I've been brewing a few years now with the old turkey fryer and a 10 gal Igloo cooler mash tun and enjoy myself immensely and have made some great brews. I only do 5 gal batches and have no desire to go to 10. I would continue along doing it this way, but there's a couple things lately that are making me think it's time to take it to the next level.
For one, the old back doesn't like it when I lift 5 gallons.
And two, dialing in my mash temps sometimes feels like a crap shoot.
With that said, I still enjoy getting my hands dirty and don't want to spend $1,000s upgrading. So I'm thinking about keeping my kettle for an HLT and my MT for now and adding a 40 qt BK. I'd also add a RIMS for better temp control, recirculation, and possible stepped mashes, with two burners. My questions for now, can I go with a two tier and one pump system? I currently batch sparge but the second tier could enable fly sparging if I wanted. Can I use just one pump for the RIMS, transfer to the BK, whirlpooling at end of boil, and (if not just gravity) transfer to fermenter?
If I can, does it make sense to use valves for everything or can I just move tubing around via quick connects? I'm just getting in to the research so hopefully this makes sense. I'd appreciate any insight.
For one, the old back doesn't like it when I lift 5 gallons.
And two, dialing in my mash temps sometimes feels like a crap shoot.
With that said, I still enjoy getting my hands dirty and don't want to spend $1,000s upgrading. So I'm thinking about keeping my kettle for an HLT and my MT for now and adding a 40 qt BK. I'd also add a RIMS for better temp control, recirculation, and possible stepped mashes, with two burners. My questions for now, can I go with a two tier and one pump system? I currently batch sparge but the second tier could enable fly sparging if I wanted. Can I use just one pump for the RIMS, transfer to the BK, whirlpooling at end of boil, and (if not just gravity) transfer to fermenter?
If I can, does it make sense to use valves for everything or can I just move tubing around via quick connects? I'm just getting in to the research so hopefully this makes sense. I'd appreciate any insight.