Gas bottle shortage - may go all-in-one

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Over the last 6 months I have been (and am still) in the process of going AG at ~23L batch sizes. I got a 7.5kW gas burner and stockpot, however sourcing propane is tricky right now, as suppliers are only doing refils/exchange (i.e swapping empty for full).
Given that my preferred supplier normall charge around £40 for the deposit on a cylinder, and I'd be after 2 (for the occasion where one empties mid-brew) and the cost of the gas also, I am thinking I may cut straight to all-in-one instead, and put an electric kettle element in my stockpot to use as a HLT for sparge, and go for something like a brewzilla.
I've seen poeple say they scorch the element when doing a boil with elemnts, so I don't want to go down that route. I looked into buffalo induction hob, but at almost £200, figured may aswel go all-in-one for that kind of money.
Has anyone else had difficulty sourcing propane recently?

 

[DavidB]

Place where I get my CO2 from also does gas and I heard him on the phone to a punter who was trying to get a new bottle. Was told only exchange at the moment. You could change up or down in size but no 'newbies'.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

Yeah, I think it's a similar story everywhere. I was also planning to use my CO2 supplier as they are local and reliable, but alas, also no 'newbies'.

 

[MattGuk]

FWIW I moved from a gas burner and stock pot to an all in one system.
I got the brewmonk, but I don't think it really matters which one as they are all just about the same.
I like the brew monk as it seems to be one of the only system that has a marked sight glass so you can see your water levels all the time, and I have checked the marked volumes against the weight of each liter of water and the markings certainly seem true.
When it come to sparging ( which I rarely do ) I usually heat all my water in one go, then drain of my sparge water prior to mashing in so it eliminates the need for a 2nd pot of water to be heated.
I tend to be anywhere in the range of 70-75% brew house efficiency, but it will take time to figure out your new systems losses.

Hope that helps

 

[AnimatedGIF]

FWIW I moved from a gas burner and stock pot to an all in one system.
I got the brewmonk, but I don't think it really matters which one as they are all just about the same.
I like the brew monk as it seems to be one of the only system that has a marked sight glass so you can see your water levels all the time, and I have checked the marked volumes against the weight of each liter of water and the markings certainly seem true.
When it come to sparging ( which I rarely do ) I usually heat all my water in one go, then drain of my sparge water prior to mashing in so it eliminates the need for a 2nd pot of water to be heated.
I tend to be anywhere in the range of 70-75% brew house efficiency, but it will take time to figure out your new systems losses.

Hope that helps

That's great! Do you do full volume mash normally then?

 

[MattGuk]

Normally, yes I do full volume, but sometimes I will sparge.
These systems are really useful and I personally won't go back to gas burner and pot.
The other cool thing you can do is experiment with overnight mashing, which I also done recently.
When you want to make a brew last minute, but don't fancy spending 5 hours in one go, mash overnight, then if not sparging, only takes about 2 hours the next day.