Want vs. Need for all grain

So i've decided a few more extract batches and i'm going to make the switch to all grain. I have some pretty nice stuff for extract brewing - 10 gallon pot with spigot etc..... The question is i'm going to be buying some new equipment like a mashtun and wondering thoughts on this. I don't mind spending the money on something that i'll use for awhile, so what are some things you'd invest in and what type of mashtun? I know northern brewer has a deluxe all grain system.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/deluxe-all-grain-system-5-gallon.html

Is it worth it? Should i invest and go bigger? Thanks in advance.

You're going to get a ton of different responses. You can go all grain with just a big mesh bag and do BIAB with your current setup.

But, if you want a mash tun, I would suggest converting a 10gal igloo cooler to a mash tun. Heck, you can probably do two yourself for about the price of the NB setup in the link. The advantage is the ability to make larger beers. Sure, mashing 14lbs is enough room for a large number of styles, but the BDSA I just made used 24lbs of grain. Now, I don't brew that way every weekend, but it's nice to have the capacity.

I guess it comes down to what you want. For me, a converted 10gal mash tun with ss braid works great. If I had the space and cash, I'd love to do a three-tier system.

Let the varied reccommendations begin

Thanks, i was thinking the 10 gallon too but was worried if i do mostly 5 gallon batches would I lose much heat. They sell the 2 tier for 249 in 10 gallons which i might go for.....whats the benefit of the mashtun and then 2 or 3 tier mashtun?

From a minimalist standpoint and understanding its going to mean more work and lifting, you will need a mash tun, 7-10 gal (bigger the better) kettle, chiller and hydrometer. Buy your grain crushed. You can collect your first runnings in a bucket and heat sparge water in your kettle. Dump your first runnings from the bucket in the kettle after your sparge.

When I started I had what I had been using: a 10 gal kettle, my old partial boil 4 gal kettle for sparge water, my DIY chiller and the rest of my extract stuff. I DIYed my mash tun and went from there. Its not really as big of an investment as some people think to switch over.

If you stick with AG thats when you start dropping more money.

Tiers have to do with positioning not the type of tun. I would recommend buying a nice cooler from Lowe's or Home Depot (Or wherever you go), and converting it yourself. You can literally save 100 bucks by making your own mash tun, and if you take your time, it will last just as long as the pre-made ones. It's all personal preference, but I made my mash-tun and immersion chiller for less than the cost of the mash tun alone.

As far as size, you need to consider what beers you want to make. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/how-big-your-mash-tun-needs-123585/ Check out this chart.

If you don't already have some sort of chilling element (immersion, counterflow, etc.) get that. Next would be fermentation control. Letting your yeast work in the optimal environment will greatly improve the quality of your beer.

I'm thinking about switching from a cooler to one of these. Seems pretty good for the price, and you can get a little more grain in them.

http://www.homebrewing.org/MiniMash-Lauter-Tun-15-Gallons_p_2669.html

I have a 10 gallon and building a 70 qt now. Why? My 10 gallon doesn't work with 10 gallon brews and higher grain bills for some 6 gallon batches. Do you see yourself making 10 gallon high gravity brews down the road? If yes, go big now.

Definitely build your own 10 gallon mash tun. You can always brew bigger beers with it easier than a 5 gallon. I use a false bottom in mine and absolutely love it, never a stuck sparge.

Personally, I would get another 10 gallon pot with a spigot, add a sight glass, and make it my HLT. I did this and it makes having proper measures of water easily ready. You might want to add a sight glass to your brew pot too so you can get your pre and post boil volumes right.

You didn't think you were going to save money with all-grain....did you???

If you want to fly sparge, a tall round 10 gal cooler with a false bottom is a good choice. If you batch sparge I would just get a massive rectangular cooler. Either way you will need a second pot to either heat sparge water or store it after heating in the boil kettle. I got a good deal on two 5 gallon Home Depot coolers so I heat strike water in my 10 gal kettle, transfer and mash in, then during the last 20 minutes of the mash add more heat and dump the remaining water from the BK to the second cooler which acts as a HLT. Then the BK is empty and ready to accept the wort. Sometimes i have to temporarily store a but of extra water in a second pot then add it to the HLT when there is room With this setup I can batch or fly sparge but am very limited on how strong a beer I can make with a 5 gal batch. When I am ready to upgrade I will skip the bigger sized cooler and go straight to an insulated keggle for an MLT, but if I had gone with a big cooler I would probably stick with it for years.

You didn't think you were going to save money with all-grain....did you???

I like that! I thought I was going to save some money doing all grain. I think eventually I will when I'm washing my yeast, and buying more specialty grains in bulk. So far its about the same price. Still damn fun though.

Definitely go bigger with your mash tun. 10 gal all the way!

jweez said:

You didn't think you were going to save money with all-grain....did you???

I like that! I thought I was going to save some money doing all grain. I think eventually I will when I'm washing my yeast, and buying more specialty grains in bulk. So far its about the same price. Still damn fun though.

Definitely go bigger with your mash tun. 10 gal all the way!

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I save money but you know how. Wash yeast, slant, etc. Also group grain buys.

jweez said:

You didn't think you were going to save money with all-grain....did you???

I like that! I thought I was going to save some money doing all grain. I think eventually I will when I'm washing my yeast, and buying more specialty grains in bulk. So far its about the same price. Still damn fun though.

Definitely go bigger with your mash tun. 10 gal all the way!

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I also save money. The only equipment I bought to upgrade to all grain were three coolers (two 5 gallon coolers initially and a 50 quart cooler a bit later). I converted them myself, so my total cost was under $200. Without washing yeast (I use dry yeast so its relatively inexpensive) and buying only my base grains in bulk, my average brew costs me about $15.

EDIT: For me the expensive part has been the kegging set up. I now have 5 corny kegs (2 new), 3 CO2 tanks, 2 regulators, and a converted kegerator that holds 3 kegs. I don't want to discuss how much all of that cost me.

ha....no I didn't think it'd be cheaper. My problem is I like nice things so I want to get a cool set up. I have a 10 gallon pot so i'm thinking maybe a 10 gallon cooler mashtun would work......i'm not great with making things but it doesn't seem to hard to do that.

Thanks for the replies!

Check out the one I recommended, it's 15 gallons and comes with all the bells and whistles. It also leaves room for expanding to bigger batches.

xtian116 said:

Check out the one I recommended, it's 15 gallons and comes with all the bells and whistles. It also leaves room for expanding to bigger batches.

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This would make me nervous. I can't imagine that this holds temp very well. It seems to me that you either need a cooler (which is designed to hold temp) or a metal MLT that you can direct fire to maintain temp. I'd be open to persuasion, but this is a big investment ($229) for just the mash tun if you don't have some confidence that it will work well long term.

rklinck said:

This would make me nervous. I can't imagine that this holds temp very well. It seems to me that you either need a cooler (which is designed to hold temp) or a metal MLT that you can direct fire to maintain temp. I'd be open to persuasion, but this is a big investment ($229) for just the mash tun if you don't have some confidence that it will work well long term.

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I think it would work, plus is has a fitting to add an electric element if you want. I guess it kind of depends on where you live on what will work best for you. Here it's usually so hot that even a cheap turkey fryer pot will keep the temp pretty well.

xtian116 said:

I think it would work, plus is has a fitting to add an electric element if you want. I guess it kind of depends on where you live on what will work best for you. Here it's usually so hot that even a cheap turkey fryer pot will keep the temp pretty well.

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Yeah, ambient temp definitely matters. When I started doing BIAB partial mashes here in D.C. it was the dead of winter. I tended to lose at least 5 degrees during the 60 minute mash. My coolers on the other hand hold temp amazingly. My last brew, I forgot to empty my tun after I brewed (because I was ). When I opened it the next day, it was still hot.

rklinck said:

Yeah, ambient temp definitely matters. When I started doing BIAB partial mashes here in D.C. it was the dead of winter. I tended to lose at least 5 degrees during the 60 minute mash. My coolers on the other hand hold temp amazingly. My last brew, I forgot to empty my tun after I brewed (because I was ). When I opened it the next day, it was still hot.

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I literally have the opposite problem here. I boiled some water in an aluminum 8 gal turkey pot, set it on the concrete back porch over night, it was still just above 120 the next morning. (About 12 hours)

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is you're going to need an accurate thermometer if you don't already have one. If you can afford it, I'd recommend a Thermapen right off the bat. I was using a $20 CDN digital thermometer for my first 20 or so batches and kept having issues with higher than expected FG. When I suspected my thermometer was lying to me at mash temps (it was okay at freezing and boiling, but I didn't have a good way to confirm 152°), I got a Thermapen and quickly discovered that I was mashing 2°F higher than I thought. Since getting the Thermapen my FGs have greatly improved.

I recently bought a thermapen and it's the best $90 you'll ever spend on a thermometer. It gives you a reading accurate within 0.7* F in less than 3 seconds. I absolutely love this thing and I get a lot of use out of it for cooking as well.

As for the mash tun, I would go with a 10 gallon igloo cooler with a stainless steel braid. It's the cheapest and easiest. I made a copper manifold but wish I would have used a braid instead. I shoot for making 6 gallon batches and have made some pretty big beers with it.

prpromin said:

You're going to get a ton of different responses. You can go all grain with just a big mesh bag and do BIAB with your current setup.

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This doesn't sound like your style, which is fine, but my first steps into all grain have been this method. If you preheat your oven to its lowest setting, turn it off, and let the brew kettle sit in the warm oven while mashing, you can even maintain mash temps. Cost was an issue for me, even with the homemade mash tun. I also wanted to build raised garden beds for the backyard this spring, and it was looking like it was either going to be an all grain set up or garden beds. After going back and forth for several weeks, I realized that BIAB was a perfect solution.

All that said, even though I have mashing under control, I am eventually going to have to spend some money on a burner- my stove limits me to smaller batches.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that the real need over want might be a burner.

I personally would say that a 5 gallon mash tun is perfectly fine for 90% of your beers. That gravity for a 5 gallon mash tun goes up to 1.065(12.5 lbs of grains), which is pretty high for the standard beer. Also, there is less heat loss since there is less head space in a 5 gallon mash tun. I ended up building a 10 gallon mash tun for my bigger beers(IIPA, Barley Wines and RIS), but it rarely gets used because most of my beers are small enough for a 5 gallon mash tun.

HerbieHowells said:

This doesn't sound like your style, which is fine, but my first steps into all grain have been this method. If you preheat your oven to its lowest setting, turn it off, and let the brew kettle sit in the warm oven while mashing, you can even maintain mash temps. Cost was an issue for me, even with the homemade mash tun. I also wanted to build raised garden beds for the backyard this spring, and it was looking like it was either going to be an all grain set up or garden beds. After going back and forth for several weeks, I realized that BIAB was a perfect solution.

All that said, even though I have mashing under control, I am eventually going to have to spend some money on a burner- my stove limits me to smaller batches.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that the real need over want might be a burner.

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Thanks everyone. I brew with a buddy so we split the cost. I'm going to do the 10 gallon mash tun. I already have a burner for brewing so i'm good there. Hopefully 2 weeks i'm going to do my first all grain, will let you know how it works out.

doornumber3 said:

Thanks, i was thinking the 10 gallon too but was worried if i do mostly 5 gallon batches would I lose much heat. They sell the 2 tier for 249 in 10 gallons which i might go for.....whats the benefit of the mashtun and then 2 or 3 tier mashtun?

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No problem there I use a 10 gallon igloo from Home Depot and even brewing outside in the low 40s the temp holds just fine.

doornumber3 said:

So i've decided a few more extract batches and i'm going to make the switch to all grain. I have some pretty nice stuff for extract brewing - 10 gallon pot with spigot etc..... The question is i'm going to be buying some new equipment like a mashtun and wondering thoughts on this. I don't mind spending the money on something that i'll use for awhile, so what are some things you'd invest in and what type of mashtun? I know northern brewer has a deluxe all grain system.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/deluxe-all-grain-system-5-gallon.html

Is it worth it? Should i invest and go bigger? Thanks in advance.

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I invested in a Blichmann Boilermaker 10 gallon pot with the Blichmann false bottom accessory. I feel that I made a great imvestment. I now have high quality and high efficency wort production without any issues. Great customer support as well.

I have a swamp cooler in a basement that's temp controlled. It's always 67 degrees.

doornumber3 said:

I have a swamp cooler in a basement that's temp controlled. It's always 67 degrees.

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Picture?

I can take a pic this weekend. The swamp cooler is really for summer time when it gets warm. Right now it's in the empty cooler wrapped. Basement is set on 67 so it's controlled and dark.

doornumber3 said:

I can take a pic this weekend. The swamp cooler is really for summer time when it gets warm. Right now it's in the empty cooler wrapped. Basement is set on 67 so it's controlled and dark.

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That's better than a lot of folks report doing (sometimes little or nothing unfortunately). Keep in mind that during the more active part of the ferment (first 3-7 days), the temp inside the bucket/carboy can run 7-10* warmer than the surrounding air. The reason I mentioned good, solid temp control is that some folks become excited about the prospect of doing AG before they have some of the more important aspects taken care of.

On the AG setup, if you want to do it inexpensively, a chest cooler can be made into a mash tun using a CPVC manifold and valve for under $20 (not counting the cooler, of course). Your biggest investment will probably be the kettle/burner setup plus a wort chiller. I went for a 9g kettle with ball valve and thermometer couplings (which are very handy, especially the ball valve) and sometimes wish I had gone for a 10+g so I could at least try 5g BIAB if I wanted.

BigFloyd said:

That's better than a lot of folks report doing (sometimes little or nothing unfortunately). Keep in mind that during the more active part of the ferment (first 3-7 days), the temp inside the bucket/carboy can run 7-10* warmer than the surrounding air. The reason I mentioned good, solid temp control is that some folks become excited about the prospect of doing AG before they have some of the more important aspects taken care of.

On the AG setup, if you want to do it inexpensively, a chest cooler can be made into a mash tun using a CPVC manifold and valve for under $20 (not counting the cooler, of course). Your biggest investment will probably be the kettle/burner setup plus a wort chiller. I went for a 9g kettle with ball valve and thermometer couplings (which are very handy, especially the ball valve) and sometimes wish I had gone for a 10+g so I could at least try 5g BIAB if I wanted.

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Already have the 10 gallon kettle with spigot and the immersion chiller. I'm actually thinking of doing a full blown set up with the Mash tun and sparge tank - 2 coolers and then i'll be able to set it up perfect. figure it will cost me 150 or so to make but will be well worth the investment.

Definitely here the concern on temps but so far my gauge is 65-67 without fail.....I'll take that.

I'd also suggest a sight glass ( I like the ones on brewhardware.com) as one of the best purchases for my HLT and BK.

Definitely go with at least a 10 gallon cooler for a mash tun if all you're doing is 5 gallon batches...go bigger now if you plan on doing larger batches in the future. Find one locally at a store that has them on sale or even Craigslist, you will save a boat load of money if you make it yourself vs buying one from NB or other online brew stores. There's tons of threads/articles/ videos online that show you how to build them.

Build your own. 10 gallon cooler at lowes for $40(with 5% off plus price match with lowes card) and my HLT I got a 5 gallon for $20. DIY is the way to go, that's half the fun part of home brewing. If u do order from the brew stores, don't forget the massive cost of shipping