48qt. cooler based mashtun, HERMs with small external heat exchanger. BCS controlled of course.
Trying to stock up for the winter. I usually brew in the garage, and it gets cold here in MN. Last time I brewed sub-zero, my chiller froze up and it was a real pain.
I brew 10 gallon all grain batches on a 3 tier stand. 10g stainless HLT, 15g stainless MLT w. false bottom, 15g. keggle with false bottom (8 inch or so stainless mesh) for boil kettle. Jet burners on HLT and Boil kettle. March pump. Chillzilla.
Still evolving thanks to some coaching from club buddies, tastybrewers, and other veterans.
Now I have a Sanke HLT and BK 60qt cooler Denny style mashtun and my new KAB4 burner.
I use a sawhorse table and some fairly manual bucket transfer technology for moving hot water around and measuring it. This is done outside in Northern Illinois. I actually have had fairly mild weather every time. I have the garage outfitted with music, man fridge, and tools for messin’ with.
I will probably stick with 10 gallons from now on because of the economies of scale. The last batch is only half bottled and just hitting proper carb. Now I know I have 5 more gallons “in the bank”
As someone else said - always evolving. Current setup:
Mill with a barley crusher.
Mash in the kitchen with 2 rubbermaid coolers - 1 for HLT and 1 for MLT.
Boil on the patio in a 15gal pot on a Blichmann burner.
Cool with an immersion chiller w/whirlpool.
Ferment in either glass carboys or Better Bottles (really liking the latter).
Keg in cornies.
I make Denny’s C&E seem high class
Of course it helps to live in an area with warm weather year round. There is no need for things to keep it warm in the cold weather
I made 5 gallons batches for 4 years and recently have switched to 3 gallons. I find since I don’t drink as much beer as I used to (more whiskey now) I can still brew on a normal schedule, but not feel guilty about lots of extra beer sitting in the closet.
70qt Coleman X-trem…16.25 SS boil kettle, dual turkey fryer burners, 7.5 gal HLT, home made IC, and I do it all in my basement. Just got a pump, and have plans in the works to weld up a new sculpture. Hopefully in the next few weeks.
I use keggles and a blue cooler like many others. Since I’ve moved I only need to brew 5 gallon batches now (so far anyway) and I like the keggles in that I can brew up to 10 or 12 gallon batches but I don’t have to. I’m building a brew shed and I’ll be adding a few toys to the system as time goes by and once the shed is able to be used. I procrastinate a lot so it might take a while. ::) ;D
3 kegs on one level each on their own propane burners/stands. Soon to be converted to natural gas.
I batch sparge and use a March pump for liquid transfers.
I also use bucket heaters over night with RANCO thermostats to get the water ready and heated in the am. Mash in, coffee, comics, then brew on.
I also ferment in 5 gallon cornies. I love them.
5 gallon batches - all grain.
Mash tun - 7 gallon cooler.
Boil using a ten gallon pot with spigot on a commercial range.
Looking to pick up a bigger cooler and a grain mill by the end of the year.
I brew in the garage. I’d love to brew in the basement, but I need to find a heavy duty electric setup that can boil 12+ gallons.
Right now I heat strike/ sparge water in the 7.5 gallon pot that came with my turkey fryer. My mash tun is a 70 qt Coleman Xterme (best cooler EVER!) I boil in a 15 gallon megapot with a ball valve dump. I just picked up a fitting so I can rig up a copper tubing dip tube in it (can’t wait to try it tomorrow!)
Basement brewing would rule, but I need something other than propane to boil with. That would save lugging full carboys down the stairs. That always makes me nervous…
I crush with a Barley Crusher, mash in a cooler and batch sparge. For now, my setup is pretty simple (see pic), and I do the whole brew day on the patio. Over the winter, I’ll be working on converting a used factory cart into a two-burner brew cart with a pump. The idea is to eliminate as much lifting as I can.
I brew 5 gal batches in the kitchen.
I just build electric HERMS with Ranco controlled HLT.
I use 10 Gal orange cooler and I boil on the NG stove.
My 10 Gal Mega pot is wide enough that I can lid up 3 burners and get about 30,000 BTU from it.
I ferment in fermentation fridge in the basement.
I like electric powered brewing.
You get a lot of control over the process.
Filter tap water into a couple of water jugs, add campden for our chloramines
Crush grain with two-roller Monster Mill
Heat strike water in 4-gallon stainless pot on Bayou Classic SP-10
Mash in blue Coleman Xtreme “Denny’ized” tun
Batch sparge into 10-gallon Mega Pot
Boil and then cool with copper immersion chiller
Transfer to 6.5-gallon glass primary
Pitch “grown from slant”, stir-plated yeast slurry
Ferment in “son of fermentation chiller”
Rack to secondary
Bottle in 1 case of 12-oz plus remainder in 500ml flip-tops
Mash in 10 gal Igloo commercial round w/ Phil’s false bottom, 2 burners, 1 for strike & sparge water, 1 for brewpot. Gravity feed MT to boil kettle using a household Werner scafolding. Hand feed the sparge water into the MT/Lauter tun. Motorized Schmidling mill.
A partial-boil setup with an outdoor propane burner.
Bayou Classic outside, batch sparging in a 40 qt cooler. CFC for chilling, all gravity.
5 Gallon All-Grain batches, carbon filtered well water, mash and fly sparge with 2 - 5 gallons coolers & gravity (60 min mash & 45-60 min sparge), 8 gallon SS brew pot (90 min boil), SS bayou burner, SS immersion chiller, autosiphon with fine nylon mesh bag as filter, primary and secondary in glass carboys, and bottle in 12 oz brown bottles. You can see my brew stand in my profile pic.
wow - how long on average do you keep a batch around? I do 12gal batches and they’re gone within 4 months (ales) and 6 months (lagers) and that seems to be just about right.
