To Urn Or Not To Urn?

[Drunk Az]

http://Hi,

I am just getting into home brewing and have done a couple of kit brew which has been great fun but Im looking to get into all grain brewing in the near future and have a couple of questions regarding equipment.

From reading books and surfing the net it would appear that BIAB with a 40L electric urn is a fairly simple, easy way to get into all-grain brewing, my question is can an electric urn be used for 3 vessel brewing as well if in the future I want to down this track? Also I like the idea of the Crown concealed element urn for cleaning etc. but does that have enough grunt to boil the wort properly? Am I better off going for a gas burner and large stock pot - what are the pros and cons for electric Vs. Gas?

Im sorry if this has asked a thousand times before but Im new to all of this and if possible I would like to buy this gear once and then just keep slowly adding while I go rather than having to buy a whole new set of gear in 6 12 months time if I decide that 3V is for me. Im not after cool gadgets and bling just a simple, easy to use (and clean!), reliable set up that can be added to as time goes on.

Cheers, Az.

 

[thylacine]

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...mp;#entry507852

 

[soundawake]

Yeah read that above.

I can vouch for an urn.. I started doing BIAB with gas and two pots, and switched to a 40L exposed element urn. Its just so easy.

 

[Bribie G]

If you ever go 3v you can use the urn either as a hot liquor tun (hot water) or as a boiler. Or you can do a 2 vessel system: mash in the urn, transfer the mash to a lauter tun for sparging and run the wort back into the urn for boiling.

Or you can simply use it in the one process as a hot liquor tun, mash tun and boiler with BIAB anyway B)

 

[Drunk Az]

Thanks everyone for their advice - I really appreciate it. Looks like I'll be buying a 40L Crown urn soon! :drinks: