What bits of kit do i need for AG brewing?

[real ale rascal]

Hello chaps,

I have tried searching through the forum, but to no avail.

My question is two fold (and most likely been asked before)

1. how many and what excatly do i need kit wise for an AG set up? any approximate set up costs would be very helpful too.

2. what do the different bits of kit actually do? are there books or web pages that can help by telling me this? without you guys getting fed up repeating yourselves? not that i'm doubting any of your advice.

Real ale rascal

 

[phettebs]

Because I live in the US and have access to different materials that you, I'll refrain from giving any info on setup/prices and leave that to the locals. However, I found these links that might be of use to you:

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3104
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7513

There are probably others in the How-to section also.

John Palmer has an excellent site based on his book "How to Brew."
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/index.html

That section starts with the all grain process. He gives lots of great information and it's a good read/overview.

I never get tired of answering questions because so many have done it for me and I love all things beer! :

Barry

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Hello chaps,

I have tried searching through the forum, but to no avail.

My question is two fold (and most likely been asked before)

1. how many and what excatly do i need kit wise for an AG set up? any approximate set up costs would be very helpful too.

2. what do the different bits of kit actually do? are there books or web pages that can help by telling me this? without you guys getting fed up repeating yourselves? not that i'm doubting any of your advice.

Real ale rascal

I'd steer clear of AG, you'll enjoy it too much and end up with a big belly :shock:

BB

 

[corby_brewer]

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7768&start=0&hilit=cheep

Since this post was posted ive upgraded to a 10 gallon boiler, which i was lucky enougth to pick up from Moley for £15. The 2 Baca kettle leads cost me about £20 from Vossy1. so now the Burco will be used as a HLT and the Electrum will just be kept as a spare.

 

[ano]

Basically the stages of brewing are heating up water to add to the mash, mashing, and boiling the resulting liquid with a few hops which you then ferment. How you perform them is up to you although there are tried and tested methods available to the homebrewer.

Thus some get away with a single vessel to heat up the mash liquor, using a fine bag to drop the mashables in, leaving it for an hour and a bit then taking it out, adding hops and boiling. This isn't ideal.

The two vessel approach (excluding Fermentation Vessel [FV]) will see you heating up water in a vessel, putting it in your insulated mash tun to mash and draining it back to the heating vessel to boil. This can be fine but is largely deemed inconvenient by most brewers because you need some other vessel containing hot liquor to sparge with. You can heat up water and keep it in an insulated vessel or not.

Perfectly quaffable beer can be made using this method, I know because I've done it.

For more convenience the three vessel system is most preferred. You have a vessel to heat your water up for the mash, this transfers to the grain and mashes. The outlet then transfers to the kettle, which boils with some hops to get you (via usually some cooling method) into your FV.

In terms of expense, you can take it as far as you want. Most often there's a scale of economies such that a 1/2" joint will cost you x and will do you for brews of 25L to 1000L, but for a setup to brew 5 imperial gallons of ale I can't recommend our sponsors highly enough, and for around £100 to £200 you ought to be producing beer at a quarter of the price of the supermarket.

EDIT: SERIOUSLY read John Palmer's how to brew - http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html - it will give you the basics of what you're doing when you're making beer and will help you to understand the process as a result.

 

[Cussword]

BB

[/quote]

Self portrait BB?? :rofl: