The skinny on my brewing equipment

I’m going to start with a disclaimer. My system isn’t for everybody. A lot of gear head oriented beer geeks would scoff at my setup. A beginner wouldn’t know what to do with it. For me since I’m not a metal fabricator who could make a setup like the Brutus Ten, or have a ton of money to splurge on a rack/tree, I find that the simpler your system is, the easier your brew day will go. The more inherently complex a system is the more likely it will breakdown. As one of Murphy’s Laws states, “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.” I do have other equipment for use in a 10 gallon system with a march pump but I currently don’t have a way to control fermentation temps at all in the house or room in a fridge for 10 gallons so I’m back to 5 gallons and actually feeling pretty good about it.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that you don’t need to spend a fortune on equipment to have a really good system and brew great beer. I know guys who have done brew in a bag that have had excellent results. It’s like cooking. You need to have decent equipment but if you don’t know the correct techniques your gonna screw up. I think you can scrounge around on Craigslist, eBay, and Amazon enough to find great deals on equipment either used or new. Below is the list of what I feel are the absolute essentials:

• Converted keg(for mashing or kettle) with Bayou Classic burner $100 used
  or
  10 gallon cooler mash tun $100 – $150 new probably much cheaper used or better yet build it yourself
• Bayou Classic 8 gallon turkey fryer $80 new
• 6.5 gallon glass carboy $20 used
• 6.5 gallon glass carboy $40 new
• 25 ft immersion chiller $50 new
• Johnson Controls digital thermostat $75 new
• dorm fridge or chest freezer  free – $80
• 6 gallon food grade plastic bucket  $9 new
• bottling bucket spigot $4
• Step bit $15 (optional)
• 1/2 inch stainless steel ball valve $20 (optional)
• floating thermometer $7
• hydrometer $15
• 20 ft 3/8 inner pvc tubing $6
• bottling wand $4
• auto siphon $15
• propane tank $20
• funnel $9

Grand Total: $569

OK I have to admit me and a friend of mine got lucky buying a converted keg with burner on Craigslist but these type of deals are out there. You can cut corners too. Let’s say you don’t do any secondaries. No need for a second fermenter. Let’s say you don’t want to put a ball valve in your kettle. Let’s say you get an old fridge for free. Any item above can be found used on the internet no problem.

-$20
-$15
-$20
-$80

New Total: $434

This is pretty doable for an all grain setup with temperature control right? I thought so.

Some notes about the equipment

Fridge – I wouldn’t spend more than $100 bucks for anything if used when it comes to a chest freezer. There’s a lot out there for 100 – 120. You can talk these people down. Dorm fridges are way cheaper but be careful you need to measure and see if it can be converted to hold a 6.5 gallon carboy. This usually entails bending the chill plate back against the back wall of the fridge and maybe even cutting into the inside of the door. One of those mini hack saws comes in handy for cutting into fridge doors. If your good with a Dremel try that too.

Thermostat – If your gonna use a fridge you have to have a external thermostat because most fridge internal thermostats don’t go above 48 degrees F. You can get the non digital model. Everything I’ve read says its worth a few extra bucks for the digital models.

Burners – don’t worry about the BTUs – the turkey fryer one’s work fine. If you plan on doing something over 10 gallons then yes I would worry about BTUs.

Mash Tun – If you have trouble finding a keg, a cooler works really well for mashing. I used to use one and it worked wonders. Then you wont need another burner. There’s tons of literature out there on the subject. BYO has some great articles on it.

Immersion Chiller – 25ft copper is the smallest and cheapest you will find. They work but are slower than a 50ft on up. There are some techniques for speeding up your cooling that Jamil Zainesheff talks about here. If you get a 25ft one make sure to make a base on the bottom where the next coil is about 6 inches up form the bottom. The copper tubing is malleable and easy to work. Hot wort will rise to the top so the further up the coils are the better it will chill.

If you have plants to water the 25ft will use more water so plan on watering those thirsty guys – that’s why I use my 18 gallon beverage tub to collect water. Problem with immersion chilling is that it will only cool to the temp of your tap water. You can hook up two chillers with dunking one in ice after initial cooling has knocked the temp down to around 100 degrees F, but then again why don’t you just buy a 50ft chiller instead of having two.

Some notes about techniques with this setup

Mashing – you have to do batch sparging. You can do two batches or one. I haven’t noticed any difference in my gravity using either or. Since I don’t have a hot liquor tank I collect the runoff into the bottling bucket. They are rated for 180 degrees F. I usually do one batch sparge so I can get my run off fired up as soon as possible.

Cooling – this is still the real bitch. It will take about 15 minutes or so to cool off the wort to tap water temp. Here in southern California in the summer though the tap water is easily anywhere from 70 to 80 degrees F on occasion. Basically your wort is gonna be warm still, especially if your a stickler for pitching at the right temp. My solution is funneling into the fermenter and covering the top with foil and put it in the fridge. Don’t put your airlock in or the temp differences will vacuum in your blow off tube water or your airlock water.Your beer isn’t going to die if it cools down for a few hours in the fridge.

Another option is taking an ambient air temp, carboy temp, and yeast temp. (one of those infrared guns works really good for this – ah but more expense!) If they are all close say around 75 – 80 degrees F I have pitched with no ill effect because the yeast are already at that temp anyhow after you have let them warm up. People forget this. You chill your wort to 55 degrees hoping it will rise to 60 but your pitching your yeast into something 15 – 20 degrees cooler than they are. They wont freak but if you pitch them into wort the same temp than everything can drop temp at the same time. The vial says 70- 75 start anyhow. I think there’s a lot of confusion surrounding this that no one has really cleared up properly. I would love to know the correct answer to this.

I’ve recently purchased an air stone with an aquarium pump. The results are impressive and worth the $36 bucks. Still working on siphoning out of the kettle into the fermenter without getting a lot of trub. Racking it twice might be a solution but every time you move it around the chance of infection increases.

Fermenting – Took me a long time to figure it out but temp control is super crucial to good beer as we know it. I used to let the suckers just run. Not terrible beers just not great. The low end of each yeasts temperature range is always preferable and the only way to do that is with some kind of refrigeration to cool. There’s other techniques but using a fridge is the easiest. For twenty bags of ice you can buy yourself a thermostat. I know some professional brewers that ferment almost everything at 60 degrees F. This will give you clean flavor profiles from the yeast every time.

Some pics