im a newb whats the point of the mlt

[JUSTINTIMEBREWING]

Cant you just use your brew pot to heat your sparge water? Why have a whole other pot for this? am i even understanding this correctly haha. Hope this isnt a dumb question ha

 

[mysterio]

Yes you could. You could run off the mash into some other vessel until your brew pot is free. Could involve a lot of lifting though if you don't have a pump.

 

[buffalobrewer]

sounds like you are asking about the hlt (hot liqour tank) rather then the mlt (mash lauter tun). The reason for the hlt is to hold the hot water and feed the mlt while the sweet wort is drained from the mlt to the boil kettle. I personally use my boil kettle to heat my sparge water and then pump it up to a cooler hlt at a higher level than the mlt and let gravity do the work during my sparge.

it looks something like this system http://morebeer.com/view_product/15628/102307/B3-150_With_Kettle_and_Wort_Chiller

 

[JUSTINTIMEBREWING]

Yes sorry about that. The hlt is what i meant. Thanks for the info.

 

[JUSTINTIMEBREWING]

I am not sure I really fully understand the point of this. I see people with the three tier systems (hlt, to mash tun, to brew pot). Now from my understanding the hlt is where you heat your sparge water, and that's whats drained into your mash tun after you drain the initial wort out of it. Is this right? Can you create a system where you don't need three tiers. Can you make a two tier system with just mash tun and brew pot?

 

[janzik]

I am not sure I really fully understand the point of this. I see people with the three tier systems (hlt, to mash tun, to brew pot). Now from my understanding the hlt is where you heat your sparge water, and that's whats drained into your mash tun after you drain the initial wort out of it. Is this right? Can you create a system where you don't need three tiers. Can you make a two tier system with just mash tun and brew pot?

You have many options.

Off the top of my head, you can do it with one pot/hlt and a mashtun. You heat up your water, then mash. While mashing you heat up your sparge water. You will need something to drain your first runnings into. This can be a smaller pot, or a brew bucket (for fermentation or bottling). I'm not keen on leaving something hot in there, but I have done it when I didn't have another pot available.

You can also do Brew In A Bag (You'll see BIAB mentioned around here), where you can do everything in one pot. I've never done it, but it looks like it could be easy to try out.

The advantage of having a separate HLT and BK is that you can start heating up your first runnings while you do your batch sparges (assuming that's the way you brew). This can save 10-30 minutes from your brew day depending on how slow you take care of your first runnings.

Also, it just kind of looks cool to see all the kettles and coolers and whatnot around.

 

[Palefire]

You can, but you need to put the wort somewhere while you're heating your sparge water (since if you're heating sparge water in your brew pot, you can't drain the wort into it). Some people use buckets for that, then just dump the contents of the bucket into the brew pot when they've emptied the sparge water out of it. I use a 5-gallon pot on the stove to heat my mash and sparge water; that way I can drain first runnings into the brew pot and start heating it on the burner right away.

 

[JUSTINTIMEBREWING]

Awesome this answered all my questions! Thanks!

 

[Sawdustguy]

Yes you could. You could run off the mash into some other vessel until your brew pot is free. Could involve a lot of lifting though if you don't have a pump.

Whats the sense it you need a third vessel anyway. I don't know if I would want to lift a bucket of 150* wort.

 

[shortyjacobs]

Whats the sense it you need a third vessel anyway. I don't know if I would want to lift a bucket of 150* wort.

That's why I use a ceiling hoist

 

[GreenMonti]

I am not sure I really fully understand the point of this. I see people with the three tier systems (hlt, to mash tun, to brew pot). Now from my understanding the hlt is where you heat your sparge water, and that's whats drained into your mash tun after you drain the initial wort out of it. Is this right? Can you create a system where you don't need three tiers. Can you make a two tier system with just mash tun and brew pot?

Yes, you can. You can make a 2 tier setup and a flash boiler. The flash boiler will instantly heat your strike and sparge water as you need it. If so desired you can also do direct steam infusion into the mash for maintaing mash temps and step mashing.

 

[bendavanza]

Or there is the 2 vessel no sparge where you use all the brew water for mashing.
There are a few ways to do that, but I'm not a qualified expert.