What to buy next?

[jdauria]

Fairly new all grain brewer and have some cash after birthday, I'm trying to decide what to buy next...the Barley Crusher Grain mill or a Rubbermaid Cooler Mash Tun and Sparge Tun (like Northern Brewer sells)? I get my grain online because the closest home brew shop has limited inventory, so I get it already milled.

I turned one of my 48 qt coolers into a mash/lauter tun and used my bottling bucket as my hot water tank for the first few all grains I did, but it was a pain using in the tight space in my kitchen. Had to put a chair on the counter for the hot water bucket to sparge into the mash tun on the counter and then down to the brew kettle on a chair.

So what should it be, grain mill or mash/sparge coolers?

 

[Denny]

Mill, without a doubt. Then go with a Cheap'n'Easy all grain system.

www.dennybrew.com

 

[Cowbizzoy]

I'd get the mash tun first...but my opinion is biased, that's what i did.

 

[jdauria]

LOL! Should have know this would go 50/50 split!

 

[brewmcq]

I agree about the grain mill. You can make a mash tun for next to nothing. If you sew yourself a voile bag, you don't even have to worry about manifolds or "setting" the grain bed.

 

[rockytoptim]

I vote for grain mill as well.

 

[Homercidal]

Buy a crusher and build a mash tun. They are not hard to make. I built my own MLT and crusher, but not everyone has access to a machine shop.

You can save money by buying bulk.

Wait, do you fly sparge? Cause I just heat up some water and pour it in and mix it to sparge with. No gravity needed for batch sparging.

 

[malkore]

Get the mill, and then a good 10 gallon stockpot and your old kettle can become the hot liquid tank. I only use one cooler for my mashing, and a 7 gal aluminum kettle for hot water.

 

[boo boo]

Go for a mill if you intend on buying grain in bulk unmilled. You already have a mash tun, and batch sparging is so much easier ( less time ) than fly sparging with little loss in gravity points provided you use a little more cheap grain.
I do like Malkore did with the old kettle....

 

[jtakacs]

grain mill is my next thing... sick of unpredictable efficiency.

 

[humblesea]

Also depends on if you get charged to buy your grain crushed or not. I buy mine crushed at no extra charge so there has been no point in me spending money on a mill. Buy something that will increase your productivity and help you produce better quiality beer.

 

[kevin0]

Just throwing in my 2cents. It's your money, you don't actually *have* to spend it. If you don't have a burning need for something now, I'd just save it..

 

[EROK]

Barley Crusher grain mill for sure. Get yourself some feeler gauges to set up the right gap as well, as it it adjustable. I took my efficiency to 80% from 67% from the grind alone. I have mine set at .034.

 

[bmunos]

Brew Sculputre? Gets you out of the kitchen!

 

[mircobrewski]

i found the mash tun the most tedious piece of equipment that I had to deal with. this being said, i still was able to crush my grains without a grain mill by carefully cracking the grain by rolling a baseball bat over the grain. get the tun out of the way...my opinion