Hello,
I am trying to accumulate the equipment and start my first batch of all grain brewing. I have done several extract kits (~50) so I believe that I am now prepared to move into the professional league. I do have a couple questions for you pros.
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The kits off of NB are they for 5 gallon batches or 10 gallon batch kits? I was always under the impression that all grain brewing yielded more product, and was less expensive than extract…and that , that was the over all advantage to switching over.
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The setup I am thinking about is standard beer cooler for a mash tun and doing the braided hose for the “false” bottom and adding a ball lock. Two “pots” going to try and get my hands on two 15.5 gallon kegs and add ball locks, temp gauges. Is this a good setup? Any “better” ideas? I have a 6 gallon pot currently and a propane burner.
Thanks for your help,
Tim
The Northern Brewer all grain recipe kits are set up for 5 gallon batches. You may notice a savings of a couple of dollars in an all grain kit vs. an extract kit. You’ll notice much more significant savings if you get into buying your base malts in bulk. I’ll let someone else address the mashtun and pot sizes.
I use the cooler method for mashing and it works like a charm. If you are going that route you really only need one boil pot and two coolers. That way you can heat the strike water in your boil kettle, mix it in the mashtun with your grain, heat the sparge water, dump it in your second cooler/hot liquid tank, drain the first runnings of the mash into the boil kettle, dump the water from the HLT into the mash for a batch sparge and then drain that into the first runnings in the boil kettle. No real need for the huge second kettle if you are using a cooler setup. Hope that huge run on sentence made sense.
A keg makes a terrific boil kettle and I love the coolers as mashtuns because they hold the temp terrifically but would avoid a second keg as a mashtun because they can be difficult to maintain temp with.
Also, you didn’t say anything or ask anything about a chiller so make sure to think about that.
Do you think my 6 gallon pot and a Keg would be ok? Could heat strike water in 1 keg pour that into the cooler with grain…drain that in to the Keg and use the 6 gallon pot for “Batch sparge” h20?
I also have a wort chiller but its a smaller one and i know its not going to reach the bottom of a keg might have to put it in just a bit towards the top for it to work…
[quote=“tbilderback”]I also have a wort chiller but its a smaller one and i know its not going to reach the bottom of a keg might have to put it in just a bit towards the top for it to work…[/quote]As long as you either stir the wort or swirl the IC, it doesn’t matter.
Yes, that should work. It’s not a bad idea to try building a procedure around the equipment that you have on hand (e.g., making the existing kettle work as your HLT). If you find for some reason it doesn’t work after having tried it a few times, you could always consider either modifying your procedure or changing your equipment.
If you can afford it,get a pot of at least 30 quarts. You will be boiling down to 5 or 5.5 gallons, typically, so you may start with over 6 gallons, depending on the recipe and boil time. I often do pilsners that I do a 75-90 minute boil or longer. Starting at 7 gallons is not out of the question.
Getting a 15 gallon pot isn’t a bad idea, if you might want to brew 10 gallon batches. You can still use a big pot for a 5 gallon brew!
:cheers:
[quote=“ynotbrusum”]If you can afford it,get a pot of at least 30 quarts. You will be boiling down to 5 or 5.5 gallons, typically, so you may start with over 6 gallons, depending on the recipe and boil time. I often do pilsners that I do a 75-90 minute boil or longer. Starting at 7 gallons is not out of the question.
Getting a 15 gallon pot isn’t a bad idea, if you might want to brew 10 gallon batches. You can still use a big pot for a 5 gallon brew!
:cheers: [/quote]
In my view, you should use a kettle with at least a 10 gallon capacity. From what I understood, he plans to use the converted keg as his kettle, so the existing 6 gal. kettle would only serve as a HLT for his sparge water.
