Planning upgrades to 10 gal equipment

[pfooti]

Hey BN Army,

I've been brewing 5 gal batches for about three years now. 2.5 years doing extract/PM, and the last six months doing AG. I built a MLT out of a cooler. Since moving to San Francisco, I've made a lot of beer-drinking friends and have spent a lot of time honing my craft. I feel like i will probably want to upgrade my equipment to a bigger batch size soon- my general-purpose IPA only lasts one night before all five gallons get drunk up. I've been looking at a lot of various kettles and things and am pretty intimidated by the expense at this point. As I save my pennies, I would love some advice about what I should be aiming for. What I want is:

1) Utility. I don't want to over-spend on single-use items.
2) Quality. I will over-spend on well-engineered stuff, provided it's worthwhile.
3) Flexibility. I do like brewing heavy beers- my scotch ale uses 20 lbs of grain in a 5 gallon batch. Not ridiculous, but pretty hefty.

I currently have a 10 gal MLT cooler, an 8 gal boil kettle, a 4 gal kettle (been using it as a HLT), a bayou classic propane burner, and a homemade wort chiller with 50' of 3/8 copper, plus a couple of 5+ gal fermenters: buckets, carboys, etc.

I figure in the short term, I should focus on the MLT and the Boil vessel- I can always split the batch into 2 buckets for fermenting. Eventually, I will probably want three new pots: BK, MLT and HLT, but I bet my 8gal boil kettle would make a decent HLT.

My top-level question is: what size BK and MLT should I shoot for? Given that my 8 gal BK is barely sufficient (I regularly start with 7.5gal of wort for my longer boil batches), I imagine that I'll be more likely to need a 20gal BK than a 15 gal one. Given that my MLT is plenty roomy for 5 gallon batches, I figure i'll probably want a 20 gal MLT as well.

Can you get by with a single march pump if you use some clever gravity feeds, or would I be better off just buying two marches and do a single-level setup?

I'm not going to ask about HERMS vs RIMS or any of that stuff at this point because I'm sure it'll probably touch off a debate.

What kind of fermenter should I eventually be looking at? Should I just plan on sticking with buckets indefinitely? They are cheap, and they will fit in my planned fermentation chamber, whereas I'd need to redo my plans entirely for a taller fermenter.

Any and all other advice is welcome too.

EDIT: What spurred this post originally was the large price differential between a Penrose from Brewhemoth and the 20g Boilermaker from Blichmann. The volume difference is pretty big, and I'm not sure I want to spend a bunch of money and regret it. OTOH, I could get two Penroses tomorrow (or as soon as they're available again), but not two Boilermakers.

Thanks!

[Hammy2424]

Good luck with the 10 gallon batches. I wanted to nail down my AG process before moving there, but I bought a big ole kettle early on.

See: http://www.waresdirect.com/products/Restaurant-Supply/Update-International/60-Qt168824

I bought this awaile back, and mine was about $150 delivered and I had the couplings located and mounted for another $10 and a couple brews from a local guy.

It is the same pot as the Megapot everybody sells. The sandwiched bottom and the sides are nice and thick, and good quality. The only thing that took me a bit, because it is about 18" in diameter I have a big surface area and have a pretty healty boil off. But the price was great, it came with a lid, and I have enough space to brew most beers as a 10 gallon batch (when I get there). I think a 10 gallon batch that requires a long boil for carmelization (Barleywine), or to drive off DMS pre-cursors, may get up there a ways. I see about 1.5 to 2 gallons of boil-off an hour depending on conditions outside.

I hope this is at least a little helpful! Good Luck

[dshepard]

I have been brewing 10 gallon batches for about 10 years using three 15 gallon pots in a two tier HERMS configuration with a single pump. The HLT is up high and gravity feeds the MT. I use the single pump to re-circulate the HERMS and then pump from MT to BK. One of the problems with a 15 gallon BK is that it was always filled to the top and very difficult to manage. So I finally rectified that this past fall and purchased a 20 gallon Blichmann Boilermaker. While I am very happy with the Blichmann, I would suggest any 20 gallon (or larger) BK. For me, so far, 15 gallon HLT and MT have been more than adequate. Make that initial purchase of a 20 gallon or larger BK and you won't regret it.

[captain carrot]

Hammy found a great deal on the megapot blank. I think they are made by Polarware.

I recently upgraded from a 14 gallon stainless mash tun to a 20G Megapot mash tun so I wouldn't have to reduce my water to grain ratio for beer roughly over 1.070 and still make 10 gallon batches.

I have a Bayou Classic 15G BK. Bayou pots are cheap but thin (easily scorched). Megapot has very thick bottom you won't scorch but takes longer to heat to boil. Bayou has the same height to width ratio as a keggle or a Blichmann pot. Fermcap foam control does a great job keeping the wort in the pot.

If you can afford the Blichmann I would recommend the 15g for a boil kettle otherwise convert a keg or buy a Bayou.

I highly recommend the 20G megapot for a mash tun mostly because of the shorter height to wider width ratio. It's easy to raise mash temp with out worries of scorching. 20G comes in handy for bigger beers. If I did it again I would buy Hammy's deal and do the mash tun conversion myself. Good luck!

[Hammy2424]

Hey all,

I saw Carrot's message and wanted to add a little.

I was recently at NB Milwaukee and looked at the unmolested Megapot. The company that makes these is actually called Update International. The MP at NB actually had an Update mark somewhere (box or something). I believe the same link from above can get you to their 20 Gallon unit as well. They have sold these pots to the restaurant industry for years.

Also, I don't mean to dis on NB, or any other HB shop. I have used them for a number of ingredients, parts, etc, and highly recommend supporting them. But, this purchase saved me a good chunk of cash that I couldn't pass up.

Good Luck with the search!

[PSUHomebrewer]

If you want to save cash, yo to your local army surplus. I was looking in the one near me and could have gotten a 10g pot with 15g steam jacket for about $80. They also had the burners for it for about $35. If you look you probably could find the same setup in larger size.

[pfooti]

Hmm, thanks for all the advice so far. Here's my next question:

Has anyone ever tried to use the same kettle for both MLT and BK? What I'm thinking is: invest in a nice 20 gal boilermaker with a false bottom (or possibly get a cheaper one, although I like the smaller diameter of the boilermakers, I think).

I can do direct fire RIMS mashing there, drain off the wort into a temporary holding vessel, clean the boilermaker, and return the wort to the boilermaker and do the actual boil. It wouldn't be a permanent solution, but it would be a pretty decent interim until I could afford a second pot. I can convert my existing 8 gal boiler to the HLT (again interim until I can afford bigger).

Does this seem like a bad idea? Maybe I should just keep saving up until I can afford to get at least 2x 20gal vessels for mashing and boiling? On the surface, it seems reasonable, but I'd hate to find out it was a terrible idea halfway through my first big batch.

[DCBC]

I have upgraded for 10 gallon twice. I currently have a 20 gallon BK, a 15 gallon HLT, and a 17.5 gallon cooler as my MLT. You can, like I did for a year, do 10 gallons on a 15 gallon BK and 10 gallon HLT, but it is a tight fit, especially with 90 minute boils. Everything got easier when I upsized.