Advice re AG kit

[Greenland Stinger]

Hi Just been made redundant after a lot of years with my company so there is some spare cash to spend !!!
I have been brewing kits for the past year or so and been quite successful with the results. I am looking to start AG and have been looking at the HBB site (Mr Lard). I want to do 50l batches so heres the question what do I need? HLT. mash tun, boiler PIDs etc. The fund is not a bottomless pit but I don't want to have to upgrade in the future so I would rather start out with a good set up. The only upgrade I may consider is HERMS or RIMS once I have found my feet in AG.

What would you buy?

Thanks
GS :drink:

 

[Jeltz]

I can't see the need for HERMS unless you are going to be doing stepped mashes i.e.mashing at several different temperature.

I brew 25L with a 50L pot, for me pre boil volume needs to be about 33L to get 25L once hops, break material and evaporation are taken into account. So doubling that up I would go for a 100L kettle as 70 would be too close for comfort with boil overs.

IMO a 60L MT is the minimum for that brew length but I'd go for 80-100L, FWIW I batch sparge. I have a 60L thermopot which is a bit over kill for my brew length but it was a cheap buy from a fellow brew club member and it would allow me to do a "big" beer like a Russian Imperial Stout with a large grain bill. Thermopots are fantastic and I highly recommend them. With a good budget I would have a thermopot with false bottom, tap and sight glass.

You need to decide if you want to go gas or electric and there are plenty of opinions on either. At the end of the day its personal choice. I like an electric HLT and a gas kettle. If you go Gas HLT you obviously can't do use a PID, and there is some benefit to being able to set a PID and timer to come on in the early hours of a brew day.

Having an HLT that would hold all your brewing liquor allows you to treat all the water as one if you need to adjust levels of calcium or alkalinity etc I don't, I have to top my HLT up between batches and its a pain. I might get an old mango barrel as a cold liquor tank and treat the water in that as that there are also advantages to only heating what you are about to use!

Fermenting is also a consideration. IMO 2 33L fermenters holding 25L each would be be ideal as trying to move 50L in one would be a nightmare. Also it gives you the choice of using different yeasts or different dry hopping.

Do you have a fermentation fridge already? They are brilliant.

And when you do the brewery build don't forget the photos!

 

[Fil]

+1 solid advice..

sorry to hear the circumstances, but welcome to AG brewing..
i have a 100l kettle (98l french pot), and 80l tun, i use the SS brewing elements from mrlard which can be mounted low enough so 10l of liquid covers em so i can brew 23l batches should i wish, but can also brew more.. 23l is a fine reward for the 1/2 hour or so it takes to sanitise a bucket and pour a kit in, 6 hours into a brewday and even 50l starts looking smaller so u may want the capacity for more on occasion.

Pid, er, well i use one its one of my favorite brewday toys, But is total overkill and an stc1000 boxed with sockets and a bigger heat side relay will do just as good a job even if it does use 3p more electricity in the process (i doubt a pid saves more than that on our scale). And you can then use the same stc1000 to control a fermentation fridge.. read up on pids b4 u decide if one is for u, they can be fun toys, but also frustrating to sus out.

Fermentation control, worth investing in, a simple fridge mod is cheap with a freecyle fridge, Ask any brewer with one and they will swear its the best investment they made - GET a Fermentation fridge or 2 sorted ....

If cash gets tight a HLT is a luxuary, you can brew with one 'kettle' pot easily just sparge into a vacant fv or 2 or 3 till the kettles stopped supply sparge liquor, it will add say 1/2 an hour or so to the brewday as u cant start the boil so soon.

bottling 50l is upto 100 x 500ml bottles!! - so have u considered kegs, while more investment is needed with a co2 bottle n reg/s and temp control (another fridge mod?) tap/s, line and connectors all on top of the kegs themselves when dealing with volumes of beer greater than 23-5L they start looking more and more attractive.

 

[Greenland Stinger]

Thanks for the replies, great help, What size wort chiller is OK for 50l batches?

GS :drink:

 

[Rolfster]

Hi

I made my own wort chiller, using 10m of 8mm copper pipe, and that works quite well.

Its dead easy to do.

R