are there any 2 vessel all-grainers out there?

[garrettbuckeye]

It seems like most all-grain builds are 3 vessel rigs of different tiers. I know that with a bucket you can collect your runoffs and use 2 main vessels.

What would happen if you were to add your sparge water (assuming you have room), recirculate everything in your mash tun, then transfer back to your HLT (which doubles as a boil kettle)?

I know I'm not the first to think of it. Are there many people doing this? Is there anything aside from a little efficiency I'd be losing? Anything else I'm not thinking of?

 

[Rushis]

A lot of people use one boil kettle and a 10 gal cooler. Or were you thinking of something fancier?

 

[jezter6]

I'm lucky to have a few extra pots around for strike water since it's usually much less than boil volume. But often I use my boil kettle to heat sparge water and store my wort in a bucket or other random pot while my kettle is used for the water.

 

[Hermit]

It seems like most all-grain builds are 3 vessel rigs of different tiers. I know that with a bucket you can collect your runoffs and use 2 main vessels.

What would happen if you were to add your sparge water (assuming you have room), recirculate everything in your mash tun, then transfer back to your HLT (which doubles as a boil kettle)?

I know I'm not the first to think of it. Are there many people doing this? Is there anything aside from a little efficiency I'd be losing? Anything else I'm not thinking of?

Check out BIAB. Brew In A Bag. One pot.

 

[garrettbuckeye]

i was thinking of a rims with 2 vessels. I like the idea of a smaller footprint, and the simplicity of it. I am currently doing the cooler, keggle, and bucket batch sparging method, but i want to build/buy a brewstand.

 

[The Pol]

It seems like most all-grain builds are 3 vessel rigs of different tiers. I know that with a bucket you can collect your runoffs and use 2 main vessels.

What would happen if you were to add your sparge water (assuming you have room), recirculate everything in your mash tun, then transfer back to your HLT (which doubles as a boil kettle)?

I know I'm not the first to think of it. Are there many people doing this? Is there anything aside from a little efficiency I'd be losing? Anything else I'm not thinking of?

This is called the Brutus 20....

It works very well for many people.

 

[Doc Robinson]

I use a 15 gallon BK and a 12.5 gallon MLT. I bring my entire volume of water needed for the brew to strike temp in the kettle. I transfer my mash water to my MLT from the kettle with a pitcher. I collect the first runnings in a 5 gallon kettle, pump the remaining sparge water from my BK (after heating it up a bit - over an hour, it might lose 20 degrees) to the MLT for a single batch sparge, pour the first runnings into the 15 gallon BK, and drain the second runnings from the MLT to the BK for my boil volume. Sounds like a lot of steps, but it is really very simple. I am getting about 70% extraction efficiency with a single batch sparge.

 

[garrettbuckeye]

This is called the Brutus 20....

It works very well for many people.

Awesome! Now that I know what it's called... searching brought me a lot of good info!

 

[The Pol]

Awesome! Now that I know what it's called... searching brought me a lot of good info!

Good luck, minimize your dead space in the MLT and you can achieve nearly 75% eff. Very nice system.

 

[CodeRage]

I've been running my brutus 20 for several months now. I'm ditching the whole cross circulation rinse step. Now I transfer the rest of my pre boil volume at mash strike temp from the BK to the MLT and let the MLT circulate for 10 minutes or so. I then transfer it all very slowly into my BK at a quart a minute or so. This gives the grain bed time to drain as much wort as possible. My efficiency jumped from 60% to 70% this way and I don't hit the 1.050 ceiling any more. I still have some things to try to improve the efficiency.

Also, go with the largest pre-boil volume you can manage.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Check out BIAB. Brew In A Bag. One pot.

I'm really amazed at how this hasn't caught on more! Why have 3 vessels when you can use one, save time and cleanup....and not sacrifice ANY aspect of your beer?

 

[ChrisKennedy]

I'm really amazed at how this hasn't caught on more! Why have 3 vessels when you can use one, save time and cleanup....and not sacrifice ANY aspect of your beer?

Is there a normal place to get the large straining bags necessary?

 

[Hermit]

Is there a normal place to get the large straining bags necessary?

I've heard of people using large paint strainer bags from places like home dept and lowes. I've considered, If end up going this route, just sewing one together to the dimensions of my pot.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

I started PM BIAB using a 5 gallon paint strainer which slips neatly over a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer. When I got up above 10 poiunds grain I doubled the bag to prevent splitting. Worked fine. I just took delivery of a 15 gallon boilermaker and made 2 grain bags by purchasing a voile drape panel from walmart, cutting it in half and sewing it together pillowcase style. The drape had a rod pocket top and bottom, so I used that to slip in a length of cotton webbing drawstring that will secure the bag at the top of the pot and close it up whe lifting it out of the pot. I will be using the new rig for the first time next weekend.

 

[Revvy]

I think more Ag-ers use a 2 vessel system then do a three. I only know of one brewer in my large brewing circle who has a three tierd system. Most folks just use a cooler and their kettle.

It's a perfectly acceptable way of doing things.

My ghetto brew-rig, featuring the 15 dollar harbor freight folding workbench and milk crate.

Been doing it this way for 5 years.

I just mash out into a bucket to get my pre-boil volume, then transfer it to my kettle after I've collected all my runnings.

 

[jhoyda]

I only have two vessels and have a tough time justifying the need for a third. I have 7.5 gal brew kettle and a 10 gallon cooler.

Heat my strike water in the kettle (180,000 BTU burner makes quick work of that). Add it to the cooler with my grains. Drink a beer, fool around, stir every 15 or 20 mins. With 20 mins left, I begin to heat up my sparge water.

First runnings go in to my fermenting bucket. By now the sparge water is up to temp. Dump that it in. I then transfer my runnings to the brew kettle which is now on the burner.

I can do a 5 gallon all-grain batch, including cleanup in 3:20 by myself. I really can't see how spending more money on a HLT will help. 2 vessels more than does the job!

 

[Bobby_M]

This is still 3-vessel brewing. The only difference is that the 3rd vessel is a bucket.

 

[watersr]

That's exactly how I do it. I've been thinking of getting a dedicated HLT just so I can make a 3 tier gravity system and not have to lift up buckets of hot water.

 

[terrapinj]

how do you all transfer from bucket to BK after collecting runnings? I tried it once but couldn't minimize the splashing

 

[brewit2it]

I do 2 vessel with a pump. Here's the thread about it.

As Bobby M pointed out it is nearly a no sparge method.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/single-tier-1-pump-254689/

I have been lazy lately though and mostly just do partial (80%) mashes which I also do a little different than anything I've seen others do. Pretty much just BIAB except I use 2 vessels and have one pot that fits perfectly inside my 7.5 gallon styrofoam carboy shipping vessel. But yeah, it's BIAB with dunk sparge.

 

[passedpawn]

3-keggle single tier here. The nice thing about 3 vessels is that if anything happened to my boil kettle, my HLT could replace it until I fixed it (and vice versa). It's an electric system, flawless so far, but the element in the BK is starting to show some signs of deterioration.

 

[watersr]

how do you all transfer from bucket to BK after collecting runnings? I tried it once but couldn't minimize the splashing

I don't worry about the splashing. Since your going to be boiling you'll drive any free oxygen out of solution so it's not really a problem.

 

[craigger64]

I can heat my strike water right in my mash tun, which is a 15 gallon stainless steel kettle with a bazooka tube and ball valve. If, after mashing in, my temp has dropped below mash temp, I can just re-light the flame under it and "goose" it up a little. My brew kettle is an identical (sans bazooka tube) kettle. I do heat my sparge water (i batch sparge) in a 5 gallon kettle. So unless the 5 gal. is considered a "3rd vessel", than I, too, am a 2 vessel brewer.

 

[brewski08]

I think more Ag-ers use a 2 vessel system then do a three. I only know of one brewer in my large brewing circle who has a three tierd system. Most folks just use a cooler and their kettle.

It's a perfectly acceptable way of doing things.

My ghetto brew-rig, featuring the 15 dollar harbor freight folding workbench and milk crate.

Been doing it this way for 5 years.

I just mash out into a bucket to get my pre-boil volume, then transfer it to my kettle after I've collected all my runnings.

this is my system exactly, and i absolutely love it. after a good day of brewing, i definitely feel sore from lifting and transferring all the liquids. makes me feel like i put in a hard days work.

...and i get GREAT efficiency with it. i'm not sure if i read correctly, but i think someone mentioned a 75% efficiency maximum using this system. i for one can say that i get an efficiency between 85-90% using this system. i credit this to BierMuncher's hybrid sparge technique.

 

[brewit2it]

I can heat my strike water right in my mash tun, which is a 15 gallon stainless steel kettle with a bazooka tube and ball valve. If, after mashing in, my temp has dropped below mash temp, I can just re-light the flame under it and "goose" it up a little. My brew kettle is an identical (sans bazooka tube) kettle. I do heat my sparge water (i batch sparge) in a 5 gallon kettle. So unless the 5 gal. is considered a "3rd vessel", than I, too, am a 2 vessel brewer.

Yup, that's 3 vessels alright.

 

[gmiller5m]

I have a two vessel system, a keggle and a 42qt bman. Also, I don't sparge either. So for a 6 gallon batch, I'll heat 8.5/9 gallons of water to strike temp of 160, mash in and stir a couple of times during the 60 minutes. With such a large volume of water the temp only drops to 152 by the end of the hour in the keggle. I then drain into the 42qt and start my boil. With water absorption from the grain and a 90 min rolling boil i sometime have to top up to 6 gal when transferring to the fv. My eff. are on either side of 70%. Its so easy that I don't mind loosing a couple of points in eff. with the no sparge method.

Gabriel