Alright…I have been thinking about this for months now. As of recently, I have been planning for a 2 tier structure with the HLT and MT utilizing a pump and then gravity feeding into the BK. I have began to get all the components necessary and then thought about direct fire MT with re-circ. but then thought about the weird set up with having to pull from the side of the MT (due to gravity feeding the BK) into the pump then back up to the top of the MT.
So…then I started thinking about single tier. To be honest though, I like the idea of only having one pump and would love to continue to batch sparge and control the mash out flow.
So, I am trying to gather opinions and really see if there is anything I am missing. I am starting to keep myself up at night thinking about this. ha. Any suggestions or opinions on 2 tier or single tier?
I know. It’s one of the great questions facing mankind. Right now I have a 2-tier. The HLT is gravity fed. The pump does double duty as a vorlauf for the mash tun and to pump to wort to the BK. I’m going to switch to a single tier this year, pooling my Lowes and Home Depot gift cards to buy Super Strut to build it. I’m short, so it’s much easier to have everything at one (low) level. There were some good brew stand tutorials on YouTube that I’m using as a guide.
There was a great writeup in a Zymurgy Article Last year using that Uni-strut stuff, Guido.
If you are planning on batch sparging i dont see why you would need a second pump. In most setups involving some sort of recirc the second pump is needed( MLT to pump1 to HLT to pump2 to MLT) but not in the system you are talking about. Personally i dont want anything to do with a 2 tier system. Hot items at head and shoulder level are not something i want considering how clumsy i can be, Id much rather get a burn on my gut or knee then forehead:D As a side note, if you go Single Tier and decide to add a recirc element to your brewery later all you have to do is add a second pump as well:)