I prefer a manifold made of some sort of tubing, with holes drilled in it rather than a false bottom. False bottoms always screw up on me, and besides, making a loop of tubing out of copper or cpvc, then drilling holes in it is easy and cheap. Plus it does a better job.
Phil's sparge arms...if those are the twirly sprinkler thingies...are definitely nice. They work well.
One burner...hmmm...we have two, but we almost never have both going. Still, I think we need two, or at least I'm glad we have them. It means a lot less shuffling around of big, heavy, hot things. But then I used to brew for years with one...
You probably could do with one burner if you wanted to. It's less convenient and takes longer at several steps, but one can definitely do it, especially if one has strong friends to help lift heavy kettles of water and mash and move them about. It'll be fine with 5 gallon batches.
Put a thermometer in all three vessels. You don't have to. But it's rad if you do.
My weldless fixtures leak.
I'm sure you're ready to go. The *key* thing to all-grain brewing is the sparge. Don't sweat the mash temperature...get it where you want and leave it alone. You don't need to check it every 10 minutes. The grain we all get is so highly converted that all starch goes to sugar in about 15 minutes as far as I can tell. Conversion happens.
Screw protein rests and all that. Do a single step infusion for your first batch.
When you sparge, just go nice and slow. Don't disturb the mash. It's a slow, gentle rinse.
Have fun!
