Moving to all Grain Go big or Go Small?

[Zrab11]

Ok. So me and my 2 other brewing buddies have decided to move to ALL Grain. I will list the equipment we have now and then ask my questions.

2x 6.5 gallon Glass carboys
2x 5 Gallon Glass Carboys
1x 6.5 Gallon Bucket(for bottling or fermenting)
3x 15.5 Gallon Kegs
1x 50' Wort Chiller
1x Blichmann Floor Burner
1x Walmart Turkey fryer burner
2x heated and cooled temp controlled fermentation chambers
1 Calibrated thermometer

So that is the equipment we have right now!

Here is alittle back story:

Me and my 1 buddy have brewed about 10 extract batches using the 1 keg as our brew pot and turkey fryer burner for first 5 batches then bought a new Blichmann burner and did another 5 batches. Now we have another friend who wants to start homebrewing with us and a couple months ago he bought some homebrew supplies off craiglist that came with two kegs(tops cut off) and a carboy. So now we have 3 people to split the cost with and also 3 kegs.

Initially I was just going to buy a cooler and a 2nd pot to move to all grain. But now with us having 3 kegs it got me thinking. How close money wise and everything are we to get the Ultimate setup?. Now I know new equipment and all wont make great beer. and I am totally fine just getting a cooler and using the other keg as a sparge pot and doing a few all grain batches with that set up before I move to a 3 tier system.

So here is my question.

1. Do we go big and make a 3 tier brew system or do we just buy a cooler and turn it into a Mash tun?

All 3 kegs have the tops cut out but DO NOT have any ball valve's or thermometers or sight glasses on them.

And I may be misleading in saying a 3 tier system. It would not be gravity fed. It would have to be a side by side by side system that is pump fed as we do not have the head space to do a 3 tier stack system.

How much money with the Equipment I have right now would it take to move to a 3 keg brew setup?

Here are a few other things that I wanted to do as well before me and my buddies decided we wanted to move to all grain.

1. Build a re-cirulating ice bath for the wort chiller to pump ice cold water through it to get the wort temp down quicker and save water.

2. Buy a thermapen

3. Install ball valve and thermometers on at least one keg.

4. Get water tested by Ward Labs

How important are the things I listed above?

So again I am really at a cross roads. We have about 350$ that we are willing to spend right now.

So if you were in my shoes what would you do? We are avid DIY people so i know that would cut down on costs. But I am Really looking to you guys for some great advice. I don't want to get the Horse before the cart and I am not thinking new equipment will make great beer. I really have a level head on me and want to learn all the in's and out's of water, yeast, Hops ( Have all those books right now and we are all 3 in the process of reading them) and other parts of beer so as to make the best beer I can. So please give me your opinion on what my next step should be while factoring in the equipment, money and limited experience we have with.

Thanks so Much!

 

[crstevens15]

My initial thought is that you've already got

 

[crstevens15]

My initial thought is that you've already got three perfect vessels so i don't think it would be worth it to get a cooler for a mash tun.

I mash in a 15.5g keg and it works great. I converted the cut out top of one of the kegs into a false bottom for my mash tun.

Plus with 3 guys I would think you're looking at 10 gallon batches, which makes those half barrels a necessity.

Drill some holes in them and get the weldless fittings or silver solder the stainless nuts on them.

I would say put your money into store bought or DIY dip tubes, a false bottom, ball valves and high temp tubing to get the kegs brewing.

To begin with you wouldn't necessarily need pumps or a custom built 3 tier set up, I use a ladder at the moment for gravity feeding.

Do a lot of searching for DIY stuff cuz there is money to save.

Have fun.

 

[jmichaeldesign]

Look into brew in a bag. I do biab for small batches. I don't get as good of efficiency as I do on my full system but on a small batch (3-5 gallons) the efficiency difference means using no more than one extra pound of grain. Spend a few bucks on putting a ball valve and sight tube on your boil kettle and save the rest.

Once you figure out what kind of system you want to go with make it big enough to make 10 gallon batches. Especially since you're splitting the batches.

 

[Zrab11]

Look into brew in a bag. I do biab for small batches. I don't get as good of efficiency as I do on my full system but on a small batch (3-5 gallons) the efficiency difference means using no more than one extra pound of grain. Spend a few bucks on putting a ball valve and sight tube on your boil kettle and save the rest.

Once you figure out what kind of system you want to go with make it big enough to make 10 gallon batches. Especially since you're splitting the batches.

Yeah I've read into BIAB a little bit and it sounds nice.. But I think I want to move to All grain set up..

Now to figure out if I go small with just a Mash tun or big with a 3 keggle setup.

 

[RM-MN]

Yeah I've read into BIAB a little bit and it sounds nice.. But I think I want to move to All grain set up..

Now to figure out if I go small with just a Mash tun or big with a 3 keggle setup.

BIAB is an all grain setup. What you meant was that you wanted to a conventional all grain setup. I'd say it depends on how confident you are that you can make good all grain batches of beer. If you're pretty sure and with 3 of you to drink it, I'd be looking at bigger batches, especially if you like to drink a few in an evening.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I think you will find the best path for you by getting busy brewing, and it will be clearer what is right for you.

Fashion one of the kegs into a MT with a stainless braid and get brewing! You don't NEED a brew rig or pumps, just simply use empty buckets or a large gallon pitcher to move sparge water or wort runnings and figure it out as you go!

You already have a lot more equipment than some that already brew AG frequently.

All you need is a way to lauter the grain, install a bulkhead in one of the kegs, or hell you could even siphon out the runnings...cheers!

Or try a BIAB til you get settled on another method.
http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

 

[Zrab11]

BIAB is an all grain setup. What you meant was that you wanted to a conventional all grain setup. I'd say it depends on how confident you are that you can make good all grain batches of beer. If you're pretty sure and with 3 of you to drink it, I'd be looking at bigger batches, especially if you like to drink a few in an evening.

Thanks for clearing that up. My post made me sound very uneducated. That'sexac tly what I meant to say! Thanks again

 

[jflongo]

A lot of it depends on how pretty you want your setup. If that doesn't matter, you could sell one of those kegs for $60 - $70. Get a Coleman Extreme 70 quart cooler, you can find those for $29.99 on clearance quite often in the fall. For about $10 - $30, you could put a SS Braided hose in it, hooked into a coupler, then into a hose barb. then just run a short hose into a plastic shutoff valve, then the other side to a longer hose for vorlauf and draining. Or install a brass or SS valve if the cooler has room on the outside.

In my opinion, you are going to want a false bottom, dip tube setup, thermometer, and sight glass on one of those for your Brew Kettle. For your HLT, you will want a sight glass, dip tube, and thermometer. You are going to be at $200 plus for all of that.

If you want a pretty setup, with a Keggle as a MLT, then you need a nice false bottom setup, thermometer(optional, but nice), dip tube, and valve.

So if you want to have ALL 3 Keggles into this system, i'm sure you would exceed the $350. That doesn't even include buying pumps if you go that route. So if you want to save money, I would sell a Keg, and do that 70 quart Coleman Extreme Cooler. Up to you. Cheers.

 

[itchison]

I'm in a similar situation, I brew with two other friends. My requirement going in was everyone had to keg, because bottling for three people didn't interest me. We mash in a very large cooler (40gal), and drain into two 15.5gal keggles. We usually match gravities and hops, but we sometimes get creative and change hop schedules and have different gravities. (I want to experiment with steeping so we can have completely different worst) We have a third 15.5 keggle is for our hlt. We also use 1 chugger, and 2 banjo burners.

We went this route because we felt 10 gal batches were hard to split. Our typical single batch is 20 gal, which easily splits between three people. We occasionally do double (40) or triple(60) brew days.

Starters are a pita, so don't forget about the gear for them. I have 3 5L flasks, and 3 stir plates.

Money got to be a concern, so we all pay $30 for 5 gals. We put it into a pot and buy supplies, ingredients and gear with the cash. We used to split costs, but some of us drink faster etch and it all got complicated fast.

Edit
Before we had the large mash tun, we used a 10 gal one. With the three keggles, we could really chain brews back to back quickly. The third keggle would heat mash water so that we could immediately mash after our last sparge. Imho, keep the three kegs as you can improvise with them nicely.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I'm in a similar situation, I brew with two other friends. My requirement going in was everyone had to keg, because bottling for three people didn't interest me. We mash in a very large cooler (40gal), and drain into two 15.5gal keggles. We usually match gravities and hops, but we sometimes get creative and change hop schedules and have different gravities. (I want to experiment with steeping so we can have completely different worst) We have a third 15.5 keggle is for our hlt. We also use 1 chugger, and 2 banjo burners.

We went this route because we felt 10 gal batches were hard to split. Our typical single batch is 20 gal, which easily splits between three people. We occasionally do double (40) or triple(60) brew days.

Starters are a pita, so don't forget about the gear for them. I have 3 5L flasks, and 3 stir plates.

Money got to be a concern, so we all pay $30 for 5 gals. We put it into a pot and buy supplies, ingredients and gear with the cash. We used to split costs, but some of us drink faster etch and it all got complicated fast.

Edit
Before we had the large mash tun, we used a 10 gal one. With the three keggles, we could really chain brews back to back quickly. The third keggle would heat mash water so that we could immediately mash after our last sparge. Imho, keep the three kegs as you can improvise with them nicely.

Sounds like a great brewing coop, I love the flat rate keg fee you guys have agreed upon. Rather than large starters, perhaps consider small batches to collect yeast

 

[itchison]

Sounds like a great brewing coop, I love the flat rate keg fee you guys have agreed upon. Rather than large starters, perhaps consider small batches to collect yeast

Yeah.. we've been putting a lot of thought into that. I'd really like to decrease the prep on starters.

We've pitched onto slurry and we're thinking of getting a pressure canner for worth. I'm also getting into freezing yeast.

Yeah, the flat fee is great. We also allow other friends not in our group to pay if they want in on the odd batch.