First all grain setup suggestions

Hello, AJ, and welcome to BA. There is a Homebrewing forum that you should use for posting your question. Your question is a frequent one in that forum, so I suggest that check out the forum and read the first 3-4 pages, and you'll come across several threads with exactly your question. You can also do a search of the forum to group links of all of those threads onto one page for an enjoyable day of reading many answers and suggestions.

 

I did all grain brewing in the early 80s before there was a lot of expensive stuff to buy. Do an infusion mash and get a big ice chest - you can keep the temperature fairly steady. With luck you can find the ice chest at the Good will or the Salvation army - especially this time of year. That's your mash tun. Check out local bakeries for food grade buckets - they used to be free. Get 2 five gallon buckets. Buy a food grade faucet and insert it into the bottom bucket. for the top bucket, drill a bunch of holes in the bottom. That's your lauter tun. Works best if you can find a lauter bag. Some suppliers will grind the grain for you but get it right before you start brewing. If not I used an old corona grain grinder and it worked OK. Do you have a brew kettle? You want something around 10 gallons if you. If you can find a supplier to grind your grain this whole thing will set you back from $20 to $50 and if you like it you can spend more on fancy stuff. A lot of people now days do mini mashes - they do half an all grain batch and supplement it with extract and they do quite well with it.

 

A very cheap way to have a large kettle is to find a used keg on C-list and cut the top of it off. I think the one I've used was 25 bucks.

Welcome, by the way.

 

Two pieces of advise...

Buy a bigger kettle than the "start up" kettles you are advised to buy. You will likely want to do full wort boils soon after getting into brewing and it's one of the few early improvements I remember making that drastically improved my homebrew.

Also, don't feel pressured into buying a fancy stainless steel kettle. Cheaper aluminum ones bought online or at a restaurant supply store work fine and cost a lot less.

 

I just got started with homebrewing and I can relate to your feeling of "dizziness." When you get going and start brewing that feeling will go away. I made mine on the cheap and used this mash tun:



He lists vendors at the bottom of the video description for where you can buy everything. Its inexpensive and relatively easy to put together. I used a 10 gallon cooler. I bought a turkey frier for my boil kettle. I literally have the least expensive setup possible, but I'm anxious to upgrade because it is a lot of work and limits what I am able to make, but my first two beers (a Pliny clone and a Hefeweizen) turned out great using this setup! I hope this helps you.

 

I just made my own mash tun for about $50. All parts were bought on Amazon but I'm sure you could get them at Home Depot and for cheaper. Here are the instructions I followed: http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/mashtun.htm

And here's how I made mine: https://imgur.com/a/gu4BP

 

I'll second the cylindrical picnic cooler mash tun. For starting out, it's cheap, it holds temperature extremely well, it has a smaller footprint than a chest-type cooler, and holds as much grain and water as you'll (probably) ever need for brewing 5 gallon batches.

I would recommend a 10 gallon brew kettle minimum; I have a 7.5 gallon kettle, and I boil 7 gallons for a batch, and it's dangerously close to boiling over for the first 15 minutes or so of the boil. The extra volume really helps you relax.

 

This, except go 9-10 gallon brew kettle, thus you can actually expand to 10 gallon batches if needed in future w/ limited top up water in fermenter. http://www.homebrewing.org/2-Weld-9-Gallon-Stainless-Steel-Brew-Pot-_p_1684.html (w/ option for thermometer & ball valve)

I made a DYI version of this - http://morebeer.com/products/cooler-10-gal-mash-tun.html basically $50 for cooler at Home Depot, $50 for false bottom, and $15 or so dollars for valve parts and thick high temp food grade plastic tubing (to connect false bottom to valve to prevent collapsing/stuck sparge)

 

This is truly awful advice.

It fails to account for the legions of new brewers who tried but decided they weren't really all that much interested in this odyssey and were then stuck with the sunk costs of "bigger than start up equipment"?

 

Make sure that you know what you want when you buy it so that you only ever have to buy it ONCE.

 

How many of us knew what we wanted when we started down this path to ruin?