All grain

[boab42stout]

Hi all,
Just joined the site as i enjoy brewing beer and making wine from time to time,most of my beers are from kits which are ok but i am gathering all grain equipment.This sites members seem to know a lot about brewing so i thought this would be a great place to start.
Happy thermenting everyone :

 

[31bb3]

Welcome to the forum loads of information on here

 

[pittsy]

hi and welcome to the forum.

 

[carl_saint]

Hi and welcome! Plenty of knowledge on here!

 

[wilsoa1111]

good luck with going allgrain when u do though, prepare to lose the weekends in a brewing haze, and if not too fussed about efficency me and a mate did a BIAB wheat at his place and got a pretty respectable 60% efficency, just used some net curtain and a bog standard coolbox and alot of big pots and two kettles... better his fuel bill than mine :rofl:
fyi build the boiler first it is v useful

sadly at the end he decided he would rather pay the few extra quid for extract than do all the messing about, just wait i'll turn him to the darkside yet, provided it tastes better than his bavarian weissbeer dry kit (unfortunately we buggered up the hop additions and mine may be a bit bitter for a wheat and lacking in abv (only 4.2%) :cry: - still it will be a third of the cost and uses proper yeast i got from a previous wheat brew

 

[wigwamheed]

Welcome. I've also just done my first at brew. (Though never did the kit route, thought I'd jump in at the deep end). Only advice I can give is do tonnes of research, read as many posts and articles by experienced brewers as possible and try to learn, not only what you,re doing but why. That way on brew day you'll feel as though u been doing it for years and if anything goes wrong you'll have an idea how to correct it. I found the most nerve wracking part to be bottling day and that was mainly because I hadn't researched it enough ( mostly because its boring). Just remember its all in the preparation. It'll be fun regardless though.

 

[boab42stout]

Thanks to everyone for the replies on the all grain subject,i find it very interesting due to the fact that its all done by hand and theres so many diferent recipes and malts and hops too choose from and also so many diferent beer styles.
Have been spending a lot of time researching the subject and equipment needed i just have a 40 litre stainless steel buffalo boiler at the moment.
Mash tun still gathering bits for that yet and trying to figure out the best manifold design im going to keep things simple.
I am in the process of trying to build a yeast stir plate and also a wort chiller.
The main thing i think thats most important in homebrew is sharing knowledge and sharind the end product which is a nice drop a cold beer.

 

[fbsf]

I use a big net curtain bag in a 25L Fermenter as my mash tun, just fill it with the required water, bung the bag in, sprinkle and stir the grain in, lid on and wrap it in a duvet. Over 9 hours yesterday I only lost 6°C and got an efficiency of around 75%.

So it doesn't have to involve new shiny kit....unless of course you want it to :party:

 

[boab42stout]

Hi there thanks for your reply i will try and keep it all simple i see you have some wine on the go i have elderflower,pear, and some rosehip wine bottled it tastes pretty good ps hope your wine does well too

 

[fbsf]

Likewise!

Yeah, I've normally got a couple of gallons of wine on the go. My passion is more the beer side of things, as its what I prefer to drink, but as the missus likes rose wines, it's no biggy to keep a couple of gallons of juice wines in the DJs, normally a litre of red grape juice, and then a litre of something else (or a mix of others). They are so simple to do and always turn out great.

As I mentioned, you don't have to keep it simple - I'd love to have a 3-vessel shiny setup, but space and money precludes it at the moment as i'd need to get plumbing and some hefty electrics into the garage, not counting the cost of the shiny!

I'll just stick with my plastic buckets, big grain bag and plastic FV-based boiler for now - it always produces lovely beer, and can be shoved away in the shed when it's not being used!

 

[pittsy]

The 1 main advantage with stainless steel pots etc is if looked after should never need replacing unless you go bigger lol

 

[boab42stout]

I also like to make wines i have some in dehmijhons a pear and also a elderflower,hopefully this year we will get some good weather and get a nice crop of elderflowers and berrys.
Another wine we have recently done was a rosehip syrup wine by jj berry its very quick and easy and tastes great the gf loves it.
Beer is great to as you have a quick turn around and it doesnt take long to do if you do a kit and theres so many now.
All grain is a bit daunting but its exciteing to im hoping to get a mash tun made soon,then a wart chiller but i myself dont have room for big huge pots so il be keeping my stuff to minumum.
When it comes to beer i think good ingredients and good yeast temperature control and experemantain with diferent ingredieants are all part of the fun.