Brewing with 2 vessels?

[rt4philly]

When I see the professional setups for mashing and brewing there are always 3 vessels. The HLT, mash kettle, and brew kettle. Is there a reason one shouldn't just use the mash kettle to bring and maintain water temp then move the wort into the brew kettle. Aside from sparging what is the advantage to 3 vessels?

 

[Hamaki]

When I was just getting started I hadn't heard of BIAB. I had one 8 gal aluminum pot and a cooler for the mash. When draining first runnings into the big pot I always had to use a third pot for sparge water. I could have gone no-sparge, I guess, but could never get beyond thinking of it as kind of wasteful. Unless you do no-sparge or BIAB I think three vessels are needed.

 

[RM-MN]

When I was just getting started I hadn't heard of BIAB. I had one 8 gal aluminum pot and a cooler for the mash. When draining first runnings into the big pot I always had to use a third pot for sparge water. I could have gone no-sparge, I guess, but could never get beyond thinking of it as kind of wasteful. Unless you do no-sparge or BIAB I think three vessels are needed.

If you do BIAB, only one vessel is needed.

 

[broadbill]

When I see the professional setups for mashing and brewing there are always 3 vessels. The HLT, mash kettle, and brew kettle. Is there a reason one shouldn't just use the mash kettle to bring and maintain water temp then move the wort into the brew kettle. Aside from sparging what is the advantage to 3 vessels?

Sparging is the primary reason; you simply don't have a place to keep both clean sparge water and collected runnings at the same time.

One way around this is to recirculate sparge and running between the two vessels and collect that....

 

[Mojzis]

When I see the professional setups for mashing and brewing there are always 3 vessels. The HLT, mash kettle, and brew kettle. Is there a reason one shouldn't just use the mash kettle to bring and maintain water temp then move the wort into the brew kettle. Aside from sparging what is the advantage to 3 vessels?

I have a kettle, MT cooler and HLT cooler. The HLT helps by holding my days brewing water (campden treated the night before) and maintaining the temp. If I fill it with 120 f water the night before it will be around 100 in the morning so there is less to heat. I also use it to heat my sparge water and sparge.

There are other ways around it, but I do not like biab or no sparging personally. The extra cooler wasn't too much more of a cost and comes in handy. Since I have an element in the cooler I might split a 10g batch and boil one while the other is keeping hot inside my HLT cooler. Or if I don't want to boil after my sparge i'll leave it in the cooler set to 170 so I can easily boil in the morning.

3 vessels are quite useful to me. As always YMMV.

 

[SuperX]

Here is my 2 pot system. I preheat my cooler MLT with my batch sparge water at about 2-3 F higher than it is supposed to be at, and while it is heating, I heat my mash water to the correct temp. When that temp is reached, I pour my batch water out of the MLT into my fermentor (I have the 8 gallon wine bucket fermentors) and put my strike water and grain into the MLT. Stir and mash, then put the batch water back into the boil pot and about 10-15 minutes before mashing out, heat it back up to temp (usually only 10 F lower). Complete the mash out into the fermentor, put the batch water in the MLT and continue. Since I usually need 9 gallons into the boil, I'll stop at the end of the first runnings and swap the last of the batch water into the MLT and put the wort into the boil pot. I then finish sparging and add the remaining 3 gallons to the pot which is already heating up to a boil.

This method lets me save propane and makes the brew day shorter and more efficient.

 

[rt4philly]

I have two 16 gallon stainless kettles one for my mash and one for the brew kettle. I typically just recirculate the mash water a few times before transferring to my brew kettle. Just wasn't sure if this was bad or less effective than sparging. Like I said the pro setups are always 3 vessels.

 

[jcmcdowell]

I think you could get away with 2 vessels if your water didn't need any treatment. My water is a little soft but otherwise I could go straight from my instant hot water heater (if I could set it for 170 degrees) and sparge directly into the MLT.

I'm building a 55 gal BK, 2 vessel system now. I'm trying to simplify all the plumbing and make the brew process simpler. BIAB and the Braumesiter, which is a vessel in a vessel, are fundamentally two "containers". One to hold the grain and the other to hold the wort.

You could also just go full volume and not worry about the sparge. I don't how well your efficiency would be though...

 

[rt4philly]

I heat my mash kettle with a burner does that matter? The false bottom sits about 4 inches off the bottom so I figure it's ok. It's the best way I've found to hit and maintain my mash temperatures quickly and maintain them. But I wasn't sure if the temperature at the bottom of the kettle would throw things off pretty badly.

 

[jcmcdowell]

I do the same on my 3 vessel propane keggle. No problem. I find it only takes a VERY low heat to maintain temp. I think you need to be more careful of caramelizing or scorching as you run the wort into the boil kettle. I end up waiting until I have over 4 gallons before I really kick on the heat in the Boil Kettle.

I have noted I need to constantly recirculate to get a consistent temp reading. My temp probe is near the middle and the grain throws off the temp if I turn the pump off. I would crank the heat up to get it back in range and then stir the mash tun and it would rocket over the mash temp. If I constantly recirculate, I don't have that problem.

Some folks just mash-in at strike temp and just let the temp gradually fall. My guess would be conversion efficiency will suffer.

PS- my false bottom is a top hat design and sits about 2" off the bottom.

 

[broadbill]

Here is my 2 pot system. I preheat my cooler MLT with my batch sparge water at about 2-3 F higher than it is supposed to be at, and while it is heating, I heat my mash water to the correct temp. When that temp is reached, I pour my batch water out of the MLT into my fermentor (I have the 8 gallon wine bucket fermentors) and put my strike water and grain into the MLT. Stir and mash, then put the batch water back into the boil pot and about 10-15 minutes before mashing out, heat it back up to temp (usually only 10 F lower). Complete the mash out into the fermentor, put the batch water in the MLT and continue. Since I usually need 9 gallons into the boil, I'll stop at the end of the first runnings and swap the last of the batch water into the MLT and put the wort into the boil pot. I then finish sparging and add the remaining 3 gallons to the pot which is already heating up to a boil.

This method lets me save propane and makes the brew day shorter and more efficient.

This is a still a three vessel system though. You are transferring the sparge water into a third container.

 

[SuperX]

This is a still a three vessel system though. You are transferring the sparge water into a third container.

that is why I called it a two POT system. since the OP has a boil pot and a heated MLT, I just assumed they had a fermentor handy.

 

[Mojzis]

that is why I called it a two POT system. since the OP has a boil pot and a heated MLT, I just assumed they had a fermentor handy.

I used to do that also, but eventually realized a HLT is nice. I would advise to have separate buckets for pre-fermentation and post-fermentation. The possibility of infection makes it worth it spend a few extra dollars for a sparge/mash bucket in my eyes.

 

[beerkench]

I know a lot of brewery systems direct the water used to cool down the wort into the HLT and it usually holds its temperature for days. This way breweries save a lot of money on energy as they have hot water on supply at all times.

 

[SuperX]

I used to do that also, but eventually realized a MLT is nice. I would advise to have separate buckets for pre-fermentation and post-fermentation. The possibility of infection makes it worth it spend a few extra dollars for a sparge/mash bucket in my eyes.

I have a 50L stainless keg I am thinking of cutting into a keggle for my HLT, (assume you meant HLT above), then adding pumps to move things around. It would be a lot easier on my back if I did everything without lifting. I use the same bucket for both pre/post sides of the process since I can always sterilize the bucket while the wort is boiling.

 

[gmh1975]

A lot of breweries don't consider a hlt a "vessel" as all it does is heat water. Quite a few are using tankless water heaters. The more "vessels" you have, the higher number of consecutive brews you can have going on. Like mashing in the second brew into a dedicated mash tun while you have a boil going in the boil kettle, cleaning out the lauter and the whirlpool so they are ready. And brew round the clock. You can heat your mash in a mt/lt and then bring it to mash out temp and the transfer it without sparging. If the additional grain cost is worth it vs the cost of another pot to heat water then make your beer however you want. Use one pot and BIAB.