My new low budget All Grain setup

[faustino123]

Thought I would share this. I've been doing kits for a while now and decided to switch to all grain. Here's what I setup.

Ace 30l boiler: £87 ebay
Wort chiller: £40 ebay
Digital thermometer: £1.90 ebay
Garden Hose & connections: £6.99 lidl
10m clear 10 mm hose: £10 ebay
Bag for BIAB: £5
Jubilee clips: £3 homebase
single hob electric: go outdoors £10
15l pot: £20 tk maxx
Colander: Already in kitchen
Kettle: Already in garage

Water to fill the boiler runs from outside tap via garden hose.
Water to run through wort chiller runs in via another hose and then out via garden hose to water flower beds
Colander is used for sparging
15l pot is filled with water used for sparging

 

[Twostage]

Couple of points :-

The £1.90 thermometer will be wrong. My experience (I've got three) is they read high at low temperatures and low at high temperatures. So don't rely on it for mash temperatures. Get a glass thermometer which will be more accurate (you can use it to calibrate the digital one).

When you use the hose to fill the boiler let it run for a while otherwise your brew will taste (and smell) of plastic.

Apart from that, good setup.:-D

 

[faustino123]

Couple of points :-

The £1.90 thermometer will be wrong. My experience (I've got three) is they read high at low temperatures and low at high temperatures. So don't rely on it for mash temperatures. Get a glass thermometer which will be more accurate (you can use it to calibrate the digital one).

When you use the hose to fill the boiler let it run for a while otherwise your brew will taste (and smell) of plastic.

Apart from that, good setup.:-D

Yep. i also use a glass one as a double check.
Also was thinking of swapping the hoses (put the garden hose on wort chiller and use the clear food grade hose for boiler top up (yeah, i shouldve done that way round originally)

 

[MyQul]

Couple of points :-

The £1.90 thermometer will be wrong. My experience (I've got three) is they read high at low temperatures and low at high temperatures. So don't rely on it for mash temperatures. Get a glass thermometer which will be more accurate (you can use it to calibrate the digital one).

When you use the hose to fill the boiler let it run for a while otherwise your brew will taste (and smell) of plastic.

Apart from that, good setup.:-D

I was quite surprised to find the one I bought off ebay for £2 is only 0.8C out at both top and bottom ends so easy to adjust for

 

[faustino123]

I was quite surprised to find the one I bought off ebay for £2 is only 0.8C out at both top and bottom ends so easy to adjust for

Yes, I've compared mine to the glass one and they are showing almost identical temperature.

 

[faustino123]

Small update: I realised the volume of water going out into the garden was way too high, so I thought I'd place the output hose into the water downpipe on top of the garage.
Couldn't believe it actually worked. Serious water pressure to carry it up there.

 

[Tony1951]

I was quite surprised to find the one I bought off ebay for £2 is only 0.8C out at both top and bottom ends so easy to adjust for

Mine too. We have the same device of course. Just noticed last brewday that it had a protective plastic film over the screen. Peeled it off now which enhances readability.

For those using glass thermometers who don't know about the correct immersion depth - there should be a note on the glass or a mark showing how far to submerge the thermometer in the liquid to be tested. Mine is 73mm. If you submerge to other depths the readout can be seriously awry. Mine used to read 104C in boiling water until I discovered this. You lot probably already know about this, but if not, now you do.

 

[Cwrw666]

Looks like a good setup. I've had an Ace boiler since Christmas and it's worked fine so far - last brew however, we switched it on and there was an enormous flash and a bang but it turned out to be just the orange on light blowing and fortunately the element was still working. Phew!

 

[Fil]

rather than checking the thermometer against another thermometer you can perform an easy 2 point test with close to 0c and close to 100c using ice and boiling water.. the thermapen manual pdf pages 16-18 iirc cover the procedure in detail..