Brew pot setup and upgrade help/ all grain help

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mrbeachroach

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Hi everybody. I was wanting to get into all grain and originally was thinking I would get a couple of the igloo mash tuns.

But after considering the fact that I have a generic pot I was wondering if someone could steer me in the right direction of what would be better to get first.

Brew pot with valves at the bottom, or the igloo style coolers for mash tuns.

I know they can both come with false bottoms.

But to be honest with you I have no idea how this works with all grain, and I'm ready to start upgrading my Home Brew set up.

Any help and pictures would be beneficial as I have no clue on how all grain is actually done.
 
All grain is really simple. Buy malted grain, usually barley but wheat or rye also work fine (with a caveat, wheat and rye are difficult to separate the wort from as they get pretty sticky). Mill the grain to expose the starches within. Put milled grain into water that is heated such that the temperature of the mix of water and grain falls within the range of 148 to 160F. Wait for the enzymes in the malted grain to do their work converting starches to sugars. Separate the resulting wort from the grains.

If your generic pot is 5 gallons or larger, you can use that and a bag made of polyester or nylon and do a small batch right in the pot you have. Once you have done a batch or more you can decide if you want to use a conventional mash tun or continue with Brew in a Bag. Many of us will never buy a cooler and just continue with BIAB since it is simpler, cheaper, and can get us better brewhouse efficiency.
 
Another vote for BIAB. Here's how I do AG, a kettle and a bag.
 

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What size is your pot? You want a pot big enough to do full volume boils...so at least 7 gallons and 10 gallons is not overkill for 5 gallon batches.

If you are going to do BIAB the bigger the pot the better so you can do full volume mash.

Three vessel brewing can get away with smaller pot...a little but still need at least 7 gallon to boil. If you go the cooler route you don’t need 2 coolers. Use one cooler as a mash tun and heat up sparse water in any pot that is available and do a batch sparge.

A valve on the boil kettle is a nice option especially if that lets you gravity drain into your fermentor. DIY weldless fittings are pretty easy. Make sure you have a dip tube plan (90 degree street elbow works great) and some transfer silicon tubing for the out-side else it won’t drain below the level of the hole you put in the kettle.
 
First, I'd spend a week or so and read Palmer's book (the sections on all grain) to get a better understanding of the process. The quick synopsis above is a really good start. It doesn't realy address sparging, which is a process of rinsing the grains to get more sugars out.

Now, on to equipment. There are a number of options with the two primary being BIAB or a more traditional multi vessel system. There are hybrids and other more advanced approaches such as HERMS and RIMS, but I won't go into those right now. Let's look at the two "entry level" approaches:

BIAB (Brew In A Bag). This approach is described and advocated above. It's mentioned that you can do this with a 5 gallon pot above. That's only if you're doing really small batches or doing some sort of sparge. I have a 10 gallon pot and that's not big enough to do a pure BIAB version of any of the beers I've brewed (6% ABV and higher). You can't fit 7-8 gallons of water plus 12 lbs of grain in a 5 gallon pot. I wouldn't go into true BIAB with anything less than a 15 gallon pot. People have found many different approaches to maintaining temps: wrap a sleeping bag around the kettle, reflective insulation, heat and recirculation, etc.
The pros for BIAB are less equipment, a simpler process, and an easier path to higher efficiency (how well you extract sugars from the grains). To get the higher efficiency, you'll likely need to have your own mill so that you can mill the grains finer. The disadvantages are: you need a bigger pot and hassles maintaining stable mash temps.

Traditional mulit-vessel: With this system, you mash in one vessel, drain the liquid (wort) out to a kettle, add more water to rinse and drain to the kettle (called sparging and there are multiple ways to do that). The entry level way to do this is to use a cooler for a mash tun combined with a method to filter the grains from the wort. The brew shops usually sell the round beverage coolers equipped with false bottoms as mash tuns. That's the more expensive route. You can do a rectangular cooler, which is much cheaper, and use either a manifold system, bazooka tube or.....the hybrid approach....a bag. The pros of the multi-vessel system are that it's easier to maintain mash temp (a cooler will hold within a degree over an hour), it's a more traditional approach that more closely matches what a commercial brewery does (if that matters to you), and you don't need a huge pot. (I personally don't like boiling in an oversized pot as it boils off more liquid). The cons are that there's more gear to store, it can cost more to get the stuff, and it can take some effort to get decent efficiency.

I started out with a rectangular cooler and a bazooka tube. My efficiency was running about 60%, but it was consistent. The beer was outstanding. I wanted to brew some really big stouts and, since efficiency drops as the grain bills go up, I knew that my relatively low efficiency would be a problem. I bought a custom BIAB bag that fits the cooler and set up the drain so that I get all but about 4 oz to drain from the cooler. I mill my grains finer and I'm getting low 70's efficiency. My big stout brew session is planned for January. I'm really liking this system.

A really good way to get more info is to see if there's a local homebrew club to join. Then ask around to see if you can watch/help brewing with both styles.

Good Luck
 
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I have a 10 gallon pot and that's not big enough to do a pure BIAB version of any of the beers I've brewed (6% ABV and higher).

Great explanation, but I do have to disagree with this. I've always done full volume mashes and have no problem fitting everything with a 10 gallon kettle. One of my latest brews was 7.7 gallon of water, 15 lbs of grain, 1.075 og and I could have fit a couple more pounds of grain. Also, the less head space there is in the kettle, the longer the mash temps will hold.
 
Great explanation, but I do have to disagree with this. I've always done full volume mashes and have no problem fitting everything with a 10 gallon kettle. One of my latest brews was 7.7 gallon of water, 15 lbs of grain, 1.075 og and I could have fit a couple more pounds of grain. Also, the less head space there is in the kettle, the longer the mash temps will hold.

Wow. That's good to hear. Thanks for the correction.
 
I too will suggest BIAB brewing. I started with a 15 gallon kettle and a Wilserbrewer brew bag. I personally will not recommend smaller than 15 gallons for the kettle though. For one, you can fit some big beers in the larger kettle. Secondly I still manage to sometimes make a mess even on smaller beers with my 15 gallon kettle. I don't want to imagine the mess I could make with a 10 gallon kettle.:eek:
 
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