WANTED: All-Grain Kit

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Permalink Reply by Chris Banks on December 13, 2011 at 10:51am

I feel like I discuss this with people every other day - but I think the most important thing is that any money you spend is working towards what you want in the future or recoverable to some degree (by selling on maybe).

I notice they have fallen out of favour now days but theres plenty of people making awesome beer in foodgrade plastic buckets mashtuns with false bottoms or braided hose and some insulation.

Even whack an element in the side of a good bucket and you have a kettle or HLT.

This way you can afford to spend the money on good quality hardware like valves,fittings,elements etc which you could transfer to a flasher setup later down the track and its all very diyable.

Just my 2 cents! 

Cheers

Chris

 

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Permalink Reply by Hugh Grierson on December 13, 2011 at 1:34pm

I like gas for my kettle and an electric HLT.

Mash:Get a stainless keg on TM, cut the top off with a grinder, maybe a tap, old glass lid $80 to $150.

Gas/reg and burner, around 200 new.

Bricks=scavenge

HLT: Savemart on TM sells low reserve hot water (thermostat) urns, got my 30L one for $130, year old, still trucking, shitty thermostat though.

Rubbermaid round chillys are best, my square chilly with braid less efficient, or another keg with false bottom.. depends on your volume really.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Leslie on December 13, 2011 at 8:37pm

Like you I''ve recently started this hobby and one of the first things  made is this IC $70 for the pipe and $7 for the brass male to male garden hose connector. Half an hour to roll up and bend on a bucket.

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Permalink Reply by Liam Callaghan on December 13, 2011 at 8:51pm

I'm upgrading mine in the next month or so Sam, xmas holidays depending and you are welcome to make an offer on my kettles and framing.  Its an awesome little brewery, will push out 65 litres with its current kettles but runs better at 50 litres (two kegs and a dozen bottles).  PM me if you are interested, I posted the plans on here last week some time if you want to make your own.  Easy enough if you have the skills/friends to do it.

I am upgrading as I want bigger kettles and they don't fit the framing, I don't have to brew bigger batches but it seems a shame not too when it takes the same time.

It doesn't have all the sight glasses or pumps (although the plate is there for a pump if you want to run one) but you don't see many that will punch out 65 litres either.  Obviously you can make a 23litre mash too if you wanted to help your liver or something :p

If you want the mash tun (chilli bin and manifold), immersion chiller (as bought from the brew shop) and the burners (Kingkooker) we can negotiate a price but I will have to replace all these for the new brewery.  The burners and chiller you can buy via the web and I can make another mash easy enough, just time.

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Permalink Reply by Liam Callaghan on December 13, 2011 at 9:09pm

This photo is from a few years ago, the uprights on the lower section for turning out the mash have been cut off and I use a board under the the chilli bin mash tun now.  The immersion chiller in the photos was home made and got misshapen when my wife parked her car on it.

Plate on the front it for a magnetic pump and plate on the left for a counterflow chiller - deflects the heat from the burners.

Burners are nothing like the rubbish you can buy here, they sound like jet engines and the stainless glows cherry while they are running.  The kettles have stainless baffles under them to deflect the heat and I have never had a problem with scorching in all the years I have used it.  First time I fired them up I was like WOW!  Turned round to say something to the lads and they were all outside peering in haha!  Great burners, I would not recommend anything else.

I have stainless mesh inserts in the bottom over a castellated copper ring to keep the hole in the bottom free draining.  Some times blocks up if you pitch in a large volume of hops without a hop bag but its a rare event.  Syphon is an easy fix when it happens and is always sterile and ready just in case along with every other fitting which you might want in an emergency.

It is made for me though and I am almost 2m tall.  I can see in the kettles and adjust the gas during the boil up. If you are shorter than 1.9m you will be on tip toes to see inside.  You can cut the tops and handles off of course but they are really handy for carrying and holding when cleaning down.

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Permalink Reply by Sam Nelson on December 13, 2011 at 9:35pm

Awesome thanks for the rundown there Liam.

Are these converted 50l kegs? If so how do you get 65l brews? By using

them both as kettles?

Are you Wellington based?

I'm 182cm tall so just a little short for this exact setup but nothing

a small stool cant fix... Or an angle grinder!

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Permalink Reply by Liam Callaghan on December 14, 2011 at 7:25am

No worries.  I am in Auckland unfortanately so makes logistics a bit harder I guess, a lot easier if you have a weekend making beer with it first I guess.

Making bigger batches quicker is all in the way you brew and how you use your equipment, I end up using both kettles as boil kettles at the ends and combine them into fermentors.  It can be run as a everyone else does too of course but time is pretty precious so if I can make twice the amount in one session even better.

I also did a time motion study on it a few months ago taking readings on the mash over an hour for conversion, some discussion on hopping with the lads in beerclub etc and managed to claw back a good few hours there.  I can push out 130 to 140 litres on a saturday morning now which is wicked.  With bigger kettles I should be able to boil one 70 litre batch and have the next on mashing at the same time, thats the plan.   The new kettles do fit on the frame just on a slight angle, easier and safer to build a new one, not worth messing around with that much hot liquid.

Pump would help too but a stool might be in order.

Let me know if your interested and up in Aucks any time soon.  Otherwise print off a set of the plans I added on here last week and take it to your local engineering firm and ask them to give you a price on the frame, only 2"x1" tubular steel, probably less than shipping :p

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Permalink Reply by Adam Sparks on December 14, 2011 at 8:29am

What size burners are your king kookers? I spend a lot of time waiting for things to come up to boil (using a common double ring cast iron burner)

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Permalink Reply by Liam Callaghan on December 14, 2011 at 11:27am

Physically they are pretty small, not sure about all the specs let me google one...  Mine came with the high pressure diaphram etc.  I just emailed the guy at Kingkookers and asked for two burners, explained what they were for and what I wanted to do and he posted me what he thought would be best for the job.  I told him I was using the same cast iron low pressure type and I could hear him laughing from here.

 

http://www.homedepot.com/buy/king-kooker-high-pressure-burner-with-...

 

The cast iron ones are really good for holding the shed door open in windy weather.  Probably ok to warm your fingers too I guess.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Sparks on December 14, 2011 at 12:28pm

On the back of your post I just ordered a similar burner off amazon.... one of these.

http://www.bayouclassicdepot.com/sp10_propane_burner.htm

Same deal, high pressure jet, reg and stand included, has some good reviews on other forums. Sick of spending hours getting up to a limp boil!

NZD$110 delivered

Hopefully that slips under the customs gst radar

p.s. sorry to hijack your thread sam ;)

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