Simple All Grain

[Callumbo]

Hi guys

I recently did my first all grain with inspiration from clibit's all grain post and I asked loads of questions and was given loads of helpful advice. As promised I have put together all the stuff I did with pictures to help new all grain brewers.

So here we go.

It's a simple bitter recipe. I'll include the exact recipe and will try and cover the equipment but i do apologise if I have missed anything so feel free to ask questions.

My recipe was:
1.95kg Marris otter
200 grams crystal malt
25 grams fuggles hops (70min-15g and 30min-10g)
Jack mangrove empire ale yeast
1 protafloc tablet

Equipment:
18 litre aluminium stock pot which I fitted a metal tap on but this is optional but easy to do.
Mash bag for grains and smaller bag for hops. I made these from Sioux curtains that I stitched together.
Kitchen scales
Metal cake rack (looks like a BBQ grill)
Colander
Mixing bowl for grains
Very large mixing bowl
No rinse steriliser
Spray bottle
Thermometer, I used electronic and metal type
Hygrometer and beaker for sample
Glass to rehydrate yeast
Jugs
2, 5litre water bottles. With holes drilled in for air locks
Air locks

Firstly. Clean and sterilise everything. Im not going into depth with this as it's covered everywhere on this site and books. If you don't do it properly you will have bad beer.

Yeast!
Rehydrate that stuff. Sterilise the packet and scissors. Boil some water and let it cool to 20c and then put the yeast in. Put some cling film on this and leave it to one side. By the time your done and ready to use this it should be nice and foamy.

Now to the brew
Using my stock pot I brought 6 litres of water to 75c



While this was heating up I boiled a little water in a smaller pan and put my grain bags in to sterilise them.


Then I grabbed my grains


And measured all of them out. You can do this separately but I chucked them all in to the same bowl.



Now my grain bags are boiling and my temperature in the stock pot should be about 75c. So I take my grain bag and put it in the stock pot and secured it around the edges of the pot and poured the grains in the bag. Giving them a good stir and breaking up any lumps. The temp should reach around 65c and you'll want to keep it at this temp for an hour.


When checking the temp of the pot make sure to check the temp in the grains not the surrounding wurt. It's the grain temp that matters. Then I wrapped up the pot.


Then I check the temp every 15minutes. I kept some boiling water and cold water to hand so I could adjust it as necessary.

After an hour I drained the wurt into a separate pot and left it to one side for the moment. (Smells amazing)


I then pulled the grain bag out and into a big bowl to sit for the moment.


I then heated up 8 litres of water to 80c. And put the grain bag back in the stock pot for 10mins. From what I have read this is effectively like sparging and changing the enzymes of the grain and getting the last of the wurt out of it.

After 10 minutes you pull out the grain bag and put it back into your large bowl. Then the collected wurt from earlier gets added back to the stock pot. I then got my grill and put it on top of the stock pot and then put the grain bag on top of this. This dripping method will get most of the liquid out of the grain bag if left long enough. I would like to also add that if you have a strong enough bag you could give it a squeeze but as it happened my stock pot was way to full to warrant a squeeze. I wish I had taken a picture of this but I hope you can picture it.

Take an sg reading. This preboil gravity can help you to estimate the og. But not really a mandatory step for newbies like me.

Now comes the boil.
All the grains have been drained and can be thrown away. As the wurt is reaching the boil you want to measure your hops and put them in a hop bag. The boil is achieved at roughly 110c. Keep a lid on the pot while it heats up but remember to take off when boil starts.


A foam, as above, will start to form. I had to whisk the hell out of it to stop it boiling over due to my stock pot being so full.


When a rolling boil is achieved you can start your boil timer. I boiled it for 70 mins. You want to add your first load of hops at this point 15grams fuggles.


Then you add 10g fuggles at 30mins. I only had 1hop bag so had to scoop it out and undo the knot then add more hops. Next time I'll use 2hop bags rather than faffing.

Add protafloc tablet at 2mins

When it had boiled for 70mins the volume had dropped by an inch and a half from the top of the pot.

I put the stock pot in the sink with cold water to drop the temp quickly-ish. In hind sight I would freeze some water bottles the night before to put in the sink as well. The water needed to be cooled to 20c and it took me changing the water 5 times to get the desired temp. Took about an hour.

Take an og reading. This will tell you the abv when your beer is done.

Then I transported the wurt to my 5litre water bottles and added my yeast with an airlock.


Baboom I'm done and just loads of cleaning to get done. It took me 6hours to do all this. But I'm hoping to get this down to 3hours with practice.

This is just what I did. Im not saying its the best way and fool proof but it's what I did and I'm now waiting for the results in my bottles. I'll post again when I get to drink it.

I would also like to thank everyone that has given me tips on this. You really helped me a lot. I've got the bug and I'll be brewing again very soon.

 

[Brightonnik]

Well done. Looks like you had a good brew day with very few hiccups.

 

[Callumbo]

Well done. Looks like you had a good brew day with very few hiccups.

Cheers. The only real hiccups came when the FV's over flowed a little for the first couple of days. But after cleaning the air locks out they were fine

 

[pms67]

Looks super mate,im doing my first all grain this week,a 19l biab.
Well done

 

[comicbrew]

amazing post. love the pics.

 

[comicbrew]

I have commandeered a ex-water cooler 19 litre plastic carboy. Going to ferment a strong winter ale soon. I have a good cork bung and airlock. Here goes....

I'm thinking:
maris otter 6kg
crystal 500g
torrefied wheat 300g
chocolate malt 300g
roasted barley 200g

chinook; citra and Columbus hops????

 

[Callumbo]

I have commandeered a ex-water cooler 19 litre plastic carboy. Going to ferment a strong winter ale soon. I have a good cork bung and airlock. Here goes....

I'm thinking:
maris otter 6kg
crystal 500g
torrefied wheat 300g
chocolate malt 300g
roasted barley 200g

chinook; citra and Columbus hops????

Sounds good. Since making this post I've also got hold of 19litre cool box as well. I've just fitted a tap on it which I'll doing my initial mash in next time.

Are you planning on making a 5 gallon batch? If so is a 19 litre big enough or are you planning on diluting/liquering back?

Im curious because I can only really make 10 litre batches due to the size of my boiler.

As far as hops go. I have no idea. Not experienced enough to advise

 

[MyQul]

I have commandeered a ex-water cooler 19 litre plastic carboy. Going to ferment a strong winter ale soon. I have a good cork bung and airlock. Here goes....

I'm thinking:
maris otter 6kg
crystal 500g
torrefied wheat 300g
chocolate malt 300g
roasted barley 200g

chinook; citra and Columbus hops????

The malts look good but I those citrusy american hops dont shout winter brew to me more summer or spring. Someing more English would perhaps suit. GH's winter warmer uses EKG, progress and Target

 

[comicbrew]

I'm restricted to a 10litre boiler. so I usually mash to 10 litre then boil, then dilute with water. I know that's bad, but it works. I'm looking for a bigger boiler. I've just acquired a big insulated mash tun which I've used with good results. works really well and I batch sparged.

 

[comicbrew]

The malts look good but I those citrusy american hops dont shout winter brew to me more summer or spring. Someing more English would perhaps suit. GH's winter warmer uses EKG, progress and Target

thanks. was thinking out loud. Do you like Admiral as a bittering hop? Never used target......

 

[comicbrew]

loads of fuggles, perhaps.

 

[Callumbo]

I'm restricted to a 10litre boiler. so I usually mash to 10 litre then boil, then dilute with water. I know that's bad, but it works. I'm looking for a bigger boiler. I've just acquired a big insulated mash tun which I've used with good results. works really well and I batch sparged.

If it works then it's not bad. Sounds like a good way of doing it. I think I might give it a go as well. From what I have read, brewing big batches takes just as long as big batches. So I'd rather have a bigger reward :thumb:

 

[MyQul]

I'm restricted to a 10litre boiler. so I usually mash to 10 litre then boil, then dilute with water. I know that's bad, but it works.

No it's not. It's called Maxi(-BIAB) brewing. It's how I brew

 

[MyQul]

thanks. was thinking out loud. Do you like Admiral as a bittering hop? Never used target......

I've never used Admiral, I dont think

 

[MyQul]

loads of fuggles, perhaps.

Yeah, Would work if you like fuggles. Some people dont as they find them too earthy

 

[comicbrew]

I've never used Admiral, I dont think

brewed a nice porter last year with admiral, loads of choc malt, etc.

 

[dogwalker]

Had a go at this as a first time all grain batch.
Followed this pretty much to the letter apart from using slightly smaller vols of liquids due to restrictions on pot sizes.
Ended up with just over 8 ltrs which is what I expected, topped up to 10 ltr with boiled, cooled water and took SG. 1.030 at 22C.
I expected about 1.052 or so.
Where could I have gone wrong, apart from topping up with water?

 

[TheQuokka]

You will usually extract less with less water in your mash, though your figure seems low. get a cheap electronic thermometer from ebay where you can sit the sensor in your mash (stir every 20-30 minutes.) It is good idea to buy a bottle of tincture of iodine from your local chemist - take a sample at the start of your mash and add a drop, you will notice a colour change. Take another sample when you think your mash is finished - if it still changes colour there is unconverted starch. You can usually warm your mash up with hot water and stir it in if too cold, or wait another 30 minutes.

 

[Sandimas]

topped up to 10 ltr with boiled, cooled water and took SG. 1.030 at 22C. I expected about 1.052 or so.

Efficiency of the mash - everyone's is different, depends on the grain, temperatures, your technique etc. I get a fairly reliable 68% efficiency which would give me OG 1046 with this recipe.

To get OG1030 you're getting 45% mash efficiency which is way low. A few thoughts:
- how fresh was your grain?
- was it crushed?
- how accurate were your mash temperatures?
- how consistent were your mash temperatures throughout the mash?
- did you mash for at least 60mins?
- did you stir the mash at the start, mid-point and end?

It's taken me a while to get up to 68%, when I started it was the low 60s. But 45% suggests something major is wrong.

 

[dogwalker]

To answer the last 2 replies.
The crushed grain was purchased in early December but has been stored in a cool place since then.
No, the grain was not agitated much.
The mash was between 63 and 68 degrees for 70mins. I had one DS18B20 sensor in the centre of the mash.