With plenty of advice ( and answers to my dumbass questions) from SeaLevel Pete, I have started my second batch. Most folks liked the first, but I thought it had an ‘off taste’, after-taste. I think I have spent almost enough money now, and have MOST of the right equipment…
good luck on the brew. now that i finally have a mash tun and all the essentials to make 5 gallon all grain batches, i have taken a break. kegging is the way to go. set up a 2 tap keggerator with corny kegs. used to kill about 7 gallons a month, but recently been slacking.
Now, see… there you go talking about more toys that I don’t have yet… I will graduate to all grain in time, though. Did you make your turn, or buy it?
i made it from a 10 gallon round igloo water cooler. there are places that offer a kit for the bottom plate and stainless ball valve. the setup is not too expensive and keeps heat really well. i make the mash water a few degrees warmer than i need to heat up the cooler, but after mashing in, the mash will only drop about 2-3 degrees over a 90 minute mash. still havent quite figured out how to properly batch sparge without breaking up the grain bed in the bottom, so i end up with a cloudy mash but it settles out during fermentation. maybe i will make a fly sparge setup here soon to be more gentle with the grain bed.
That is a good looking rig. I have been making several types and using a small keg system. Would like to chat sometime about the odd taste.
The odd taste was likely the commercial ice I used to cool the wort, instead of having a chiller and I also used an outdoor pot on a propane burner for the boil. I now have the dedicated (new) brew pot that I can use indoors. It was a bit ‘watery’ for me too, but I think we fixed that in the recipe. Message me your number if you want to chat, or we can meet for lunch one day.
You should give CaptTang a ring a ding. He lives for this stuff and could probably help lower the learning curve.
Redfish Baron Extraordinaire
Didn’t know that… thanks. Sealevel Pete owns the Homebrew shop and he is also helpful.
To be fair, all the brewing I’ve been doing recently involve grain bills that run upwards of 1500 lbs and hop additions that are similarly measured in a ridiculous scale. 
Oh,you have stuff I will only dream of… but I will graduate to all grain when I get this down.