Maybe a dumb ques- new to all grain, can hot liquor and boil be same pot?

[Beardown]

Can 1 big boil kettle double as hot liquor tank or am I missing something?, sorry for ignorance

 

[NateLTB]

You could make it work but you would have to run off your runnings into some other container to collect them while you sparge. When you are done sparging you would then pour all of your runnings into the HLT/BK and proceed with your boil.

 

[lumpher]

I use my bk as an hlt.

I heat up my mash water in my mash tun (keggle), and at about 160F, I stir in my grain.
When it gets about 20 minutes from sparge time, I heat up my sparge water in my hlt.
When the mash is done, I drain my initial mash to a cooler.
Then, I move my sparge water into the mash tun for the sparge.
That leaves the hlt open, so I move the wort from the cooler to the bk/hlt, and start heating it up.
When the sparge is done, I drain that into the bk, in which the first run of wort is starting to boil by then.
After that, I do the boil, cool, and get it into the fermenter.

 

[chickypad]

Or you could do full volume mash BIAB style in one big kettle.

 

[Moose_MI]

Optionally you could use a cooler as your hlt

 

[serum]

Yes that's what I do as it seems to work well in my tiny little kitchen.

I have to collect the runnings in an FV and transfer across to the boiler once I'm done fly sparging but it seems to work reasonably well.

 

[Spartan1979]

I've been brewing for 25 years and I still use my kettle as my HLT. If I ever get around to building an electric system, I will use a separate MLT. I just run it into a bucket until the kettle is empty.

 

[boutanhourbrewing]

I only use one Kettle as well. I heat my water to the mash temp. Pour the water into my mash tun (igloo cooler with false bottom). Add grains to the mashtun. While that is mashing, I heat up a second kettle full of water. Once that is at my sparge temp, I move that water into a second cooler. Drain the wort from the mash tun into the now empty kettle. Sparge as necessary from second cooler into mash tun.

 

[rmyurick]

Like Moose said, I use a cooler for sparge water. Heat the sparge water up (actually pre-boil & let it cool), transfer to sparge water tank (igloo cooler), then you can transfer sparge runnings to the boiler. Would be nice to have a pump, but you can do it without.

 

[CGVT]

Wow! It only took four posts for the cult of BIAB to show up...

I use one kettle and run off into a 7 gallon fermentation bucket that has volume markings on it so I know how much sparge water I need. After the first runnings, I dump my sparge water(batch sparge) into my mash tun and drain into my kettle.

 

[Double_D]

My first brew pot was a combo HLT/MLT/BK. I ran off into a bucket after lifting it onto my work bench to mash then dumped grain, rinsed, and put the wort back in there to boil. But it worked well.

It was also a major PITA.

 

[Setsumi]

I have a 80l hlt that does duty as mash tun my bk is 60l. I do full volume mashes (70l plus grains) on lower gravity beers up to 1.045 bigger beers I draw 25l of the strike water into a bucket to use as sparge and top the sparge if necessary from a urn or sometimes from the hot water tap.

 

[chickypad]

Wow! It only took four posts for the cult of BIAB to show up...

Geez, pardon me for offering another option for the OP's one big kettle. My other system is a 3 vessel sculpture, not trying to brainwash anyone here.

 

[McKnuckle]

Cult:
"A relatively small group of people having [religious] beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister."

Perhaps it would have been less sinister to have referred to the option as single vessel brewing? The OP could try single vessel brewing.

 

[cjbalough]

I batch sparge - drain mash tun to a bucket, add sparge water from kettle, then transfer bucket to boil kettle and get it heating, finally drain sparge wort to bucket and transfer to boil kettle.

 

[Natdavis777]

On my first setup (cooler and pot), I would run off into buckets and then pour the wort into the pot to boil after collection. On my current system, I do all of my heating in the BK (has the BoilCoil in it). So I have to transfer to a pseudo-HLT (another keggle, but before that I used a 10 gal rubbermaid cooler).

 

[RM-MN]

Geez, pardon me for offering another option for the OP's one big kettle. My other system is a 3 vessel sculpture, not trying to brainwash anyone here.

Why not? Some of their brains need a good cleaning.:rockin:

 

[jonny24]

I batch sparge - drain mash tun to a bucket, add sparge water from kettle, then transfer bucket to boil kettle and get it heating, finally drain sparge wort to bucket and transfer to boil kettle.

This is how I've done it too. I use the bucket step to measure volumes exiting the mash tun.