mike can you detail your hybrid mash procedure?
It's really quite simple..
Using the Braumeister, I heat my mash water, 4.5 gallons, to the target temp. While that is heating I am going to crack the grains needed for the batch. I use a standard homemade rubbermaid 10 gallon cooler converted to mash tun. Standard hardware, no recirculating.
Once the water has reached strike temp, I drain the BM into the tun and begin the mash process. This is no different than if you mashed without a BM.
Meanwhile, I heat 4 more gallons in the BM to fly sparge.
Once my mashing time is complete with a few manual recycles, I then use the BM and drain into my container for the fly sparge. Again, no different than heating with a pot.
After sparging into a container, I transfer the wort into the BM. From there, it is just like any boil. Adding hops etc..
Couple of notes.. I only do this if the all grain recipe is calling for more than 13 Lbs of grain. This is usually a high gravity beer that I want to brew. It is still only going to give me a 5 gallon batch. Just at a much higher OG. The last one I did followed a Hopslam clone recipe that I really wanted to try and ended up being about 19 Lbs of all grain plus 1.5 Lbs or honey.
After adding all the hops and at flameout. I ran the batch through a plate chiller and measured 1.096.
The hardest part of this is transferring the Wort from the bucket back into the BM. I have no easy way of doing that. I just used a clear plastic pitcher for sparging, draining from the BM and flowed the Wort into a 30L pail to dump into the BM for the boil.
If I just want a reasonably mid level or lower ABV beer, I totally use the BM.
And just for the record, I still do extracts and kits. I don't feel any shame in doing that. I do not aspire to be the worlds greatest brewer or own my own brewery. I like beer.. And NO it is not cheaper. But it occupies the downtime..
Mike