Transition To All Grain - Equipment Questions

I am ready to make the transition to all grain brewing. I have purchased 1 10 gal round Rubbermaid cooler + the necessary hardware to turn it into a Mash/Lauter Tun. I had planned on doing the same thing (Rubbermaid) for the hot liquor tank (economical). I also plan on using the kitchen propane burners to heat the water for the hot liquor tank as well as the boil kettle.

However, I began to wonder how I was going to get the hot liquid into the liquor tank or more specifically what I would do after i had done this. I can heat the water and allow it to gravity flow into the RUbbermaid on the floor but then what? We are talking 80 lbs for a 10 gal batch too much for me to deadlift up to the kitchen counter.

Are there any of you out there that use a dual Rubbermaid system and if so how do you have it configured? Will I realistically need to invest in one of the "carts" that I have seen advertised or the tiered system which is really nice but pricey. Thanks, Montanaandy

Good tutorial there - use a pitcher or something to transfer by hand until you can just lift and pour. Low tech and EZ-peasy until you build a tier.

i use a small stainless steel pot that i marked at 1/4 gallon increments as my transfer, for both hot water to HLT and also from MLT to pot

I use a pitcher

Lift some weights, pansy!

You can always invest in a pump for transferring.

You don't really need a liquor tank. Heat your water in the kettle, pour it into the mash tun, mash for 60min, drain wort into a bucket for temporary holding while you pour sparge water into the mash tun out of the kettle. Drain second runnings into the kettle, pour the bucket wort into the kettle, boil.


Er..... or were you hoping to fly sparge?

If you want a dedicated HLT, it will only be beneficial if it has it's own heat source. You can do this with your cooler buy adding a heat stick or mounting a Heating element into the cooler, controlled by a Ranco, Love, or Johnson controller. Or just by turning it on and off and monitoring the temp.
I currently have 2 vessels, My BK is my HLT, then after mashing and collecting my 3 runnings, it becomes my boil pot. Adds some time to the day but now hard.

IrregularPulse said:

If you want a dedicated HLT, it will only be beneficial if it has it's own heat source. You can do this with your cooler buy adding a heat stick or mounting a Heating element into the cooler, controlled by a Ranco, Love, or Johnson controller. Or just by turning it on and off and monitoring the temp.
I currently have 2 vessels, My BK is my HLT, then after mashing and collecting my 3 runnings, it becomes my boil pot. Adds some time to the day but now hard.

Click to expand...

i use a cooler without issue as an HLT, it holds the temp for the entire 60 or so minutes i'm sparging (fly).

So you just heat it up in the boil pot then transfer to the cooler and hold it?
I tried that once with the cooler I had bought to build my EHLT, Just seemed like an extra step transferring the water, then lifting the 10G of water up onto cart. This would be easier with a pump of course, but I've not integrated my new pump yet. It was just easier (not more time friendly) to to do my sparges (batch sparging) then put it into my boil pot.

To the OP, Try and keep it as simple as you can in the beginning until you get a feel for AG brewing in General, then you can decide between the infinite number of setup styles available that would work best for you.

rwinzing said:

I use a pitcher

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+1 I use a 1 gallon pitcher. Works pretty good. Don't over complicate things, AG brewing is a simple process as long as you watch your temperatures.

I use a 48 quart cooler that I converted, all said it cost less than 40 dollars and it works great.

IrregularPulse said:

So you just heat it up in the boil pot then transfer to the cooler and hold it?
I tried that once with the cooler I had bought to build my EHLT, Just seemed like an extra step transferring the water, then lifting the 10G of water up onto cart. This would be easier with a pump of course, but I've not integrated my new pump yet. It was just easier (not more time friendly) to to do my sparges (batch sparging) then put it into my boil pot.

To the OP, Try and keep it as simple as you can in the beginning until you get a feel for AG brewing in General, then you can decide between the infinite number of setup styles available that would work best for you.

Click to expand...

yeah i transfer it over, it is an extra step, and an extra piece of equipment, but at least its something that never has to get cleaned because all it holds is hot water. Doing a fly sparge, i dont have another pot to hold the wort while i'm sparging so i need to empty my boil pot,