Moving to AG

Ok, I have been doing partial mash up til now and have decided to make the big jump to AG. My plan is to use a 7.5 gallon round cooler for my HLT and a 10 gallon round cooler for the MLT. I wish to run the wort from the MLT into my brew pot.

What I would like to know, is it easier to use this set up in a 3 tiered set up. I have a friend who can weld and I was thinking of asking him to fabricate a stand for me or I can use wood and make one my self. I also heard that Home Depot selss angle iron that is finished and has holes drilled, like what they use for selves, that can be cut and then bolted together to form a frame.

Any opinions as to what might be the sturdiest set up that will take up the least amount of space? Also, what should be the height difference between each level for the best flow?

Finally, a dumb question. Every recipe I have looked at uses 1-1.5 quarts of water for the mash and sparge, so the final amount drained into the brew kettle is about 7-8 gallons. When boiling how can you determine when the wort has been reduced to 5 gallons?

You can use just about anything in your brew area to set your MLT on in order to drain into your brew kettle. I made a stand out of wood (it's not a tier system, just something to put the MLT on) and it serves its purpose well. AFAIK the height difference is irrelevant as long as what you're draining from is higher than what you're draining to.

1.25 seems to be the ratio of choice. I brew in a converted keg, so in order to be able to determine how much wort was going in and coming out I bought a length of 3/4" CPVC and using a 1 gallon apple juice container I started putting water in the keggle 1 gallon at a time - each time marking the CPVC. Now I just get out the CPVC and put it in the center of the keg to gauge wort volumes.

You can easily build a three tiered setup out of wood, steel, etc... It's not an absolute necessity by any means though. I just use common household items to put things on in order to drain. I have to move things around a bit depending on which stage of the process I am in, but it works just fine.

I use almost the same method as Ohiobrewtus for measuring volume, but went with a square wooded dowel and woodburnt the marks on.

Ohiobrewtus, what did you use to mark that PVC? Was it necessary to file in the line markings, or does a simple Sharpie hold up in a boil?

phidelt844 said:

Ohiobrewtus, what did you use to mark that PVC? Was it necessary to file in the line markings, or does a simple Sharpie hold up in a boil?

Click to expand...

I used a sharpie. Just make sure that it's good and dry before you use it. Others may freak out about it, but the marks haven't faded at all in over a year of using it so I'm not worried about it coming off in the wort.

You could also cut/saw out marks if you don't want to use a sharpie.