Upping my game - new kit needed...?

I'm a long time viewer of the forum and have finally come to a point with my brewing setup where I need to seek the advice of fellow brewers and more experienced brew lovers.

Over the last year I've moved from brewing mostly kit brews to partial-mashing, specifically BIAB method. I have been mashing 1-2kgs of grain, boiling with hop additions, then adding 1-2 cans of liquid malt extract to "top-up” so I can ferment 5 gal batches.

My problem is that I have come to the point now where I'd like to remove the 1-2 cans of LME and just mash grain I mean, I'm already mashing & boiling so the time spent on brew day would basically be the same and I'd get a beer that is "all mine”!

This gives me a few problems/questions in terms of new kit/process which I've been unable to answer with my usual google-fu:

• I'll need a new pot/kettle my current and only pot is 2 gal (max)
• Where is a good place to buy one? Where do others get theirs?
• How big will I need for BIAB? (I'm more than happy to sparge to avoid mashing in 12 odd gallons!)
• Will I realistically be able to boil 7 odd gallons of wort on my halogen hob? (I have an expensive, but oldish cooker)
• Do I need to look at a pot with a tap & hop filter?
• Is there anyone else out there who has been in/in the similar position?

It's worth noting that I intend to continue BIAB using a single pot for mashing & boiling space & time are tight with 3 kids and BIAB offers great convenience.

A long one I know, but I'd appreciate any advice people might have!!

I do half batch AG brews because I don't want to get into buying and handling the equipment required for 5 gallon AG brews. I sometimes make these up to 20+ litres by adding DME or a kit can, and increasing the hopping.

Which doesn't really answer your question other than to point out that it's a big step up in terms of equipment to make 5 gallon AG brews. You either need a huge BIAB pot, and a burner capable of boiling all that liquid, or you need a mash tun, a large pot/kettle, either electric or with a separate gas burner, and a vessel to collect the wort from the mashtun.

And doing this in the kitchen is, whilst not impossible, pretty impractical, IMO. You will brew in a sauna and redecorate several times a year. These kind of brewers move out of the house.

If you wish to make 5 gallon AG brews, don't discount a mashtun. It saves lifting a huge bag of boiling hot saturated grain, for one thing. And it reduces the size of kettle required significantly. Some people do manage to boil these on their kitchen hobs, I believe. A kettle with a tap is pretty much essential, and a hop filter is useful, though you can use hop bags in the boil of course. Having a hop filter means the hops will also act as a filter to limit the amount of trub transferred to the FV.

Thanks for the advice very useful. I think I am getting myself a little confused how much smaller of a pot/kettle would I get away with if I went down the mash tun route? I know from reading that full BIAB often recommend 12+ gallon pots!

I'm fairly confident I could extract a good amount of steam but I take your point on brewing in a sauna and the wife might not be happy about paint work getting ruined!

How feasible would it be to split the wort, say 2 gallon pot & a 4-5 gallon pot. Would it work if I split a 5 gallon batch across two pots but only added hops to one?

Much appreciated for the advice.

If you had a mashtun a 30 litre pot would be big enough for 23 litre brews.

I actually split my full batch brews across 2 pots, sometimes 3. I have a set of stockpot i got for £22 that has a 15 litre, an 11 litre, an 8 litre and a 6 litre pot.

My last brew was a kit with an added mini mash. I split the wort into 3 pots and added different hops to each, and made about 7.5 litres of each, fermented in 10 litre plastic buckets.

You can get 15 litre stock pots at Wilko's, £16 last time I looked. With two of these you could start your boil with about 13 litres in each, and you'd probably end up with about 10 litres in each. You would have a chance of getting these to boil on your hob, boiling 25+ litres in one pot seems unlikely. You really need to test how much your hob will boil if you can, borrow a pot or something.

You would be best to add hops to both. Just split them between the two. This is a good opportunity to make two beers. I often make one with European hops and one with US/NZ hops, for example. You can then use different yeasts if you like too, and you can even steep some grains separately to add to one pot. I made a blonde ale and a stout from the same mash once in this way. 12 litres of blonde and 8 litres of stout.

The Peco Digital Boiler and Mashing Bin 32 Litre on this page:

http://www.thebrewshop.com/contents/en-uk/d75.html

Works well other than the PITA of a tap that comes with it. It annoys the **** out of me that you can't connect a pipe to it. So I fitted a better tap. I have two [taps] now, which is not ideal, but it works fine. I can feed sparge water gently down a pipe now into my home made sparge sprinkler from the new tap.

If the tapered tap doesn't bother you, then even that's not an issue I've only done two brews, so people with more experience my have better suggestions.

What I do like about this solution is that you can brew 23l btaches easily and can use it for mash/sparge water and then for the boil. Plus, you set a temperature, hit go and the water is right for mash, sparge and boils.

Thank for the advice both, helped me a lot. I think as an immediate "fix” I'm going to grab a larger pot so I can split the wort and boil on my hob. I've seen this on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/cooking-stockpot-stainless-boiling-saucepan/dp/B00BIYHI1G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425372368&sr=8-1&keywords=20+litre+stock+pot

and the Wilko pot price is great! I figure I should be able to boil 3 gallons easily in this as I can boil 2.5 with no issues. With it split between that and a Wilko job I should be in business.

Thanks for the link DiBosco, that looks like a nice way to go - got a birthday coming up and this would look mighty good on the kitchen side!

Three Peco options...

http://www.geterbrewed.com/peco-boilers--mashing-bins--brewing-equipment/

[email protected] <[email protected]>;

an email address for the german ebay.fr suppliers of SS stock pots many of us use and many homebrew kit shops sell on..
a 50l pot circa 11 real gallons is about £50 delivered with a lid.

drop em an email for a cheaper off ebay price quote and paypal link..

what sort of power does your hob put out, generally a 2.2-2.4kw electric element is sufficient to maintain a boil fir a 5 gallon batch of beer (23l)
so if the halogen hob is comparable it should be ok, if significantly less powerful, perhaps not, tho an insulating jacket to cut down on heat loss from the large wall area of the pot will help boil ferocity.

a tap and hop filter will help, tho bags and spiders are viable alternatives to loose hops in the boil. to cut a 20mm hole for 1/2" bsp sized pipe fittings for taps etc a qmax punch cutter is the tool, and if you want to power with elements a 38mm qmax will make holes for most kettle element solutions. (may be a bit tight/small for some elements but filling it out is easier than adding some back

rather than buy a copper IC coil just buy a coil of 10mm tube and form it yourself, use a brake pipe bender for the tight bends and something a few inches smaller than the boiler to form the major coil, its very easy..

imho get a nice big boil pot and biab, save the box the pot comes in and once you have doughed in drop the pot mash n all into the box it came in and wrap with a quilt or sleeping bag to insulate it for the mash duration..

imho the off the shelf comercial home brew boilers at circa 29-32l in volume are a lil tight to brew in especially if you overspage a little, a good rolling boil can disrupt the liquid surface peaking a good 5-6cm above the full level with the boil, And when you first hit boil temps the beer can foam up considerably as all the gas/air absorbed in the liquid is evacuated pdq. and nothing spoils a brewday like constantly mopping up spills n splashes as hot sweet wort soon cools to a sticky patch. saying that many brewers make grand beer in circa 30l boilers..
but you can tell from the recommendation above for a 50l pot i tend to err towards the larger size.. i brewed in a "small" 5 gallon burco just under 30l to the brim, Once.. and the g/f banned me from the kitchen to the patio for brewing evermore after the incident too, and she only stayed here w/ends and the odd night!!!!

edit the budget option is an ex mango chutney blue hdpe barrel boiler, possibly free from a local Indian restaurant if you feel cheeky enough to ask, or £11 delivered via ebayand you wont need qmax punches to put neat holes thru hdpe