HopHead73
Brewmaster at Jbyrd Brewing, Hophead
Right now I'm a stove top partial mash brewer.
I have a 4 gallon pot that I use as my HLT, a 5 gallon igloo cooler as my mash tun and a 7.5 gallon Polarware kettle.
We are moving out of our apartment and buying a house and I will finally have the opportunity to brew outside and do full boils and start transitioning to All-Grain brewing.
Our house only has a car port instead of a garage, but I will have a large storage shed in the backyard to store my equipment, so I want to make sure my set up is portable so I can move it to the driveway easily on brew day.
Ultimately I would like to upgrade to the Blichmann Top Tier system. I like keeping things gravity fed for the time being (I've seen my friend struggle with his pump at times on his Sabco system and don't want to deal with that for now).
I would turn my Polarware kettle into my new HLT, switch my mash manifold over to a 10 gallon cooler and I would start with a new kettle, either the Blichmann 15 gallon or a 15.5 gallon Keggle. I want to be flexible enough to do 10 gallon batches in the future. I know I would have to redrill a hole and move the thermometer down on the Blichmann for 5 gallon batches.
Anyone have a suggestion on either one?
And since I want to upgrade to the Blichmann Top Tier in the future I was thinking of getting a Blichmann burner with the 24" leg extensions.
Has anyone used one of these? I'm just wondering if it is tall enough to drain my HLT into my cooler and then drain the kettle into the carboy or would it have to be propped up even higher for it to be gravity fed?
Right now I use an immersion chiller, but in the future I would like to get the Therminator and then I believe I would need it even higher then the 24" that the burner legs extend it. I guess prop it up in cinder blocks would work?
Anyone else use a single burner system right now that has any suggestions?
I figure one burner will work for now where I can heat up my mash water and drain into the cooler, put the cooler on a table and drain the cooler into the kettle while my batch sparge water heats up on the burner. Drain the the sparge into the kettle and then move the kettle to the burner once I have all of my wort collected.
Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I have a 4 gallon pot that I use as my HLT, a 5 gallon igloo cooler as my mash tun and a 7.5 gallon Polarware kettle.
We are moving out of our apartment and buying a house and I will finally have the opportunity to brew outside and do full boils and start transitioning to All-Grain brewing.
Our house only has a car port instead of a garage, but I will have a large storage shed in the backyard to store my equipment, so I want to make sure my set up is portable so I can move it to the driveway easily on brew day.
Ultimately I would like to upgrade to the Blichmann Top Tier system. I like keeping things gravity fed for the time being (I've seen my friend struggle with his pump at times on his Sabco system and don't want to deal with that for now).
I would turn my Polarware kettle into my new HLT, switch my mash manifold over to a 10 gallon cooler and I would start with a new kettle, either the Blichmann 15 gallon or a 15.5 gallon Keggle. I want to be flexible enough to do 10 gallon batches in the future. I know I would have to redrill a hole and move the thermometer down on the Blichmann for 5 gallon batches.
Anyone have a suggestion on either one?
And since I want to upgrade to the Blichmann Top Tier in the future I was thinking of getting a Blichmann burner with the 24" leg extensions.
Has anyone used one of these? I'm just wondering if it is tall enough to drain my HLT into my cooler and then drain the kettle into the carboy or would it have to be propped up even higher for it to be gravity fed?
Right now I use an immersion chiller, but in the future I would like to get the Therminator and then I believe I would need it even higher then the 24" that the burner legs extend it. I guess prop it up in cinder blocks would work?
Anyone else use a single burner system right now that has any suggestions?
I figure one burner will work for now where I can heat up my mash water and drain into the cooler, put the cooler on a table and drain the cooler into the kettle while my batch sparge water heats up on the burner. Drain the the sparge into the kettle and then move the kettle to the burner once I have all of my wort collected.
Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
