r/Homebrewing • u/CrushableStetson • Aug 09 '26
Question Advice on ordering new equipment
I have been out of the game for about 5 years and only recently started brewing again. I want to upgrade my equipment but am feelimg a little overwhelmed so have come here for advice.
I am not a member of a club, wouldn't be too technical when brewing and would like to keep it reasonably simple if I can. I tend to order ready mixed recipes, would be pretty casual with measuring gravities, don't own a mill etc.
My current set up is a peco boiler with temperature control. I have a coil to rapidly reduce temperature and do nothing fancy on the bottling set up. The fermenting buckets are all standard 25/30L buckets also.
I have done 5 brews since I got back and enjoyed them but I know I want to upgrade now.
I would like to upgrade to an all in one system that allows for better/more efficient sparging, more efficient bottling and minimises the amount of bits that are left at the end of the bottles. I would ideally like to be able to make smaller batches too. I mostly make 18-20l batches now and that can be a bit too much.
What I have looked at so far suggests I should change the boiler and get a new fermenter and if people have recommendations for that I'm all ears. Also open to suggestions for other areas/pieces.
It just seems like there is so much new equipment out there since I did this last. My intention is to have the equipment for a few years so I don't want to get something and immediately wish I knew about something else.
Any help/advice is welcome and thanks in advance.
Edit: Thanks to everyone for the advice; I feel I have a better grasp of it now. FWIW, I think I will be going in the direction of the Grainfather G30, owing to what people said and what is available where I am.
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u/LaphroaigianSlip81 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
I use the anvil foundry. I have used other all in one systems that friends have had. They all do about the same so it’s really a matter of what features you want that might not be standard with each specific brand. But I know anvil has 3 different sizes. One for 2.5-3 gallons, 5-6 gallons and 10 gallons. I use the 5 gallon one.
I will say that if you can, get an all in one that has the capability to use higher electrical voltage. I’m in the US and at my old apartment I would be forced to use the regular wall socket for power. I made some award winning beers there. Once I moved to a spot with a better designated brewing spot, I am able to use the 220 outlet and heat the water and increase temps a lot faster.
Couple this with the fact that I can set my anvil the night before to turn on an hour before I want to brew and I show up and the water is right at the temp to mash in. Compared to when I was using propane I’d have to wait to heat up all the water and then be slow about increase temps to prevent scorching. So it would take 6-7 hours for a brew day including cleanup. With the preset and the 220 power, I can brew a single infusion mash beer and be cleaned up in 4.5 hours.
Plus you can do a lot of adjustments to your system and process. Each system comes with a booklet that tells you how to use the system. It will give you ratios and how much water to use. I wouldn’t put too much stock into this. I followed this for the first couple of brews but ended up having efficiencies in the 60s and 50s.
Here are the specific changes and things I do to easily and consistently hit the upper 70s and lower 80s in efficiency.
- water to grain ratios. Read palmers book or use a brewing software to give you the right ratio for the beer style you are brewing. I found that these all in one systems seem to use more water than ideal in the mash and a lot less for the sparge. Dial this in and you will get better conversion and better efficiency.
- get a brewing bag and double mill your grain. But the bag in your grain basket. You will need to supplement with rice hulls since double milling destroys the husks and will cause you to gum everything up if you don’t use rice hulls. Double milling allows you to access the start he’s a lot easier.
- if I am making a big beer and a lot of grains are used, I will try to stay under 13-14 pounds of grain. If I need to go over, I do the math and swap out base malt with extract to stay below 13 pounds. This helps a lot and nobody can tell the difference.
- I use a circulation pump. I don’t turn it on until the mash has steeped for 20mins. Just to make sure all the grains and rice hills have absorbed wort and can keep everything from gumming up.
- once I start recirculating, I will stop and mix up the top 20% of the grains in the basket. Don’t mix too deep as this will disturb your grain bed and can cause you to get stuck. Some people say that they even will lift the basket out of the kettle and let it drain several times during the brew to make sure they are getting proper circulation. I really only do this when I am not using a lot of adjuncts as pulling out the liquid without sparging has gotten me stuck before.
- water chemistry and mash PH in particular is going to have a massive impact on efficiency. An electronic ph meter that you can calibrate and test will likely give you the biggest upgrade in your brewing quality. Also make chemistry additions to sparge water.
- sparge as slow as possible. It’s harder to do this on these all in one systems. I have an anvil and my brother has one. We use one for brewing and one for sparge. After mashing out at 168°F, we move the recirc pump to the kettle with sparge water. This kettle is elevated. We then pull out the grain basket and immediately pump the water into the top of the basket before too much wort can be pulled out and create a vacuum. Pumping the sparge water cleans the pump. We usually will just fill all the sparge water into the top of the basket and let it drain naturally. When we get close to our desired pre boil volume, we readjust the brew bag and see an increase of wort draining out. Veteran homebrewers will claim this extracts tannins. This is old science that has been debunked.
- after the wort draining from the basket slows down, we press on the bag to keep releasing liquid until we hit our desired volume.
- I use a hop spider to reduce the amount of hops that makes it into the fermenter. My brother bought a whirlpool arm to collect hop particles in the bottom and prevent them from getting in the fermenter. Either one works. I just like the hop spider because it’s easier to clean and less moving parts.
Again, I like anvil but have used clawhammer and grainfather. They are all about the same. Just pick the one with options you like and make adjustments as you see fit to improve your own process.
Good luck!
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u/CrushableStetson Aug 10 '26
Just to say thank you for going to all this effort. It was really helpful.
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u/BartholomewSchneider Aug 09 '26
BIAB full volume mash can be a very simple and efficient way to go. A stainless steel kettle that fits your desired volume, enough room for the full mash volume plus extra room for boiling.
I looked up the peco boiler, have never seen this before. You mash and boil in a plastic container, or just mash?
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u/CrushableStetson Aug 09 '26
Mash and boil. One of the design flaws is that the bag always gets caught in the element. You have to place like metal colander over it or eithe the bag bursts through heat or it gets caught under the element and you risk damaging both it and the bucket. It was great initially but it has done its time
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u/AJ_in_SF_Bay Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
Hey there u/CrushableStetson. Several years ago, I found myself in a somewhat similar situation. I have been a homebrewer for many years and used to do the outdoor setup with huge 15-gallon keggles and propane burners. I found that I wanted to go all electric, with easy Bluetooth controls and smaller batches in an AIO.
You didn't specify a budget or where you are. I am in a major metropolitan area in the US, so I searched Facebook Marketplace before considering new gear. So far, I've spent pennies on the dollar as I have been upgrading.
I know that many people will have opinions on AIO ecosystems, but I purchased a Grainfather system. It's fantastic for me. I don't have problems with clogging or stuck sparges, and I have been brewing about every other week or so, give or take, because I can make 4 or 5 gallon batches. I lose a bit to hot break, etc., but it doesn't matter all that much. I don't miss the giant ~10 gallon keggle batches, as I drink so much less than I used to, really.
The Grainfather came with the copper alembic dome in like-new condition, which is fantastic. It also has the counterflow wort chiller that I've used a few times, but I like that the AIO systems (any brand at this 8ish-gallon capacity, really) let me use my longstanding stainless immersion chiller.
My Grainfather G30 cost me $100 US all in, with all these accessories. It's small, not new tech whatsoever, but works well for me. I don't need the newest and best and was happy to save a couple grand (AIO, copper alembic, chiller, and some other random gear I took that day; it was the person's entire homebrewing gear).
Edit to say this was an unusually good deal. These are normally still going for many times this price used ($400+), but the deals really seem to be where homebrewers are leaving the hobby and have a "must take all" sale. This is fine with me. I gave away some extra items to friends, and donated others to Goodwill. But there are really good deals out there regardless.
However, you could buy new if you want to.
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u/CrushableStetson Aug 09 '26
This is just great advice thanks for taking the time to write that out. I had been looking at Brewzilla but the grainfather looks a serious operation too.
I am in Europe and would likely need to go new but I'm okay with that but I will definitely give marketplace a go first.
Thanks again.
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u/chino_brews Aug 09 '26
all in one system that allows for better/more efficient sparging, more efficient bottling and minimises the amount of bits that are left at the end of the bottles
All in one system (AIO) refers to something like the Grainfather G30 where it is an electronic BIAB system, the mashing and sparging is done in the electric boil kettle, and more often than not you have some digital control over the heating element and some form mash recirculation.
Unfortunately, an AIO won’t do any of those three goals you mentioned. While you can get quite good mash efficiency on AIOs, most notably the discontinued G30 v2 with some added stirring, most users find they get lower efficiency than a cooler- or standard kettle-based mash/lauter system, and in some cases can struggle back to their old efficiency. An AIO will do zero to make your bottling efficient or to reduce sediment in the bottles. For the former, think like a systems engineer and work efficiently. I will add a second comment later telling you how I minimized time to bottle. For the latter, you can’t eliminate lees, but bottling crystal clear beer is the secret to getting just a dusting of yeast in the bottle. In that second comment, I will include how I accomplish that.
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u/CrushableStetson Aug 10 '26
Thanks for the advice on this. I can probably live with the set-up I have for bottling anyway to be fair it is rarely more than 40 bottles at a time so while it would be nice it is not a major concern.
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u/towman_21 Aug 09 '26
We have a full propane setup we used for probably 12 years before I decided I was tired of brewing in the garage in the dead of winter, freezing my butt off until the garage got barely warm enough to feel my toes, and in the raging summer 100°+ days, sweating enough to sparge with (Joking, not really..). I bought an Anvil Foundry 10.5 with the upgraded (better) recirculation pump so now we brew in a nice, comfortable, 72° rear-round! The #1 reason i went with this over all other AIO units is this unit comes from the factory being able to do 120v AND 240v, you just flip a switch (depending on which voltage you use) and away you go. No needing to buy a new element, new controller, or run a 240v line (which we will, just haven't yet). We were able to brew from day 1 on 120v and upgrade at our own pace. Every other electric brewing system i saw on the market was either completely 120v (with the ability to buy 240v items later at more cost) or completely 240v.
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u/Squeezer999 Aug 09 '26
i brew on a grainfather G40 and ferment in a spike flex+
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u/CrushableStetson Aug 10 '26
Thanks for this Grainfather seems popular with people so I think I will be looking for that.
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u/OffByOne-TJ Aug 09 '26
I have an Anvil. I’ve used on 120v and 240v. This is a big difference but 120v works just fine. Just slower. I sparge but a lot of people do full volume mash which anvil can handle if that’s your thing.
I have been brewing 2-3 years and it’s been great. I’d be lying if I haven’t been eyeing the g40 though. No reason to upgrade though as mine works fine. The recirculation pump from Anvil wasn’t great. Their customer service was and they sent me a second one but I broke that too.. it’s probably user error, I got a chugger pump and that’s been awesome
I fermented in anvil bucket, glass car boy and most recently a Fermzilla all rounder with a spunding valve. All work great and I’d recommend all except glass carboy because they freak me out in case I ever dropped it.
Fermzilla under pressure fermenting a lager is pretty slick I must admit.
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u/CrushableStetson Aug 10 '26
230V is the standard voltage where I am anyway. I am definitely looking at that Fermizilla myself it nearly seems too good to be true to be honest.
Thank you for taking the time to give me a steer on it.
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u/mcfrosti69 Aug 10 '26
Dude I’m pretty much in the same boat. I took a break from 2020 to the end of 2025. The biggest thing I felt was easiest and immediately started to raise the bar of what I was brewing was focusing on the cold side of brewing.
I started with a 3 gallon keg because that was my old batch size for bottling (which I despise). That quickly moved into me acquiring 5 gallon kegs, fermenting in them, and serving from them. It’s been a massive upgrade and it’s far even far easier than fermenting in my old glass carboys.
Cheers and welcome back to the hobby!
Edit: I should mention I’m using the same Home Depot cooler and burner. That upgrade will come one day…
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u/CrushableStetson Aug 10 '26
Glad I am not the only one. I saw a few kegs when looking at bottling options yesterday and it wasn't something I considered but it seems great.
Thanks for the help.
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u/firerat82 Aug 10 '26
You can bottle off of kegs really easy. A bottle wand fits nicely into the end of a picnic tap. Put a #2 drilled bung on the wand at what ever level the wand depresses the valve at. Press down and start filling. Slowly vent the pressure by moving the bung. It takes me about 40 seconds per bottle.
Corny kegs make great fermenters, bright tanks, serving vessels, aging vessels and a closed system will eliminate any oxidation. I tend to keg then bottle what ever I want to give away or take with me somewhere.
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u/mcfrosti69 Aug 11 '26
Bottling from the keg that way is something I wish I knew the last few weeks lol.
I started using spunding valves on the corny kegs to ferment in. So far I’ve only used US-05 to ferment the few beers I’ve done but I’ve got a festbier planned that I’m doing this week and I’m doing it under pressure with a lager yeast. Seems like it’s been pretty successful from a lot of the brewing resources I pay attention to so I’m excited to give it a try.
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u/yzerman2010 BJCP Aug 10 '26
Small batch just get a pot a BIAB and a sous vide. Super simple setup to do step mash in a pot.
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u/firerat82 Aug 10 '26
I brew 4 gallon batches on an OG mash and boil ive had for almost 20 years. I rigged up a simple recirculation pump and I line the grain tube with a bag to get better efficiency.
I make 4 gallon batches so I can ferment in my corny kegs and keep the entire cold side a closed system. I have made and fermented 5 gallon batches that way, but it can get messy.
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u/TheOriginalEchoTony Aug 13 '26
The one bit of advice I can offer is if you go with an electric system, consider going 240v. 120v will be painfully slow to bring even a 5 gallon system to temperature.
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u/pearceylad Aug 14 '26
Brewtools B50 will be available soon. Sell a kidney first, you won't regret it 😜
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u/MmmmmmmBier Aug 09 '26
All AIO units do the same thing and have the same limitations, it’s just how many bells and whistles you want to pay for.
Beware the replies that state “ this is the best because it’s what I own”
Best advice is to buy what you can afford and learn how to use it.
FWIW, I use two Mash & Boil units, mash in one and batch sparge in the other. With a steam slayer and a couple cheap pumps from Amazon I have about $800 in my system.