rockytop714
Well-Known Member
I'm a BIAB brewer who is looking to move up to all grain brewing. my current "set up" is a patio/turkey fryer burner and a 10 gal NB tallboy kettle with a mesh bag and digital probe thermometer. This setup usually suits my needs for volume for the beers that I like to brew and drink, which is typically beers between 1.055 and 1.070 OG. I very rarely use any more than 12-14 pounds of grain. The only time I had a problem was making a double IPA, once, with around 16.5 pounds of malt and 8.5 gallons of water. I had a little bit of spillage on that one.
A must-have, for me, for an all grain system, is going to be a stainless mash tun. I want to be able to directly heat the mash with a burner for stepped mashes and mashout. I've found an 8 gallon mash tun for a very good price, that should work for what I need. If I intend to make anything bigger than 1.075-1.080, I would probably only do a 3 gallon batch.
So that's the mash tun. Where I'm struggling is the HLT. The budget I'm working with for the time being could get me the mash tun and an HLT, but I'll be left heating my sparge water on an electric stove, for now. I would prefer to have a second propane burner but, if I would start heating the sparge water on the stove at the same time I'm heating the strike water with the burner, I could probably hit 170-175 during the mash but then it would be a matter of lugging 6+ gallons of hot water from the kitchen to the garage, which sounds like a pain and possibly pretty dangerous, as well.
I do have a 5 gallon bayou classic stock pot that gets little use since the thin bottom makes it useless as a cooking vessel. Things get scorched way too easily. So I could get another patio burner and weldless fittings to repurpose the 5 gallon pot as a hot liquor tank. That's a second option, but I'm concerned that 5 gal may not be big enough.
NB sells a two 5 gallon cooler all grain system for 5 gallon batches, so I would assume a converted 5 gallon stock pot could serve the same purpose, whether fly sparging (which I'd prefer) or batch sparging, but everything I've read on the forums, here, and elsewhere suggests 0.5 gallons of sparge water per pound of dry grist. So, for a hypothetical brew using 12 lbs of malt, I would need 6 gallons of sparge water... not going to fit in a 5 gallon pot.
I would think that, 1.25-1.5 qts per pound for the mash, for enzymatic purposes makes sense and the sparge should just be enough to rinse the grain and bring you up to preboil volume but I can't think that 6 gallons of sparge water would really be necessary to do that... would it?
I'm sure I'm overthinking this but I just want to make sure that I'm investing my money wisely into equipment that is going to do what I need. So, long story short, I guess the main thing I'm asking is whether the 5 gallon stock pot will cut it for heating sparge water or if I should just go ahead and get a bigger HLT and just heat sparge water on the stove until I can get another burner.
Any thoughts or opinions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
A must-have, for me, for an all grain system, is going to be a stainless mash tun. I want to be able to directly heat the mash with a burner for stepped mashes and mashout. I've found an 8 gallon mash tun for a very good price, that should work for what I need. If I intend to make anything bigger than 1.075-1.080, I would probably only do a 3 gallon batch.
So that's the mash tun. Where I'm struggling is the HLT. The budget I'm working with for the time being could get me the mash tun and an HLT, but I'll be left heating my sparge water on an electric stove, for now. I would prefer to have a second propane burner but, if I would start heating the sparge water on the stove at the same time I'm heating the strike water with the burner, I could probably hit 170-175 during the mash but then it would be a matter of lugging 6+ gallons of hot water from the kitchen to the garage, which sounds like a pain and possibly pretty dangerous, as well.
I do have a 5 gallon bayou classic stock pot that gets little use since the thin bottom makes it useless as a cooking vessel. Things get scorched way too easily. So I could get another patio burner and weldless fittings to repurpose the 5 gallon pot as a hot liquor tank. That's a second option, but I'm concerned that 5 gal may not be big enough.
NB sells a two 5 gallon cooler all grain system for 5 gallon batches, so I would assume a converted 5 gallon stock pot could serve the same purpose, whether fly sparging (which I'd prefer) or batch sparging, but everything I've read on the forums, here, and elsewhere suggests 0.5 gallons of sparge water per pound of dry grist. So, for a hypothetical brew using 12 lbs of malt, I would need 6 gallons of sparge water... not going to fit in a 5 gallon pot.
I would think that, 1.25-1.5 qts per pound for the mash, for enzymatic purposes makes sense and the sparge should just be enough to rinse the grain and bring you up to preboil volume but I can't think that 6 gallons of sparge water would really be necessary to do that... would it?
I'm sure I'm overthinking this but I just want to make sure that I'm investing my money wisely into equipment that is going to do what I need. So, long story short, I guess the main thing I'm asking is whether the 5 gallon stock pot will cut it for heating sparge water or if I should just go ahead and get a bigger HLT and just heat sparge water on the stove until I can get another burner.
Any thoughts or opinions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!