All grain brewing equipment questions and a slight introduction.

[TheIllicitOne]

I just moved to North Hollywood from Houston, Tx and I have a few questions. I was brewing with a friend of mine doing extract and BIAB style, but we were using his equipment. I have since moved and obviously couldn't steal my friends equipment. Seeing as how I don't have any equipment to start with I am looking for some recommendations. I am looking to do 5 and 10 gallon all grain brews to start with.

I have 3 15 gallon kegs at my disposal to start with which I picked up for $60 total (pretty good deal in my book.) I am planning on turning one into my brew kettle (adding a spigot and a sight glass) and another into my HLT. My first question involves the third keg. I've been reading about different variety of mash tuns, building methods, etc. I eventually, would like to turn this into a single tier HERMS system but don't have the cash to do it at the moment. So do you guys think I would be better off converting the keg as my MLT or just getting a water cooler to act as my MLT for now? I eventually plan on doing a recirculating system but again no money at the moment. I'm unsure of how the keg will work as an MLT because I've only seen people using them in recirculating systems. Haven't seen too many used in non recirculating systems and I am unsure of how they handle keeping temperatures steady during the mash process. Any advice on that point would be greatly appreciated.

Second question is this. Since I've never brewed with a "keggle" before and only on pots I would like to know what is the minimum BTU rating I should look for in a burner to do up to 10 gallon batches. I found some killer deals one 100,000 rated btu burners but I am unsure if this is strong enough to do the job efficiently.

Any help or insight you guys could provide would be very appreciated. Thank you in advance and I look forward to being a contributing member to this board very soon.

By the way, is there anyone in or near the North Hollywood area that would be willing to get together, talk brewing, let me look at their setup, assist on a brew day, or anything at all? If so let me know.

Thanks again.

 

[Barnesie]

One of the problems I had with brewing initially was acute equipment upgrade paralysis. If you take an approach where you're envisioning a specific end-state with regards to your brewing system...it's almost better to just buy everything to get to that end state now.

What I mean is that I started like most with a turkey fryer doing extract, but I wanted to be doing all grain immediately. I'm now almost at my ideal end-state for a brewing setup (three tier, direct fire RIMS, conical and keggerator), but I took way too many steps inbetween -

From - Turkey fryer pot extract
Stovetop 5 gal cooler MT / Small pot BK/HLT / Tap-a-draft
Turkey fryer BK / 10 Gal cooler MT / 5 gal cooler HLT / Corney keg
Turkey fryer Keggle BK / 10 gal cooler MT / Keggle HLT / march pump / Corney keg
TopTier Keggle BK / 10 gal cooler MT / keggle HLT / pump / corney keg
To - TopTier Keggle / keggle MT / keggle HLT / pump / corney keg

Essentially, by dicking around and upgrading one piece and then another piece and then another small piece, I ended up spending a lot more to get where i want to be long term and now I have enough stuff to set someone else up with a complete AG brewing setup while keeping my current setup.

I guess that's not solid advice on what you should do exactly, but I'm suggesting you should consider exactly what type of brewing you want to be doing right now and what you want to be doing in a year so you have a plan.

If you're familiar with BIAB, then why not just continue brewing that way? I admit that I've never tried it, but it seems like it's the most simple way to make quality AG beer without getting into a huge setup. I'm also a big fan of very small batch, stovetop AG, but that's a bit harder to get an off-the-shelf solution. Even extract, while I ran away from it as soon as possible, you can make some damn fine extract beer with a minimum of stuff.

If you want to make beer now, I'd suggest you get someone to turn one of your kegs into a simple keggle and do BIAB with a turkey fryer setup. Any turkey fryer you find at a big-box store is going to boil a keggle just fine, the burner types will really just eat more or less propane in getting you there - so I'd pay more attention to getting a burner with nice sturdy legs. Others might chime in with specific recommendations.

You could put those other two kegs in storage for your future system, or you could clean them up good and use them as fermenters until you're ready to hack them apart.

BIAB should get you though a solid year of brewing before you have to think about designing that multi-part network enabled solar-powered stainless recirculating robotic beer device.