Ok, I'm switching to all-grain.
What all (equipment wise) do I need exactly?
I'm looking for a total list.
Carboy x2
Mash Tun x1
Etc.
Assume I'm brand new and starting out and have ZERO home brew equipment (I can always cross off what I *DO* have).
Thank you.
It depends on what kind of beers and what size batches you want to make.
BIAB is the most minimalist approach and can work easily on your stove (or burner). Make sure you don't scorch the bag at the bottom, and make sure your kettle is large enough to brew the size batches you want.
If you want to brew more than 5G batches, or even 5G of big beers, keep in mind that the grain bill can be 15lbs or so, and wet grains would almost double that (at 0.125 gallons of water per lb of grain adsorption), so you are dealing with 30lb of grain right there.
The beer I am brewing now is a saison with 26 lb of grain (10 Gallon batch), so that means pulling out 50 lb sack of wet grains - no way to do it in BIAB.
If you decide to go mashtun route, I don't think you need multiple containers (as in mashtun and lauter tun) - maybe another smaller kettle for boiling sparge water while you are filling your kettle with 1st runnings, but you can sparge with room temperature water just fine. I just use a single mashtun - converted cooler (72 quart) which cost me about $60-$70 or so with all parts included. Many of those BIAB bags cost $16-25, and I often use a cooler as an actual cooler for picnics etc.
Basically you can mash in a cooler, drain it, and boil in your kettle.
Secondary advantage of dedicated cooler mashtun is that I can mash overnight (or leave the mashtun unattended for hours). This allows flexibility on brewday. I mashed in last night, and boiling wort now - splitting my brew day into two parts - saves a little bit of time.
Another thing you may need to figure out now is how will you chill your wort. Unlike extract, with all-grain you usually don't dilute your wort with cold water or ice (you can in theory for some session beers - but you won't be able to reach reasonable gravity values for most beers).
And especially if you are dealing with 5G or more of boiling wort, cooling it down takes some time. I like immersion chiller solution personally (combination of low maintenance, effectiveness and relatively low cost), but there are chiller plates, cold water baths and even no-chill approach.
So I would say you need, let's say for 5G batches:
8-10G kettle (bigger for BIAB because of grain volume)
10G+ mashtun or a BIAB bag
propane burner (unless your kitchen burner is super powerful)
maybe immersion chiller
What you already should have:
a good thermometer
a hydrometer/refractometer or both
good scale for measuring hops, grains
grain mill unless you buy pre-crushed or can crush it at the store
several fermenters (I would say at least 2, depending on how often you brew)+airlocks, stoppers etc.
a few 5G buckets (for water, starsan, cleaning etc)
starsan/other sanitizing option
temp control for fermentation
wine thief
auto-siphon + some tubing
What is nice but not absolutely necessary:
pH meter (I think pH strips are useless)
a pump (makes transfers/cooling easier)
oxygen stone for aerating (better than shaking your carboy)
storage systems for grains (gamma lid buckets) and hops (vacuum sealer, freezer) if you want to buy in bulk
salts (gypsum, CaCl) and a scale that can measure small additions to 0.1g, if you want to play with water chemistry
