Aidan

Welcome to How I Brew

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Brewing began to take over my life in 1990. I quickly went to all grain and have had fun with it ever since.
Here's the basic system. The upper container is a 10 gallon SS vacuum jacketed beverage container fitted with an EZ Masher. It makes a great mash/lauter tun and holds the temps quite well. To the right is a Sanke keg with the top cut off for a boiling kettle atop a Brinkman 30-170K BTU burner. The last container to the right is another beverage container, this one is 5 gallons and holds the heated sparge water.
A detachable shelf can be mounted to provide a work surface.
I use a Corona mill powered by my son for grain grinding. A drill and drywall mud mixer make short work of mixing the grain and strike water.
Once the mash is going the sparge water is heated and pumped to the holding tank I use a magnetically coupled pump for moving the liquids and a ball valve on the outlet side controls the flow.
To supply power I use a surface mounted light switch and dual outlet. I wired it so a double male ended extension cord provides power to the outlet that the pump is plugged into. The light switch turns the pump on and off.
With the mash done sparge water is pulled from the bottom outlet of the hot water tank and pumped up to the mash tun. I currently have a cheap shower head attached to the end of the hose for spraying the sparge water onto the grain bed.
Recirculation with the EZ Masher is quick and painless, it only takes about 2 qts. A hose with an attached copper tube is used to direct the run off wort to the bottom of the kettle to reduce aeration.
An immersion chiller cools the wort after the boil. The run off is directed into a wheel barrow and the water is used for clean up or watering the garden.
I allow the chilled wort to settle for an hour before transferring to the carboy. Here the hoses are being sanitized by circulating an iodophor solution.
Happy yeast are a necessity! I normally step up my starters 3-4 times depending on the batch size and gravity. Here's a liter ready to pitch.
Once the yeast is pitched an O2 tank makes quick work of oxygenation.

That's all their is to it folks! I would like to thank Ace who provided much of this equipment, Dave for doing the work posting this material and Skot who brought us all together.


Happy Brewing!