How little gear neede to AG brew?
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RabMaxwell
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confused
maybe they've changed. mine is made in a thermos brand cool box and without going to the coleman style minifirdge things i've never anything much bigger.
I will agree doughing in a 10 gallon brew with a 9kg grain bill will allows you a max of about 2.2 to 1, but that works.
I was well impressed with the quality of the coolbox, much better than the one I was going to convert.
I think the coolbox is 28 liters, there is I think a 32 liter thermos box.
I will agree doughing in a 10 gallon brew with a 9kg grain bill will allows you a max of about 2.2 to 1, but that works.
I was well impressed with the quality of the coolbox, much better than the one I was going to convert.
I think the coolbox is 28 liters, there is I think a 32 liter thermos box.
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adm
My H &G kit is prett good - it seems to brew good beer! I agree that the cool box mash tun is the most limiting factor, but presumably for a 10G brew, you would go to a 3 batch sparge, instead of dual as I do now - or go to fly sparging. Either way, it will work fine.
As for the boiler and the FV, there's plenty of space in those for 10G brews without boilover of yeast blow off worries and I was well impressed with the sparge manifold - a nice well made copper job. The hop strainer is the same, although I found that I needed to drill some additional 3mm holes in it - but no big deal.
The other key piece of equipment is a wort chiller - and for the £29 from H&G I just bought theirs - and it works well.
I did a minor mod on it as for some bizarre reason, one side of it is 15mm copper, and the other is 8mm so I soldered on some adaptors to bring both up to 15mm - but it worked OK as was, I just have more peace of mind now!
You can make an IC from a bit of copper pipe yourself - but if you value your time, it probably won't work out much less unless you have the pipe lying around already.
As for the boiler and the FV, there's plenty of space in those for 10G brews without boilover of yeast blow off worries and I was well impressed with the sparge manifold - a nice well made copper job. The hop strainer is the same, although I found that I needed to drill some additional 3mm holes in it - but no big deal.
The other key piece of equipment is a wort chiller - and for the £29 from H&G I just bought theirs - and it works well.
I did a minor mod on it as for some bizarre reason, one side of it is 15mm copper, and the other is 8mm so I soldered on some adaptors to bring both up to 15mm - but it worked OK as was, I just have more peace of mind now!
You can make an IC from a bit of copper pipe yourself - but if you value your time, it probably won't work out much less unless you have the pipe lying around already.
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confused
the buckets actually hold just over 13.5 gallons to the brim, hence ten gallons is easily within their capacity.
I fly sparge so no issue on the cool box mash tun, though as said a ratio of 2.2 - 1 is the best I get with the heavyish grain bills I tend to use.
Mine came with the IC, so perhaps a better deal that I thought as I see that's not icnluded in H&G's kit. I couldn't believe how effective that little blighter was.
I fly sparge so no issue on the cool box mash tun, though as said a ratio of 2.2 - 1 is the best I get with the heavyish grain bills I tend to use.
Mine came with the IC, so perhaps a better deal that I thought as I see that's not icnluded in H&G's kit. I couldn't believe how effective that little blighter was.
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confused
Back to the original post - it's worth remembering that the less equipment you use the less you have to keep sanitising. At the end of the day it's not the equipment that makes the beer - its you.
Make a note of what you have to do and follow it thru, my first AG I thought I had worked everything perfectly, cleaned up and gazed longingly at the 20 odd litres of beer in the fermenter - and there sitting on the counter top by the side was my unopened packet of irish moss.
The beer didn't seem any the worse for the lack of it, but I didn't half berate myself for not having written the stages down and ticked them off as I went. It could have been something more important that I forgot!
Make a note of what you have to do and follow it thru, my first AG I thought I had worked everything perfectly, cleaned up and gazed longingly at the 20 odd litres of beer in the fermenter - and there sitting on the counter top by the side was my unopened packet of irish moss.
The beer didn't seem any the worse for the lack of it, but I didn't half berate myself for not having written the stages down and ticked them off as I went. It could have been something more important that I forgot!
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pantsmachine
True enough on the sanitising. An added bonus of buying a big pot is that everything else i own which is beer related fits in the pot. Its ace! I placed an order for a few different grains two days ago and i will be doing a dark beer next week once my current batch of keller beer has finished fermenting and been transfered to my king keg. Looking forward to it, i'm taking some slagging off my wife about my newfound enthusiasm but so far the only one she didn't like was a belgian white beer and that is an acquired taste! I am reisting cornies at the moment but the pull is strong for this one..................
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Frisp
Resistance is futile........ I lmanaged to hold out all of two weeks..... Now my argument is. " Its a shame to waste them dear... one of these 10 gallon thingies will make all the difference.......
I had a nice tactic which worked when I took up clay pigeon shooting . First gun was a struggle to get. after that all she saw was a brown thing being taken out didnt realise I had 3 different guns.. all she saw was the brown thingy
My cornie collection will take the same route......
Fnaw Fnaw fnaw
I had a nice tactic which worked when I took up clay pigeon shooting . First gun was a struggle to get. after that all she saw was a brown thing being taken out didnt realise I had 3 different guns.. all she saw was the brown thingy
My cornie collection will take the same route......
Fnaw Fnaw fnaw
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Prozac
I'm being reall frickin thick here.......Hoppkins wrote:I get by with:
My homemade boiler (From Leyland with 2xtesco value kettle elements stuck in)
Fermentation Vessel
Funnel
Hydrometer
Immersion Chiller
Spoon (Huge as you can find)
Are the kettle elements not molded into the kettle?
I'll take a look next time I'm in Tesco's.This is a fabulous thread, massive thanks to everyone for taking the time to help us newbies out.