Have I accidentally started the process of upgrading my equipment?

[akdunbar]

I think that I may have accidentally started the process of upgrading my brewing equipment...

Opening Ebay earlier today I saw a plate wort cooler. I throw on a high bid of £15, not expecting annoying of it only to find out a few hours later that mine was the winning bid... (£8 + £4.95 postage)

At the moment I have no way of using it as I'm just using a cheap, £30 20L stockpot from Amazon to brew.

So I guess it's time to upgrade to a "proper" brew kettle. But now starts the process of deciding do I with to electric or stay using my gas cooker and/or propane if I decide to move it into the garage.

I'm thinking of maybe trying a three vessel setup rather then an all-in-one, and I want to increase my capacity, 10L is all well and good, but you do tend to run out a bit soon...

 

[Clickeral]

I think that I may have accidentally started the process of upgrading my brewing equipment...

Opening Ebay earlier today I saw a plate wort cooler. I throw on a high bid of £15, not expecting annoying of it only to find out a few hours later that mine was the winning bid... (£8 + £4.95 postage)

At the moment I have no way of using it as I'm just using a cheap, £30 20L stockpot from Amazon to brew.

So I guess it's time to upgrade to a "proper" brew kettle. But now starts the process of deciding do I with to electric or stay using my gas cooker and/or propane if I decide to move it into the garage.

I'm thinking of maybe trying a three vessel setup rather then an all-in-one, and I want to increase my capacity, 10L is all well and good, but you do tend to run out a bit soon...

I have a lot of kit, and am constantly upgrading :p

my 2c is I would say if moving up from a stock pot go for a 1V ie Brewzilla, Braumeister etc I can knock out a 22L batch (I use 11L cubes) in about 4hrs on one and its pretty easy to do multiple days with it in the back ground.

I use it for all my pilot brews and recipe building/tweaking

I also have multiple options for a 3/4V setup with a 50 or 70L MLT and a 170L kettle (I generally do doubles 44L in in the 50L MLT and use my 70L MLT to boil)

My HLT has a herms coil in it as well

I've managed a 132L batch (12cubes) with my 70L MLT maxed out and using some dextrose, I can also use both my MLT together for more volume if need be

The 3/4v is useful if I want to knock out volume of one beer, though I do have a recipe that I brewed on it that made me a mexican lager, a cold IPA and a WCIPA so there is options but with compromises

I am currently reducing my production and trying to have more 9.5L kegs of a range of beer so it depends how much beer you go through

The 1v can also be expanded upon, you can use your existing stockpot for sparge water and always get another kettle later (ie Converted Keg) on to use the 1v as the MLT

The Brewzilla as an example can have an extended malt pipe and boiler extension added to increase capacity, you can also go to a stronger false bottom to make it more dedicated as a MLT having an element in the Brewzilla effectively is the same as having a RIMS system

Personally I wouldn't get a 65L 1v due to manual handling (unless you have a winch/hoist/rope & pulleys etc) but I know people that it works well for

Hope this helps :)

 

[MashBag]

I think that I may have accidentally started the process of upgrading my brewing equipment...

O oh. Been there. Bought/own allsorts now.

Only advise work out where you want to go before you start the car

 

[jof]

Yep. What are you happy to use.

Also stick with your eBay 2nd hand habit, as there is a fair amount of churn with people upgrading or switching hobbies.

I went from stockpot to a klarstein fullhorn boiler to do brew in a bag. (That's like a tea urn with a false bottom). It was great, but I like to sparge, so had to drain mash to do sparge & then put the wort back in for the boil.

I have since upgraded to a klarstein machifest with a malt pipe, so pipe gets lifted & I can sparge through that.
This is enough for me, as I prefer my brew days to be hands on. I don't even use the chiller coil as I just leave it to cool overnight.
I got it in the sale last year for somewhere around £150.

I'm surprised there hasn't been any posts about their sale this year, but maybe there are not the same end of line bargains available.

 

[jambop]

I think that I may have accidentally started the process of upgrading my brewing equipment...

Opening Ebay earlier today I saw a plate wort cooler. I throw on a high bid of £15, not expecting annoying of it only to find out a few hours later that mine was the winning bid... (£8 + £4.95 postage)

At the moment I have no way of using it as I'm just using a cheap, £30 20L stockpot from Amazon to brew.

So I guess it's time to upgrade to a "proper" brew kettle. But now starts the process of deciding do I with to electric or stay using my gas cooker and/or propane if I decide to move it into the garage.

I'm thinking of maybe trying a three vessel setup rather then an all-in-one, and I want to increase my capacity, 10L is all well and good, but you do tend to run out a bit soon...

Three vessel setup? Not sure about that to be honest but what I will say is that brewing equipment is an evolution. I have lots of perfectly good brewing stuff that is semi redundant , mainly due to changing fermentation methods. Two perfectly good stainless conicals being moved aside by a PET pressure vessel?? Five years ago I came back into brewing after a long break and started off brewing as I did a long time before. I bought all the wrong gear because of that and am now finding new gear is needed. Be careful and get opinion about what you are going to buy in the future and avoid buying things that are old hat. JMO

 

[akdunbar]

My thinking about going 3 vessel was that it'd be less of a "big bang" outlay over an AIO... I could get a brew kettle, still use the stockpot, and finally get round to converting the cheap cool box I got over a decade ago into a mash tun..

However, even writing that out makes it sound far too much of a faff, and I think that I can hear the siren call of the Brewzilla, and I do have a birthday coming up..

 

[jambop]

My thinking about going 3 vessel was that it'd be less of a "big bang" outlay over an AIO... I could get a brew kettle, still use the stockpot, and finally get round to converting the cheap cool box I got over a decade ago into a mash tun..

However, even writing that out makes it sound far too much of a faff, and I think that I can hear the siren call of the Brewzilla, and I do have a birthday coming up..

I can definetly endorse the Brewzilla . It is very versitile with regards to brew volumes is easy to use and easy to keep clean. You can pump the wort from the boiler into your fermenter after it is cool and loss of wort is very low I estimate I there is about 3-400 ml left after I am finished the transfering a 25L batch. You can use the stock pot to heat the sparge in. And, although I never had a three vessel set up the Brewzilla takes up very little space.

 

[JockyBrewer]

I built my 3 vessel system about 11 years ago, before Grainfathers and Brewzillas. It’s been gradually upgraded since, but the core pots and taps are still there.

If I was starting over I’d be strongly considering an all in one as you get a lot for your money. The negative is that when something goes wrong they can be a bit harder to fix.

 

[akdunbar]

Well, I have now managed to acquire a cheap, second hand, 30L tea urn from off of that eBay...

And a 19L corny keg with Sodastream adaptor and 4L Oxebar from BrewKeg Tap...


And, with the 35L Brewzilla now being back in stock at The Malt Miller, have placed an order for one and a few other bits and bobs...

 

[jambop]

Well, I have now managed to acquire a cheap, second hand, 30L tea urn from off of that eBay...

And a 19L corny keg with Sodastream adaptor and 4L Oxebar from BrewKeg Tap...


And, with the 35L Brewzilla now being back in stock at The Malt Miller, have placed an order for one and a few other bits and bobs...

Excellent you are nearly ready to make your first batch. One thing about the Brewzilla. It is just my opinion but depending on your batch size the 35L thing is a bit misleading. I find if I make a 25L batch in the Brewzilla it is very close to being too much for the vessel. Once you have sparged I find the volume is pretty high and if you have a vigorous boil you could have a boil over. I bought a boiler extender which is very handy it can allow you to make a bigger batch but even if you make only the 25L there is no problem of an over spill.

 

[Tanglefoot]

Excellent you are nearly ready to make your first batch. One thing about the Brewzilla. It is just my opinion but depending on your batch size the 35L thing is a bit misleading. I find if I make a 25L batch in the Brewzilla it is very close to being too much for the vessel. Once you have sparged I find the volume is pretty high and if you have a vigorous boil you could have a boil over.

Why not skip the sparge and brew with total water volume adding a little extra grain to compensate ?

 

[jof]

I agree. My first boiler was 28l.
To achieve 5 gallon (23l) batches in the FV, I was almost at that maximum volume of wort at the start of the boil once I allowed for boil off & losses due to detritus.

And thateans you have to watch it like a hawk as it comes to the boil & stir to prevent overflow.
So current boiler is now 35l.

I guess you could stick with 25l kit if you're aiming to just fill a single 19l corny.

 

[jambop]

Why not skip the sparge and brew with total water volume adding a little extra grain to compensate ?

I prefer to brew my beer with a sparge for efficiency... I'm Scottish many a mickle maks a muckle and besides it is proper brewing
Another thing which is an advantage is I have now moved on to 9.5L corny kegs now and I can brew enough for 3 of those in one batch or two and bottle a bit if I only do a 25L batch. You could say why did you not buy the 65L Brewzilla... I felt it was just a bit too big for my standard batches.

 

[akdunbar]

Excellent you are nearly ready to make your first batch. One thing about the Brewzilla. It is just my opinion but depending on your batch size the 35L thing is a bit misleading. I find if I make a 25L batch in the Brewzilla it is very close to being too much for the vessel. Once you have sparged I find the volume is pretty high and if you have a vigorous boil you could have a boil over. I bought a boiler extender which is very handy it can allow you to make a bigger batch but even if you make only the 25L there is no problem of an over spill.

I'm not too worried about batch sizes, this should be plenty for my needs, at the moment anyway. It will be better than the way I brew at the moment...

I'm also going to try to be a bit more methodical with what I'm doing too, less living on a wing and a prayer... I've got the Fyne Ales Jarl kit coming with the Brewzilla, so it'll be the first time I've used a tried and tested recipe in my all grain brewing life, everything else I've done by taking inspiration from recipes and jiggling them about a little - thankfully I've never had any disasters with them (Kit beers from a can though are another matter...)

I've also got myself a pH meter, some test kits, salts and lactic acid to try water treatment...

 

[jambop]

I'm not too worried about batch sizes, this should be plenty for my needs, at the moment anyway. It will be better than the way I brew at the moment...

I'm also going to try to be a bit more methodical with what I'm doing too, less living on a wing and a prayer... I've got the Fyne Ales Jarl kit coming with the Brewzilla, so it'll be the first time I've used a tried and tested recipe in my all grain brewing life, everything else I've done by taking inspiration from recipes and jiggling them about a little - thankfully I've never had any disasters with them (Kit beers from a can though are another matter...)

I've also got myself a pH meter, some test kits, salts and lactic acid to try water treatment...

Again just a suggestion but before you do an actual brew why not try a run through the mashing procedure withplain old water? It will give you a chance to set up the profile you want for heating control. I cannot remember exactly but the following settings are probably a good starting point but I am a hands on brewer and keep a close check on the mashing temp.
PID off
I use a RAPT thermo and I don't use WiFi but bluetooth is needed
pump 100% and control wort recirculation from the stopcock ball valve
heating hysterisis 0.3 C
Allowed temp difference 1 or 2 C
power set at 30%
after the mash is finished or actually at the point of mashing out if you do I up the allow temp difference to 6 C . If you do not have a RAPT thermo of course this is not applicable.
Good luck when you get to it though!

 

[akdunbar]

Again just a suggestion but before you do an actual brew why not try a run through the mashing procedure withplain old water? It will give you a chance to set up the profile you want for heating control. I cannot remember exactly but the following settings are probably a good starting point but I am a hands on brewer and keep a close check on the mashing temp.
PID off
I use a RAPT thermo and I don't use WiFi but bluetooth is needed
pump 100% and control wort recirculation from the stopcock ball valve
heating hysterisis 0.3 C
Allowed temp difference 1 or 2 C
power set at 30%
after the mash is finished or actually at the point of mashing out if you do I up the allow temp difference to 6 C . If you do not have a RAPT thermo of course this is not applicable.
Good luck when you get to it though!

Oh yes, that's what I'll be doing. I'll probably run it through a couple of times just using water to get au fait with setting up, running, and dismantling it.

In the back of my mind I'm also thinking of modifying a fermenting bucket to allow closed transfer. There's a few options I've seen in a thread somewhere on this site and scattered over YouTube and the internet, though the Fermzilla does seem to be a little bit of a temptress...

 

[jambop]

Oh yes, that's what I'll be doing. I'll probably run it through a couple of times just using water to get au fait with setting up, running, and dismantling it.

In the back of my mind I'm also thinking of modifying a fermenting bucket to allow closed transfer. There's a few options I've seen in a thread somewhere on this site and scattered over YouTube and the internet, though the Fermzilla does seem to be a little bit of a temptress...

I have two 30L stainless conicals which are much more expensive than a Fermzilla all rounder which I have just recently bought for an experiment. If I was doing it again I would probably have bought two all rounders. The reason being they give you more options and at less than a third of the cost of a stainless conical. I would say though that a PET fermenter is not going to take the knocks a stainless conical will. I have seen a video of a guy who has converted his stainless conical, at some expense I may add, to do none pressure closed transfers... you can do pressure fermentations and transfers withe an all rounder for half the price of a stainless conical and that includes a mini CO2 reg and a soda stream gas bottle. However at the end of the day as all brewers know you can make beer as cheap and simply or as complicated and expensively as you like