Set up

[Dustin Kerr]

Hey brewers,

I have now done about 5-6 beers from the can. I am wanting to take the plunge and start doing an all grain batch.  I have some questions about the set up of kettle, mash tun and burner.

1- any suggestions on the size of stock pot I buy is? I was thinking a 30L from trade me. http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/kitchen/pots-pans-bakeware/pot... 

Will it matter if its a cheap pot or do I need a heavy duty pot?

2- The mash tun, get another bucket and put a valve on it or try the chilly bin method.  I like the bucket option cause its less space to take up. Any tips on making a false bottom? The hose from the spigot, can it be the fish tank stuff from mitre 10 or get some silicon hose. 

3- What sort of gas burner should I get. Don't want to pay heaps for one but also don't want to wait forever to boil water. IE size, btu and where to buy. 

4- Where to start recipe wise? Pale ale, IPA, Stout? What will be the most user friendly interduction into all grain brewing

All tips will be greatly appreciated.

Thank

Dustin

[Robert McLeod]

I've got one of those 60L pots. They're great. Next time I scale up it'll become a mash tun (with some insulation). Hopefully no need to scale in the next 6 months ... although I almost made it boil over on the weekend with only 38L in it. I must remember to lower the burner pressure when I hit rolling boil.

[Mike]

1- You want a larger than 30L pot, 45L-60L is a good size for versatility, 2 of my friends went with the same seller and got 90L pots, this one http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/kitchen/pots-pans-bakeware/pot... (used to be listed as 100L) and I do BIAB double batches (38-57L). Both pots are a year old and brewed with regularly (every few weeks) no issues. This size isn't really suitable for 20L batches though!

One pot is heated by installed internal elements and the other with this burner http://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/camping-outdoors/cooking-food/two-t... It should be stressed that burner takes a while to heat 60L to boiling in Chch winters. But, with BIAB I do mash out to 75, then pull the bag out and keep heating while draining the bag, then do a 15L-20 sparge rinse (covering the grains in a fermenter) while heating to the boil. By the time I've finished the sparge the beer is at about 90C (drops when adding sparge water). Hence the sparge time with a 3 tier system is cut and the slower boil time doesn't matter as much. Nice rolling boil, no DMS issues. 

2- If you get a chilly bin I'd go for a 50L+ one, you don't want to be limited with high gravity beers and having to lower your water to grist ratio too much. If you want to go BIAB you just need a small hlt or stovetop pot to heat spargewater and you can pretty much mimic a mashtun process (ie you don't have to do full volume BIAB, I usually dough in at 4/1 water to grist and sparge the remainder, for 11kg of grain this works out to about 45L mash water and 20L sparge water - 75-83% efficiency. 

3- That standard 3 ring gas burner above is: Input 10.6kw, LPG consumption: 920g/h, BTU 43,000. I find it plenty to bring 57L preboil to a boil fine outside with the 90L pot. If you're using a mash tun it's good practice to bring your first runnings to 90C while you do your sparge, and then crank it when you drain the second runnings. Good airflow and wind guards are key.

My mate even just uses this little one:http://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/camping-outdoors/cooking-food/two-t... for 27L batches with a 50L pot and it works a treat. Input: 8kw, LPG consumption: 660g per hour, so assume it's about 2/3rds the power or 29,000BTU. Both of the little burners fit just under the pot with a little flame lickage, good boil times. We did a 40L double batch with it and it took awhile though. My point is those are pretty wussy burners and they work fine for double batches in a pinch.

4- As for recipes I'd say something like Jamils robust porter http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil/JamilsRobust_Porter.html or an APA (epic pale ale clone? http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/can-you-brew-recipe-epic-pale-ale-1...) with US-05 are pretty failsafe and easy drinking. Stick to recipes below 1.060-65OG at first and you'll have less yeast issues. A single 11.5g pack will ferment 5 gallons at those OGs and you wn't have to worry about liquid yeast or starters. http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html