All grain setups

[Antler]

Always planned and researched to do 10 gallon BIAB but I've done a 5 gallon BIAB a few weeks ago. Being away from home I'm now leaning towards doing 5 gallon all grains the old fashioned way for a few years. This might be bogus but let me know your opinions. Two 5 gallon igloo coolers. One for mash tun and one for hlt. Use my current burner and a 10 gallon pot to boil. Plan to heat ~8-9 gallons of water in the boil kettle. Transfer 5 to hlt and the rest to mash tun. Mash, run off into boil kettle and then rinse from the hlt until up to my boil volume. Is this the normal way? When mash do I let it sit for 60 minutes same as BIAB?

 

[Cimerian]

I don't know if you will be able to fit enough grains and water for mash in a 5 gallon cooler if you are doing 5 gallon boils. If you figure roughly 10 lbs of grain and 3 ish gal of water I would think a 5 gal cooler would be overflowing.

 

[bottlebomber]

You're not going to be mashing at the same temperature you sparge with. Is that what you were thinking of doing? Technically you only need the mash tun, and a food grade bucket. You can heat your mash water in your kettle, mash with it while your heating your sparge water, drain your runnings into the bucket then batch sparge. Pour your first runnings and seconds into your boil kettle.
A 5 gallon cooler will handle a max of 12 lbs of grain and .9 quarts per pound of water I'm fairly certain.

 

[Antler]

How does everyone do it with the 2 5 gallon coolers from Midwest supplies? I was going to copy there kit...

 

[Cimerian]

How does everyone do it with the 2 5 gallon coolers from Midwest supplies? I was going to copy there kit...

Why not copy it but with a bigger cooler? I'd say most people just build their own. I was going to buy mine until it was pointed out I could get a 50+qt tun for under 60 bucks.

 

[caspider]

I use the 2 5gal igloo cooler method like that from midwest and love it! I made an AG oatmeal stout 2 weeks ago with them and everything worked perfectly. (even with a total of 12lbs of grain. it fills right up to the top but still leaves enough room for the lid.) Temps held strong at 155. Will be brewing the midwest AG Irish red kit in the morning. Sounds like it should be a great day for alittle homebrew!

 

[kh54s10]

Get the 10 gallon coolers. They are not too much more expensive and you will not be filling right to the top. It will allow you to do higher gravity, larger grain bill brews.

A lot of people prefer rectangular coolers.

 

[Antler]

Why the need for bigger coolers? How does the mash/sparge process work brewing this way?

 

[Antler]

Ok so after a bit of reading I understand you mash with a calculated amount so you know your output (first wort into kettle) then wash the grains with another calculated amount (sparge) to add up to your boil volume. So I could use two 5 gallon coolers. Take my calculated mash and sparge volumes, combine them and heat that amount in the kettle. Heat to mash temps and mash in. Heat remaining (sparge) water to 17x* and move to hlt. Take first running of mash into kettle. Sparge and run into kettle. Then boil... This a good sounding way to do it?

 

[bovineblitz]

Sounds like you've got the general plan down just fine.

Basically what I do is mash, draw out the first runnings into my pot, measure the amount of wort with a measuring stick marked by the gallon, then add the amount of sparge water that gets me to my pre-boil volume (for me, 6.5gal). It's much easier to just measure your first runnings then add the appropriate amount of water than to try and do some elaborate math to guess at what's needed. If you have around 5gal ready for sparge you'll always have enough, it's better to have too much than too little.

You don't really need a HLT in a really simple setup. You could use a bucket or pretty much any container that's capable of holding 5gal of water up to 200 degrees. You just need somewhere to put the sparge water while you drain the mash into your boil kettle. I don't really worry about the temperature too much, once I totally blanked and forgot to heat sparge water so just used room temp water... efficiency was just fine. So in other words, an insulated HLT isn't super important, if it cools a bit from your 180ish temp that's fine.

Personally I use one cooler and two pots... I heat my strike and sparge water in one pot and draw all the mash runnings into the second pot, then use that as my boil kettle. So basically I use a pot as a direct fired HLT, then just switch it out for the other pot. It's a great method if you can find an inexpensive pot. I just got sick of juggling one kettle around.

 

[rico567]

One of the most interesting things about home brewing to me is reading about other people's setups and procedures. It is purely risible that there is any single solution to brewing good beer; nothing could be further from the truth.

We all end up adapting to our own personal situation- our dwellings, the equipment we may already have on hand, our budget, our desire for a "bling" factor in our brewing setup.....which is all fine, an expression of our individuality in the ultimate goal of making good beer.

I'm fortunate in that I was able to merge my extract brewing equipment into AG brewing very smoothly. I was able to use a second, smaller SS pot I already had around to use as an HLT to heat water on the cooktop in the house, thereby using cheaper energy than the 20 lb LP tank on my "main" turkey fryer burner.

As far as my choice of MLTs, there was never any doubt in my mind that I would buy a 10 gallon cooler as a cheap and efficient solution to mashing. Ten gallons because I was certain that I would be brewing 5 gallon batches of beers large enough to require that volume. Also because my reading convinced me I would also be favoring thinner mashes, thereby utilizing more of the 10 gal. volume.

 

[teal]

I'm going 10 gallon tun/tank because I hope to NEED to. Hopefully people like the stuff I make to force me to double my production the easy way instead of brewing 2x as many times.

That and a 10 gallon cooler at Home Depot is about 46 bucks. I can swing 46 dollars.

We once made the mistake of buying a gun safe for what we had and didn't think of what we'll get. Ran out of room inside a year. I'll not make that mistake on coolers. I'm going 10 gallon igloo's and if I ever get to the point where I HAVE to brew more and the 10 gallon deal doesn't get it done - I better have investors for a 7 barrel system or something.

 

[Antler]

Thanks folks. I may just use one cooler, as I already have a 32qt fryer pot I can use as a hlt, but figured it easier and cheaper to just buy an extra cooler than install a ball valve, thermo, and sight glass into the fryer pot. I know I don't need those thing but it makes life easier. I may just start shopping to piece things together tonight!

 

[Antler]

Well Midwest says you can make 5 gallon Baghdad with their 5 gallon hlt/mlt combo as long as it's not a real big beer. The biggest I'll be brewing will be a hobgoblin clone a couple times a year. I've made 20 or so batches this year, at least 12 Irish reds, handful of lighter ales and a couple or three brown ales. I'm still on the fence wether I want to go 10 gallon or 5 for my batch sizes. Either way if I go with 5, I think 5 gallon coolers will do, 10 gallon coolers should do for 10 gallon batches. Let me know what you guys think!

 

[Antler]

I've scrapped this idea. I know if I get the cooler kit I will eventually want to upgrade again and build a single tier 3 vessel stand sometime in the future. I've decided to just start collecting some pieces here and there and when I move into my new house in the springtime maybe I'll put together a stand. Thanks everyone for all your help!