New to All Grain

[Hoosier_17]

Hello, I'm looking to buy some all grain equipment by don't know where to start. If I want to make 10 gallon batches, how big do my kettle, mash tun, etc need to be? Also, do those pieces need to be the same size? I guess I'm not understanding the disconnect in size between the two. Also, what is the advantage of a conical fermenter? Thank you!

 

[bbrim]

I use a 10g mashtun and 15g brew pot. I use about 8g mash water so it fits in the mlt. Then I sparge with 7g of water. Subtract the water the grain absorbs and system losses and I end up with 13g of wort in the brew pot. That's why it's okay to have a smaller mlt. I brew with a thin mash and rarely brew over 1.055. If you want to brew 10g batches over 1.060 you may want to consider a bigger mlt. Also, a 15g kettle is cutting it close. If you will only brew 10g batches its worth considering an 18-20g kettle, but 15 is fine if you don't mind an occasional boil over.
I can't give any advice on a conical. In perfectly happy with my carboys and I understand many people like their buckets.

 

[chickypad]

I agree with bbrim about considering a bigger kettle, I do like my 20 gal. To get 10 gal finished in the kegs my boils are usually 13.7-14.3 gal so a 15 gal kettle wouldn't work well. If you were to do BIAB you may want to go even bigger. If using a mash tun you'll max out at about 25 lbs with a 10 gal so as bbrim mentioned unless you do mostly lower gravity beers I'd go 14-15 gal. Conical advantages include the ability to dump trub, easily harvest yeast, take samples and rack directly out of a port (can be just with gravity but I like to use CO2).

 

[beerme70]

Welcome aboard! The day I switched to all-grain was the greatest day in my life (well, besides my kids being born).

 

[normonster]

Welcome.

I have a 15 gallon three vessel system and I wish my boil kettle was bigger.

If you're spending the money up front I'd say go with a 20BK, 15MT, 15HLT. If you can't swing all that at once I'd suggest going BIAB with a 20 Kettle to start and then adding the others as you progress. Even 20 extract and moving up to BIAB and eventually 3 vessel.

On the other hand, you may want to consider whether or not you want a 10 gallon system. I've found that with 15 gal kettles (morebeer heavy duty) the thermo port is so high on the kettle I'm essentially stuck at 10 gallon batches minimum. My issue with this is that I'm into recipe refinement (ie - doing the same one over and over again with small changes) and I'd rather do 5g at a time. If you thought that would be your case as well you might consider a 15g BK, 10g MT and 10g HLT. Everyone always says go bigger because you'll want to in the future, but I've found that my situation is exactly the opposite....I want to go smaller (I can still do this of course, by adding more strike water and cutting down the sparge, but half the fun of having a fly-sparge system, IMO, is good efficiency).

As far as fermentation goes, I haven't ever used anything different, but I like my SS Brewbuckets pretty well from SSBrewtech.com. They're pricey, but they work well and have some of the advantages of true conicals. If I could go back I might choose these though...someone posted a link to these in an SSBrewbucket thread and had me second guessing my initial decision. They look pretty dang cool and cost much less (and they have threaded couplers to add valves, thermo, etc).

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

Tons of home brewers use 15.5 gal keggles for 10Gal batches. You typically need to watch the (early) boil really close to avoid a boil over ...thats about the only drawback in my book.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Hello, I'm looking to buy some all grain equipment by don't know where to start. If I want to make 10 gallon batches, how big do my kettle, mash tun, etc need to be? Also, do those pieces need to be the same size? I guess I'm not understanding the disconnect in size between the two. Also, what is the advantage of a conical fermenter? Thank you!

Lets see here are my opinion answers to your questions.

Kettle size - I find that it is best to go 5 gallons above what your preboil volumes will be for preventing boilovers due to hot break, etc. (I can make a 15 gallon pot work with a 10 gallon batch, but feel far better with a bigger boil pot.
Tun size - I have a 10 Gallon igloo cooler that I converted with a bazooka screen. I wish they made them a little bigger so may eventually switch to a rectangle cooler or a jacketed pot or something similar. On big beers it can be tight.
One of my mistakes/thoughts when I went to AG was that I forgot about what I was going to do with my sparge water (I batch sparge) while I am draining my first runnings. I use my old 15 gallon pot as a HLT now, but before was using my old starter pot(s) to hold the hot water.

You do not necessarily need everything to be the same size. Since your strike/sparge water dont come to a boil you do not need to worry about boilovers there and can go with a smaller HLT as a result. I am not 100% on the Tun size but depending on the size of your brews, 10 gallons will work, but with a lot of grain, 12 - 15 may be better. It never hurts to have the most space in your boil kettle, though with larger pots, having a welded/weldless port is really nice for draining. Wort gets heavy.

Conicals are the style of fermenter used by big breweries. The nicest thing about them is that you can dump the trub/yeast/what have you from under the beer, and take samples without opening your fermenter. The yeast can then be washed, or tossed or whatever you want to do with them. There is also the oxygen permeablility and sanitation aspects too. Most conicals are stainless which do not scratch as easily as plastic so are easy to clean, plus metal really does not transfer O2 at all. Check out this BYO article for a decent overview of conicals.
https://byo.com/stories/item/524-cylindroconical-fermenters-advanced-brewing