Bare bones AG equipment

[Mackster]

I am looking to setup a friend with his own set of AG equipment.

I am thinking about using some basic equipment I no longer use to create a beginner all-grain setup. What does the HBT world think of this idea, or has anyone had experience with this set up?

8 gallon kettle
1 Fermenting bucket
1 Bottling bucket
1 BIAB strainer bag
1 outdoor burner w/stand

Brewing would go like this:
1. Heat mash water in kettle to 160ish
2. Add grain to kettle and mash for 30 min @ 150
3. Dump into bottling bucket with strainer bag, allow to mash for 30 min
4. Rinse kettle
5. Heat sparge water in kettle
6. Transfer sparge water to fermenter bucket
7. Begin lauter into empty kettle
8. Sparge from fermenter bucket using a pitcher.
9. Place kettle back onto burner
10. Boil wort
11. Cool wort
12. Add wort to fermenting bucket

My main concern is that the food grade buckets could not take 170F heat from the sparge water. Also, would the strainer bag work well enough to drain through the spigot in the bottling bucket?

 

[jpakstis]

You can go even easier. Use the full volume BIAB and then you don't need sparge water. I've recently gone to a three vessel setup but before this is what I did:

1. Heat full volume mash water (~165-170)
2. Dough in grains and mash for 90 min
3. Pull bag and squeeze the bejesus out of the thing over kettle
4. Bring to boil
5. Cool wort
6. Transfer to fermenting bucket

An 8 gallon kettle would probably be too small to do a full volume mash, though. I have a 10g kettle and on some of my batches, after grains had been doughed in, it was right on the line. They were larger grain bills but too big, which was why I ultimately switched to separate mash tun.

 

[StewMakesBrew]

Only thing I'd say is that the kettle might be too small. 8 gallons is right at the lower limit for having enough headroom to protect against boilover for a full 5 gallon batch. But, it will do. Agree with the full volume mash and BIAB above. Don't forget to squeeze the bejesus out of the bag.

 

[Kharnynb]

some fermenting buckets can handle boiling hot water, some can't, it should say so on the bucket.

 

[Sparge]

I agree 8 gallon kettle is small. When I started, that is the size I purchased. It lasted only a few brew days before I went bigger.

If you really want to simplify, you might want to try no-chill with BIAB. Let the wort cool overnight in your covered kettle, transfer to fermenter in the morning then pitch yeast.

 

[stz]

I used to heat my water in the kettle, pour into a bag lined bucket containing my grain and leave to mash, heat my sparge water and batch sparge the grain a couple of times, lifting the bag and allowing it to drain first into another bucket then into the kettle, bringing both back to the kettle to boil. This required just a couple of buckets which can double up for bottling and as primary or secondary fermenter plus a kettle for heating water and boiling though at the time I was using quite a lot of DME and sugar as required to correct gravity.

I'm much happier with a three vessel system like I'm using now for all grain which actually works very well and constantly. If anything though I feel my hot liquor tank is overkill as the volumes required for mashing in and sparging are quite low in comparison to the volumes required for launtering and boiling. That said, it is nice to start heating my strike water for the mash and then continuing to heat for the sparge with plenty of time to spare as I have enough capacity to do so rather than having to refill.

 

[freisste]

I have a 7.5 gallon kettle (maybe it's 8, I can't remember) but I will concur that it is borderline for full boils. It's close, and useable, but I would prefer bigger.

Personally, I do what you have shown, but I do a standard mash (not full volume) in my boil kettle in my oven to hold temp. So bring water to strike temp on my burner, dough in, lid on the pot, pot into the oven set to 170f for 60 minutes. Then dunk sparge in a bucket with cold water. I've read the temp of the sparge water isn't critical and it's much easier to squeeze if you've cooled the wet grains.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but have your friend try it to see if they like it. It works well for me. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[chickypad]

I don't really understand all your steps there. You're transferring the mash back and forth between the kettle and the bucket? And rinsing the kettle in between? Do yourself a favor and just follow freisste's plan. As mentioned the sparge water doesn't need to be hot. So you 1) mash for the full time in the kettle (however much volume will fit), 2) lift and drain/squeeze the bag, 3) dunk the bag into the bucket of sparge water and stir like crazy 4) lift and squeeze the bag again, 5) dump the sparged wort into the boil kettle.

 

[Vedexent]

I'm a brand new brewer, who also jumped into all-grain first thing.

Here's how I did it - complete with photos here.

Basically, I did:

1. Heat oven to 170F
2. Heat full volume of strike Water to 160F (no sparging, or sparge water, all the water at one go).
3. Add BIAB bag to kettle.
4. Add grain stirring to avoid dough balls.
5. Check temperature, and let it drop to mash temperature (153F - my water temperature didn't drop as much as I thought it would, so my strike temperature was too high)
6. Turn off oven, pop kettle in oven - let Mash for 60 minutes.
7. Pull off a little wort for an "iodine test"
8. Remove kettle from oven.
9. Pull out grain bag, put in spaghetti strainer pot - squeeze the hell out of it to get all the wort goodness out of it.
10. Combine wort, and bring kettle to boil.
11. Boil for an hour, adding hops at beginning of "hot break", and again with 15 minutes left in the boild.
12. Put kettle in sink, add sanitized pre-frozen water bottles into wort
13. Run cold water into sink, siphon hot water out of sink - rinse, repeat until wort temperature "cold breaks" and gets down around 60F.
14. Take a hydrometer reading to get OG.
15. Pour whole kettle of cooled wort into fermenter bucket (I really should have siphoned, or filtered out the trub)
16. Shake, swirl, slosh, etc. - vigorously for 5 minutes to aerate (I need a diffusion stone!).
17. Let cool to pitching temperature.
18. Add yeast

I have more detailed steps, but the overall process is simpler than you're proposing.

However, I am doing a 2.5 gallon "half-batch", which is how I can get away with a full-volume boil.

This may - or may not - align with what you want to do.

 

[Mackster]

I used to heat my water in the kettle, pour into a bag lined bucket containing my grain and leave to mash, heat my sparge water and batch sparge the grain a couple of times, lifting the bag and allowing it to drain first into another bucket then into the kettle, bringing both back to the kettle to boil. This required just a couple of buckets which can double up for bottling and as primary or secondary fermenter plus a kettle for heating water and boiling though at the time I was using quite a lot of DME and sugar as required to correct gravity.

I'm much happier with a three vessel system like I'm using now for all grain which actually works very well and constantly. If anything though I feel my hot liquor tank is overkill as the volumes required for mashing in and sparging are quite low in comparison to the volumes required for launtering and boiling. That said, it is nice to start heating my strike water for the mash and then continuing to heat for the sparge with plenty of time to spare as I have enough capacity to do so rather than having to refill.

This sounds like what I had in mind. Thanks for your comment

 

[Mackster]

I have a 7.5 gallon kettle (maybe it's 8, I can't remember) but I will concur that it is borderline for full boils. It's close, and useable, but I would prefer bigger.

Personally, I do what you have shown, but I do a standard mash (not full volume) in my boil kettle in my oven to hold temp. So bring water to strike temp on my burner, dough in, lid on the pot, pot into the oven set to 170f for 60 minutes. Then dunk sparge in a bucket with cold water. I've read the temp of the sparge water isn't critical and it's much easier to squeeze if you've cooled the wet grains.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but have your friend try it to see if they like it. It works well for me. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

I like the idea of dunk sparging in a bucket. This could be an easier solution to the transferring of mash and fly sparging, yet still increase efficiency from a batch sparge. I have never BIAB, is it heavy to pick up 12#s of grain plus water? I am guessing it can't be more than 30# in total. I have a single tier 15 gallon system and my tun is pretty heavy when I dump it.

 

[Homercidal]

If you are that limited in equipment, I'd probably dunk sparge at around 150F or so. It doesn't have to be 170 for a quick sparge. Dunk. Stir like mad, Lift and drain.

Or, better yet (IMO) is to do a smaller full boil batch and no sparge it.

OR! Make a concentrated wort and no sparge, and then dilute to desired gravity after the boil.

OR!!!!! You can mash and drain, and then refill the mash with grain and use the first runnings as the mash water to get an even HIGHER gravity from the same volume limitations. (Just adds significant time to the brewday....)

Lots of options.

 

[freisste]

I like the idea of dunk sparging in a bucket. This could be an easier solution to the transferring of mash and fly sparging, yet still increase efficiency from a batch sparge. I have never BIAB, is it heavy to pick up 12#s of grain plus water? I am guessing it can't be more than 30# in total. I have a single tier 15 gallon system and my tun is pretty heavy when I dump it.

I think I've heard that a pound of grain, after mash, will hold 1/10 gallon of water. This is a number used when people are trying to get a good mash+sparge volume to get their desired final volume.

With that number in mind, 12# + (1/10)*12*8 = 21.6lbs. (Multiplied by 8 for density of water. Not sure what it is offhand, but it's got to be close to 8lbs/gallon.)

So yeah, not more than 30lbs.