 'The Kingdom' - maybe not such a great idea

knights of Gambrinus said:

I did see a 48 quart rubbermaid rectangle cooler at the local famil dollar for $18. I figured that was way too big, and again, that $18 is reserved for ingredients.

Click to expand...

FWIW, if you're going to batch sparge, you really don't have to worry about the cooler being too big. And you'll eventually want to mash 20 lbs of grain (for a huge beer, or for a 10 gallon batch) and you'll need that space.

it may not be the best idea, but, Skip one batch to save money. Pretend that your brewing extract wiht specialty grains, and wyeast activator pack, should be about $37 there about. Make it like you bought those ingredients but dont, and buy a cooler, ss braid, stopper. (save the rest for a bigger pot). Wait a week and then return to brewing as normal.

tbulger said:

it may not be the best idea, but, Skip one batch to save money. Pretend that your brewing extract wiht specialty grains, and wyeast activator pack, should be about $37 there about. Make it like you bought those ingredients but dont, and buy a cooler, ss braid, stopper. (save the rest for a bigger pot). Wait a week and then return to brewing as normal.

Click to expand...

That's not a bad way of looking at it.

But I also like the thought of rigging up a cooler for a mash tun as cheaply as possible.

Save the money on a larger brewpot for now, because you can split them up as you've planned. But the money spent on a cooler mash tun would be well spent, and reasonable.

You can do it without the weldless kit, just get a proper sized bung to fit the opening in the cooler and rig up the stainless steel mesh to a copper tube slid through it, like BierMuncher pointed out.

I actually only need a cooler really. My mini mlt has a ss braid and brass ball valve rigged up. I was going to pull those off and add them to a new cooler when I could get one.

tbulger, that is a good way of looking at it.

I am still reconsidering half batches. I was severely tempted to pull out the cc for that $18 cooler (what is a little more debt... )
I am still not convinced it is not too large for my purposes.

Jester369 said:

koG - if you are up for a road trip, I'd probably let you use my 10 gal MLT and banjo burner (both unused as yet!) at my house. Of course, that would mean transporting wort back to 'The Kingdom' - maybe not such a great idea

Click to expand...

Appreciate the offer, but yeah transporting it back does not really sound like fun.

Though, the drive bcak might be really good for aeration, especailly this time of year. That is if the carboy doesn't break. Have not been on 15 or 100 for a while. They about as good a shape as 2 was before they repaved?

Break those puppies in Jester! Brew a batch for me! :rockin: