What's your all-grain setup?

[Will_D]

Just think that the more Grainfathers are bought by existing AG brewers the the more pre-owned/much brewed/much loved/fully debugged AG systems will be up for sale

[jackflash]

Is it worth setting up a 10 gallon system? I mean, by the time I've given a few samplers away I don't have all that much left out of a 5 gallon batch! What's the down side of going large?

[Qs]

Takes longer or more power to heat 10 gal. Apart from that I don't see much of a downside.

[Hop Bomb]

Biggest pain in the hole with 10 gallon or bigger is yeast. If you like using liquid cultures you've to grow twice as much. I found myself just splitting batches with a different yeast in each. Or if Im lazy Il just use dried or a re pitch.

[darren996]

I have a 60 litre plastic bin, 2 2.7kw elements a bag and a 32 plate chiller. I went from kits to all grain kits from hbc etc... 4 hour brew day

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Downsides:
Length of time to heat to strike usually means no brewing on a school night, without setting timer plugs/ thermostats etc.

Beyond 25L batches you need extra gear like pumps hoists etc. your muscles and back are no good anymore.

You will probably need more equipment, like a proper mill. Decent pumps, silicone hose etc.

[Paul B]

Lots more biab setups than I thought

[mcooney]

27 Liter electric urn with thermostat and bag. Grainfather in a few months I reckon.

https://www.kochstar.de/en/preserver-mulled-wine-boiler/warmmaster-deluxe-stainless-steel/warmmaster-deluxe-ea

[Hop Bomb]

Here is the evolution of my setup to date. Still have to get the control panel wired up & the herms pot running. What a great hobby!

http://imgur.com/fQcOI0N

[Jay Dee]

I'd say for every homebrewer there's a slightly different type of brew system.  Usually dictated by space and budget.
Here's my 3-tier.  Lots of room for improvement with a bit more cash thrown at it.
What you don't see in the photos is the PID temp controller which regulates the element in the HLT- works a treat.  If you check out the electric brewery you'll see an example of a system with many PID temp controllers.  Over time i'll add more to my system.

Each to his own really.

[Keg]

Peco boiler with thermostat, used for BIAB, and a FV bucket with tap. Basic enough but it does the job!

[neoanto]

Wow JayDee, that is a quality setup!

I'm using a 25ltr drinks cooler as a MLT, which I have further insulated.
I drain that into an empty fermentation vat.
I do my boil in a 30 ltr burco boiler which i also use to heat the sparge water (thats why I have to drain the wort from the MLt to the FV).

I've only done 2 all grain batches so far, so its grand at the moment.
I would like some sort of mechanism to raise up the containers so I dont have to lift them the whole time!

[Jay Dee]

Cheers Neoanto.  To be honest , it's far from perfect and has loads of room for improvement.  For example, if I take my eye off the ball, I can get unwanted temperature fluctuations during the mash.  Whereas, with your cooler MLT you can get excellent stability with the mash temp once you nail the strike temp.  Mine might looks nice and shiney but Hop bomb's system above would work a lot better. 
As I said before, it's what you can afford.  Mine probably cost around 3 or 4 hundred.  Stainless steel fittings and valves cost a fair bit.  Built the frame for feck all once I learned to stick metal together (I wouldn't go so far as to call what I did actual welding).  Paid a stainless steel welder for a few hours work on a mates rate.  I regretted getting the PID from china, I ended up getting a second one that actually worked from the uk quite cheaply.
It's making good beer but i've yet to make great beer.  That is more than likely to do with water chemistry and the post mash process.  I'll get there yet.
Good luck.

[Bubbles]

Biggest pain in the hole with 10 gallon or bigger is yeast. If you like using liquid cultures you've to grow twice as much. I found myself just splitting batches with a different yeast in each. Or if Im lazy Il just use dried or a re pitch.

I'll probably never move to a 10 gal system, as I just wouldn't get through beer that quickly and I like brewing lots of different styles of beer, but I had never considered the yeast requirements when moving to a bigger batch size tbh. I don't particularly like the hassle of making starters, and certainly don't want to have to step up starters. Cheers for that.