Brutus 20 set-up. Opinions?

[Steve D]

I''m upping my capacity from 30L or so up to 50L and retiring a lot of old plastic brew gear in favour of His Shinyness the Stainless of Steel. I trawled my shed for saved unused new steel brewing kit I've hoarded and carted around with me for nearly 5 years now.

I have a 100L stockpot, 33L stockpot, a 50L thermopot, 2 x totton pumps, a mashmaster plate chiller, some S/S dial thermometers.

A conventional 3 pot set-up would have me using the 100L pot as an HLT, the 50L thermopot as a mashtun, the 33L as a..dunno. Dunno why I bought that. Anyway, I would need to get another pot for a boiler, probably another 100L, the elements and bits or get a readymadeboilernotcheap.

Or..try the Brutus 20 setup which looks quite attractive using a 2-pot set up with 2 pumps...things I already have.

http://www.alenuts.com/Alenuts/brutus20.html

I'm not bothered about lower efficiency and I can use the 33L pot as an back-up mini HLT if I need extra liquor. For heating the recirculating mash I can either build a small HERMS pot or run a coil through the HLT..

Anyone done this? Any thoughts?

[aamcle]

I use the counter top Brutus 20 its a good system , although the tube from the boiler to pump to MT needs insulating if you are out doors. I'm using an ordinary oblong cool box with a stainless braided tube as a filter.

I've not bothered with the CFC I've been no chilling, and I've found the MT very easy to batch sparge in and to clean out.
Recycling will give you very clear wort if that is a priority, the only significant drawback I've found is batch size.


Atb. Aamcle

[Steve D]

Belay this request for info - I've decided against it after reading reports of extraction problems owing to the sparge reaching sugar saturation point resulting in a limit on what can be extracted from the mash, resulting in a top end of about OG1050 on beers made by this method. Well that's no bloody good! Won't be doing that then!