Looking to advance and looking for advice

[DaveJA]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and was looking for some advice on moving on with brewing beer.

I have made beer a couple of times before for parties and for some cheap Christmas drinks, I have only used the Coopers malt extract tins and the beer ended up in a barrel. I had what I thought were good results and have been wanting to try using an All Grain Beer kit.

I've had my eye on kits like these, http://www.brewstore.co.uk/us-ipa-4-5l-all-grain-beer-kit, and am looking to get more into making beer than putting everything into a large bucket and waiting. I was thinking a small kit to begin with to find my feet and to bottle it or use the MiniKegs.

I was trying to find instructions for that kit but wasn't sure if what I found was correct, can anyone help with what I would need and a link to the instructions?

Any advice would be great.

Thanks in advance,

Dave :

 

[MyQul]

This thread has got many a forumite into all grain. You dont have to read the whole thread just the first post. The rest of the thread is comment and questions

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51779

 

[Irishwizard]

why don't you try this??....
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU9QNtMokxA&t=752s[/ame]
or any of his recipes

 

[chewie]

At £13 for 8 pints i wouldn't be to bothered about that kit, go with the Clibit thread on BIAB as MyQ says and maybe look to buy a pre prepared all grain kit from homebrewcompany or GEB that will give you 40 pints for about 10-20 quid, you can do half now and half later if you don't have equipment enough to do a full 5 gallon batch in one go.

http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/all-grain-mash-kits-c-191.html or https://www.geterbrewed.com/all-grain-ingredient-boxes/ There are other websites that offer similar so do take a look round and go with one that takes your fancy but DO get value for money, you can get a full 25kg sack of grain for around £20 + delivery which in theory would make about 200 pints of 5% abv beer, i wouldn't consider £13 for 8 pints value.

A peco boiler, a home made variant of it or a large stock pot plus a large BIAB bag is pretty much all the extra you would essentially need over and above what you will already have for making kits.

 

[Sandimas]

Another recommendation for the Clibit thread, got me started in AG.

You can either do a 1 gallon brew or step it up to 2 gallons and probably still do it with your exiting kitchen equiment. Keep it simple: base malt, maybe a bit of crystal malt and a single hop, and you'll be off. :thumb:

 

[DaveJA]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll have a read through the links and make a decision of what to do. I'll shop around for a better value kit, I think I was looking more for something to make a small batch rather than the price of it.

 

[Clint]

I do part mashes. ...15 litre pot from wilko with a £6 grain bag. Use about 3 litres of water per kg of grain..you can squeeze around 3/4 kg in I use water at around 79°c for mashing in as the grain cools it to the 65 needed,wrap in a couple of thick towels. The bag is then squeezed to death over the pot I rest it on a shelf nicked out of my cooker...and get some thick rubber gloves for this bit. For the sparge I boil around 5 kettles of water during the last half hour of the mash and tip into an empty fv...this cools sufficiently by the time I need it. I sparge slowly with a small jug ending up with around 13 litres in the boiler. My recipes are worked out using the Greg Hughes book and the calculator for 23 litre batch. Any missing abv is added to the wort after chilling with malt extract or sugar then topped up to 23 litres with tap water. My efficiency has risen from low sixties you high seventies average is around 72%. It works,it's cheap and can be done in an average kitchen. When using the calculator omit any abv addition from the recipe when doing the hop calcs as it throws the ibu out..then add your malt extract to tweak abv. You can also enter your current efficiency to help.

Cheers

Clint

 

[terrym]

Another recommendation for the Clibit thread, got me started in AG.

Ah, former member clibit.
Gone but not forgotten. :thumb:

 

[chewie]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll have a read through the links and make a decision of what to do. I'll shop around for a better value kit, I think I was looking more for something to make a small batch rather than the price of it.

There is nothing wrong with starting small but it takes about the same time to make 5 litres as 23 litres, buying stuff now geared towards small batch will mean further expense if you want to go bigger and with bigger pots etc you can always still make small batches.

Do plenty of research and look at youtube vids as well for an idea of stuff in use and what other brewers are saying about there equipment and don't be afraid to ask questions, someone will always be along with advice, also never take what anyone says as gospel as everyone has there own way of doing things and what works for one person may not work for another.

 

[MyQul]

There is nothing wrong with starting small but it takes about the same time to make 5 litres as 23 litres, buying stuff now geared towards small batch will mean further expense if you want to go bigger and with bigger pots etc you can always still make small batches.

Do plenty of research and look at youtube vids as well for an idea of stuff in use and what other brewers are saying about there equipment and don't be afraid to ask questions, someone will always be along with advice, also never take what anyone says as gospel as everyone has there own way of doing things and what works for one person may not work for another.

I disagree. I did a 7L brew this evening which took me 2 hours, including milling the grain and treating the water, which I normally do the eve before with 23L brews as it takes so long. Admittedly I only did a 30 min mash/30 min boil but even if I did 60/60 it would only add an hour. My 23L brew normally take much longer than 3 hours (normally 5 hours not including milling and water treating)

 

[chewie]

I disagree. I did a 7L brew this evening which took me 2 hours, including milling the grain and treating the water, which I normally do the eve before with 23L brews as it takes so long. Admittedly I only did a 30 min mash/30 min boil but even if I did 60/60 it would only add an hour. My 23L brew normally take much longer than 3 hours (normally 5 hours not including milling and water treating)

I guess if you go to those those extremes 5 hours would be about right, my water ticks all the boxes for ale/stout so i just use it straight outta the tap with only a basic filter in between, i buy grain precrushed so no time spent there either as GEB have the same price for either.

A GF brewday is 4 hours for 23 litres with 1 hour mash and boil, so only 1 hour more compared to a 7l if boiled/mashed for the same time, most of that extra 1 hour is heating the mash water up and the time to boil and i feel that taking that extra hour for a gain of an extra 16l or so is more than worth it as it's only 1 cleanup rather than 3 separate clean up's for a smaller 7-8l batch. Off course not everyone has the available time and space needed for larger bits and pieces too which helps make us all that little bit more unique in our individual setup's.

 

[Leon103]

At £13 for 8 pints i wouldn't be to bothered about that kit, go with the Clibit thread on BIAB as MyQ says and maybe look to buy a pre prepared all grain kit from homebrewcompany or GEB that will give you 40 pints for about 10-20 quid, you can do half now and half later if you don't have equipment enough to do a full 5 gallon batch in one go.

http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/all-grain-mash-kits-c-191.html or https://www.geterbrewed.com/all-grain-ingredient-boxes/ There are other websites that offer similar so do take a look round and go with one that takes your fancy but DO get value for money, you can get a full 25kg sack of grain for around £20 + delivery which in theory would make about 200 pints of 5% abv beer, i wouldn't consider £13 for 8 pints value.

A peco boiler, a home made variant of it or a large stock pot plus a large BIAB bag is pretty much all the extra you would essentially need over and above what you will already have for making kits.

Good advice but most of those kits you can't split due to all the grain being in one bag.

 

[chewie]

Good advice but most of those kits you can't split due to all the grain being in one bag.

Tip the bag out, give it a dam good mix up and weigh it into two equal amounts, split any hops likewise, the second batch could be put straight onto the trub after the first batch is racked of it. Any discrepancy with the grain being mismatched is minimal and in any event you would end up with two slightly different beers if it was excessive so not really a problem.

 

[trueblue]

Can't go wrong with this kit https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=852

 

[MyQul]

I guess if you go to those those extremes 5 hours would be about right, my water ticks all the boxes for ale/stout so i just use it straight outta the tap with only a basic filter in between, i buy grain precrushed so no time spent there either as GEB have the same price for either.

A GF brewday is 4 hours for 23 litres with 1 hour mash and boil, so only 1 hour more compared to a 7l if boiled/mashed for the same time, most of that extra 1 hour is heating the mash water up and the time to boil and i feel that taking that extra hour for a gain of an extra 16l or so is more than worth it as it's only 1 cleanup rather than 3 separate clean up's for a smaller 7-8l batch. Off course not everyone has the available time and space needed for larger bits and pieces too which helps make us all that little bit more unique in our individual setup's.

The heating up of the mash liquor and boil is where the time differences occur between doing a 7L brew and a 23L brew. For my 7L brews, clean up is hardly anything. Because the amounts (grain & liquor) are so small I can do full volume mashes so no need to sparge, so less to clean up. I only really have the grain bag to rinse and pot to clean

Electric all-in-one systems are great for speed of heating up the liquor and wort and the GF is such a great system from what I've read. I'd love one. But just to go back to the OP, I'm guessing he's not going to go straight out and buy a GF or other all in one system (although people do), so may be interested in the most basic and primitive system (and therefore cheapest), such as I use.

As for milling, I never know when I'm going to brew. I just do it when I can be bothered to. I also dont know whether I'm going to do a 23L brew or a 7L brew and often do a spur of the moment brew (especially the 7L brews as they take 2 hours tops from milling to clean up). So having a 25kg sack of unmilled grain means I know it's not going to go off, lose efficiency, etc or anything.

As you say, we all have individual set ups to suit our individual brewing needs (still wish I could afford a GF though)

 

[fourbob]

+1 for the disciples of the Clibit method!

If you are interested in brewing this is a great introduction and makes the processes really simple. As many others have done, I got started with the Wilko stockpot. If you've got a local hombrew shop that'll sell you a couple of kilos of crushed grain (maris otter or similar), a pack of hops and a pack of yeast, then your away.

Once you've had a go and decided whether you enjoy it (the process and the end product) then you can always look to scale up, you'll have a better idea of what brewing set-up you'd want to aim for, and you can take advantage of some of the great prices for ingredients that on-line retailers offer.

 

[Slid]

I do part mashes. ...15 litre pot from wilko with a ��£6 grain bag. Use about 3 litres of water per kg of grain..you can squeeze around 3/4 kg in I use water at around 79°c for mashing in as the grain cools it to the 65 needed,wrap in a couple of thick towels. The bag is then squeezed to death over the pot I rest it on a shelf nicked out of my cooker...and get some thick rubber gloves for this bit. For the sparge I boil around 5 kettles of water during the last half hour of the mash and tip into an empty fv...this cools sufficiently by the time I need it. I sparge slowly with a small jug ending up with around 13 litres in the boiler. My recipes are worked out using the Greg Hughes book and the calculator for 23 litre batch. Any missing abv is added to the wort after chilling with malt extract or sugar then topped up to 23 litres with tap water. My efficiency has risen from low sixties you high seventies average is around 72%. It works,it's cheap and can be done in an average kitchen. When using the calculator omit any abv addition from the recipe when doing the hop calcs as it throws the ibu out..then add your malt extract to tweak abv. You can also enter your current efficiency to help.

Cheers

Clint

This is a good approach to make very acceptable beer indeed. I used about 2.75kg of mash-needing grains, plus wort from steeping grains like Crystal, Chocolate, Roast Barley etc and then added the wort to a kit (usually a Coopers Kit) right at the end, plus any sugar etc to get to OG.

My further tips are:

Many ovens will hold the 15L pot and at the lowest setting (50C) will maintain a mashing temp better than insulation. Plus, a good stir at 30mins means less risk of losing heat.

Mashing out at 75C is easy if you put the pot back on the stove and stir it over a medium heat until it gets up to 75C or so.

It is possible to do a dunk sparge with this method, by using the bag inside the FV to collect the grain in the bag and half the wort in the FV, whilst hot water is added to the pot for the grains to be dunked when the temps are correct.

 

[Clint]

Thanks for the tips! And I can agree on the acceptable beer.. once you get your methods sorted and work out what your kit will do a brew day becomes quite easy. My American wheat and cerveza are very good! The sample jar from my recent user upper pale ale was very promising...another order looming...more pales you do..a black ipa; then a stout.
I still have designs on a gf....the stealth radar is under construction. ...