alan_marks wrote:There is another very practical and concerning aspect. Lets look at the whole process for a moment. In "all grain" brewing, the brewer needs to heat the brewing liquor to the proper temperature for enzyme conversion. In a 5 gallon batch that is around 4 gallons at 162 degrees F for a single infusion mash using a 5 gallon cooler with a false bottom. Now to reach "mash out" and have an effective sparge, with either batch or continuous sparging, you need about 5 more gallons at around 169 degrees F to go into this same mash tun. All the while this needs to drain into a kettle that can hold at least 8 gallons, with head room, so it can come to a boil. At 5 pounds a gallon, figuring the weight of the kettle itself, you need to lift at least 50 pounds of sloshing wort hot enough to cause serious scald burns onto a burner that you have already heated to bring the first 2 batches of water up to temperature. For me, as a professional chef, I'm used to carrying and dumping large heavy volumes of very hot liquid without hurting myself (been there, done that). So, the point to a tiered stand, for me, is to be able to do these things in a way that I won't hurt myself too badly on the way to the brew kettle.
Anyway, don't feel badly about this, since I do this by stacking buckets on top of buckets to tier everything so it all flows downhill. Like I said, I'm used to heavy lifting.
My two cents,
I have a 2 tier system because I am also comfortable with lifting large volumes of hot liquids. I found a galvanized stand for a hot water heater that my neighbor was going to throw away. I put my cooler on that, scoop hot water out of my "HLT" kettle with a glass pitcher to dough-in and sparge, and run off into my boil kettle that's sitting on the ground. Then I get help lifting the full kettle up onto to the burner and it's off to the races. With my old 8 gallon kettle I could lift it by myself, but I need help to lift my 15 gallon one when it's full of wort, that sucker is heavy!
