Help me go all-grain for $100

[NCSU_Brewer]

I currently do partial boil (usually partial, mash partial boil) brews in a 4 gallon pot on my glass cooktop, and I have decided that I would like to make the jump to all-grain. I have $100 cash that I got as a Christmas present to get me there.

I already have a turkey fryer with aluminum pot to use as a brew kettle. I will obviously need a chiller. Here are my questions:

Can I safely BIAB in the aluminum pot? If so, any recommendations on how to sparge?

If I go with a cooler mash tun, could I get by with using the aluminum pot as my HLT and brew kettle?

Any other suggestions or recommendations on how to stretch my $100?

 

[bonecitybrewco]

Do some research on aluminum in brewing. You have to get a non oxidizing cleaner to use on it.

Other than that, there's no reason you couldn't BIAB in it.

$100 is going to be pretty limiting to be honest though. You are still going to need a 2nd vessel for holding and heating sparge water. You could no-sparge, but it's really only efficient up to 1.050 or so.

 

[jekeane]

how big is your turkey fryer pot? has is been used to fry turkeys? If so I would go another route. Aluminum is fine otherwise you just need to get a good oxidized coating on it.

If your pot is 10 gallons or so I would buy a custom wilserbag http://biabbags.webs.com/store
and then spend the rest on a diy 50' wort chiller. you can also often find them on craigslist.

if your pot is 10g you shouldn't need to sparge for normal gravity beers. big beers you can do a pour over rinse type sparge.

 

[lari]

you might not even need to spend 100 bucks if you have the essentials like fermenters, airlocks, spoons, bottle capper etc.... like many i've started with just a pot and a bag - nothing else. get grain crushed at the store and you dont need your own mill, chill in the bath tub and theres no need for a chiller, brew no sparge(or concentrated wort) so you dont need extra vessel for sparge water.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Deal!

You send me $100 and I'll coach you on how to go all grain.

 

[filthyastronaut]

If your pot is big enough do full volume BIAB. Bag and chiller will be under 100. If your pot is not big enough, do full volume BIAB but do smaller batches.

 

[Cascadesrunner]

I would really think about what you want your all grain set up to look like and perform. I bought things piecemeal to advance and the initial joy was soon overcome by the limitations of each new piece. You really need to look at this from an endgame standpoint on what you ultimately want to accomplish. Consider what size you want to be able to brew and work your way back from there. While there are more expensive hobbies like marriage and kids, this is not a cheap endeavor. One way to keep this cost effective would be to get to know other local homebrewers through a club where you might be able to pick up hardware from others stepping up and you get knowledge to boot. the other would be exercising some patience and scour craigslist for for the pieces you want. Stay with and be patient.

 

[myelo]

I was in a similar situation. Was doing extract with a 10-gallon aluminum pot. I got some 5 gallon paint strainer bags (about $2 each) and 25 feet of 3/8 copper tubing for a homemade immersion chiller ($40 maybe?) and I was good to go for BIAB. Still using the same setup.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

eBIAB can easily be done for under $100. Then it's all financially uphill from there.

 

[Iseneye]

You could no-sparge, but it's really only efficient up to 1.050 or so.

Cool. I better give up my one vessel full volume BIAB then.

 

[carloslavin]

Also, I think it's been pretty well covered that you don't really need to heat sparge water for BIAB if not doing a full volume mash. No point in mashing out if it's taking you less than 5 mins to sparge.

You can always just move your bag to a bucket or something and sparge there. The cool sparge water will even make bag squeezing easier.

 

[bonecitybrewco]

Cool. I better give up my one vessel full volume BIAB then.

No need to be an @$$ about it. Most people the first time moving to AG BIAB get low efficiency. Just stating all relevant information.

 

[DurtyChemist]

I currently do partial boil (usually partial, mash partial boil) brews in a 4 gallon pot on my glass cooktop, and I have decided that I would like to make the jump to all-grain. I have $100 cash that I got as a Christmas present to get me there.

I already have a turkey fryer with aluminum pot to use as a brew kettle. I will obviously need a chiller. Here are my questions:

Can I safely BIAB in the aluminum pot? If so, any recommendations on how to sparge?
Yes. With BIAB you won't sparge. Make sure you water calculations are correct. If possible add water to the pot, add your grains (keeping them dry) and make sure you won't have a bunch of hot sticky wort coming out when adding grains. Kind of like checking oil volumes before deep frying a turkey.
If I go with a cooler mash tun, could I get by with using the aluminum pot as my HLT and brew kettle?
It will be difficult. You'll need somewhere to store the first and second runnings while sparging. I have used fermentation buckets to store first runnings (typically less than 5 gallons) then batch sparged and poured everything into the boil kettle.
Any other suggestions or recommendations on how to stretch my $100?

Craigslist. Goodwill. Yard sales. Neighbors. You'll be amazed what you can find. I found a 10 gallon igloo cooler for $20 at a garage sale. I had a kettle screen and purchased a ball valve and I have a 10 gallon mash tun now. I even picked up another cooler for a HLT for around $40 also.

 

[jekeane]

No need to be an @$$ about it. Most people the first time moving to AG BIAB get low efficiency. Just stating all relevant information.

While he was being a bit of an ass, your statement is a myth that drives a lot of people who biab nuts.

As with any method, If you properly set up your equipment, get a decent grain crush and know enough about the methods before just jumping in you will get good efficiency.

 

[RM-MN]

You have a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer pot. You need a bag and if you want high efficiency and consistency you should have a mill too. A cheap Corona mill works great for that and will set you back about $30. While a chiller is nice you don't "have" to have one, a nice big tub that you can fill with water will get you all you have to have. While chilling quickly is great, you really only need to chill below about 180 quickly to avoid isomerizing the late addition hops. From 180 to pitching temp can be stretched out or you can change out the water in the tub to get it happening quicker. I've made beers with no late addition hops where I set the pot outside with a lid on to keep stray dirt and animals out and just let it cool. Takes forever or maybe only 8 hours if the weather is cool. It still makes beer.

 

[RM-MN]

While he was being a bit of an ass, your statement is a myth that drives a lot of people who biab nuts.

As with any method, If you properly set up your equipment, get a decent grain crush and know enough about the methods before just jumping in you will get good efficiency.

I'm not sure about that. My first batch only netted me about 80%, a bit lower than what I get now.

Efficiency in BIAB is dependent on the same thing as a conventional tun, mostly about the crush and then about the losses. If you insist on leaving a gallon behind in the pot to avoid getting any cold break into the fermenter you will have lower efficiency with BIAB too. If you crush very fine as you are able to get away with using BIAB, your efficiency can be higher than with a conventional tun.

 

[NCSU_Brewer]

how big is your turkey fryer pot? has is been used to fry turkeys? If so I would go another route. Aluminum is fine otherwise you just need to get a good oxidized coating on it.

If your pot is 10 gallons or so I would buy a custom wilserbag http://biabbags.webs.com/store
and then spend the rest on a diy 50' wort chiller. you can also often find them on craigslist.

if your pot is 10g you shouldn't need to sparge for normal gravity beers. big beers you can do a pour over rinse type sparge.

It's 35 quarts, and I've used it twice - once for a turkey breast, and once for chicken wings.

 

[Beesnbeer]

On my first all grain brew I used my bottling bucket with a 5 gallon paint strainer bag as a mash tun. Heated mash and sparge water in a pot on the stove. Drained into my turkey fryer kettle and used my burner as usual. $40.00 turkey fryer kit and $3.00 paint strainer. Made good beer!

 

[RM-MN]

It's 35 quarts, and I've used it twice - once for a turkey breast, and once for chicken wings.

You'll need to make sure all oil residue is removed. Washing with dish soap will do that but make sure to scrub the corner. Then rinse well twice so you get rid of all the soap too. Oils and soap will kill all heading from your beer.

Since you probably have to scrub it some to make sure all oil is out, you need to renew the oxidation layer on the aluminum pot. Fill it with water and boil for half an hour, then dump it out. From this point on you don't scrub or you remove the oxide layer and have to boil the water again.

 

[NCSU_Brewer]

Just thought I'd update this in case anyone is curious.

I was able to purchase a 52qt Coleman Xtreme cooler, 48' braided supply line, tubing, and a nylon valve for $48. I picked up a 25' wort chiller from AIH for $50 shipped, meaning I came in under budget.

SWMBO was so impressed that she authorized the purchase of 2.5 lbs of bulk hops from Farmhouse! Score!

As for my setup, I brewed with it this weekend with pretty good results. I missed my sparge temperature pretty badly so I came in about 10 points low in OG. I had some priming sugar laying around, so I dumped in half a pound at flameout and called it good.

This was definitely a lot of work, but also a lot of fun! Thanks for all of the advice and help!!!

 

[RM-MN]

Just thought I'd update this in case anyone is curious.

I was able to purchase a 52qt Coleman Xtreme cooler, 48' braided supply line, tubing, and a nylon valve for $48. I picked up a 25' wort chiller from AIH for $50 shipped, meaning I came in under budget.

SWMBO was so impressed that she authorized the purchase of 2.5 lbs of bulk hops from Farmhouse! Score!

As for my setup, I brewed with it this weekend with pretty good results. I missed my sparge temperature pretty badly so I came in about 10 points low in OG. I had some priming sugar laying around, so I dumped in half a pound at flameout and called it good.

This was definitely a lot of work, but also a lot of fun! Thanks for all of the advice and help!!!

You have to look somewhere else for the cause of being 10 points low on the OG. You can sparge with water between room temp and boiling with little effect on the OG. Unless you milled the grains yourself, blame the miss on the LHBS and their milling. If you milled it yourself, tighten up the mill before your next batch.

 

[NCSU_Brewer]

The grain was crushed by AIH. I thought it looked pretty good, but getting my own mill is definitely on my list, right behind getting a non-janky thermometer.

 

[tracyk]

One of the Corona or Corona knock-off mills is great for BIAB brewing. That is what I originally started with and it worked great for me. I was definitely getting better efficiency with that than the LHBS as there crush had to many uncrushed kernals. Here's one for $16.00 on ebay, same on I got years ago: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Grinder-Cor...Grains-Oats-Nut-Mill-Crank-Cast-/401106631278.

 

[rlager]

Best advice to you would be to make friends with your local breweries. They were all home brewers at one time and very well still could be. Develop a friendship. If you are just starting out, do not let people stress you about efficiency, bottom line is if you hit your numbers with your recipe, you did your job, end of story. As far as equipment needs, if you want to save money use CL, LetGo and OfferUp websites. I got a used BevAir SS kegerator for free, along with two 10# tanks and an extra draft tower- saved me about 1800 bucks. I built my eBIAB from scratch with a 20 gallon pot from Staples and my brother and I built the control system. Now I am about to build a diy chill wizard

 

[cbrasher]

Actually, I got boned by AIH on my Octoberfest grain milling as well. One of the guys there was sympathetic but said that others are using the mill as well. I finally bit the bullet and bought a MM2. Saw the guy at AHA HomebrewCon and he gave me some swag!