Ok
As a AG brewer with a few brews already vanished from the keg i figure i might try and do something to help others.
Ive set a challange as i keep hearing on this forum All grain is to expensive and difficult. It does not have to be either, the only thing about all grain is its time consuming, but im sure doing kits and bits and extracts also gets time consuming once you start steeping grains etc
Tonight i will head to bunnings and kmart and hopefully aquire all that is needed, i will post up picks of the required equipment hopfully tommorow
I will post pics of the equipment and the cost and a method over the next couple of days
This will assume that people already have a few cooking pots and a 23L fermenter (to be used as in between liquid storage vessil)
I will also assume that you can use some very basic hand tools, or maybe possibly a drill
Im thinking i will do a APA for the recipe as they are easy to ferment without the need for specilty lager temperature equipment.
NOTE: PLEASE DONT BUY OR DO ANY OF THIS UNTIL I POST THE METHOD AND RESULTS
I will be slowly adding to this and want to do it and prove it before i get anyone to spend anything
Required tools
1 nail
Or the prefered tool a drill and about a 3-4mm drill bit
Recipe
4.5kg of Pale Malt (joe white) $2.5 (at most) per Kg
300grams of medium crystal
Get these crushed (store these as close as 18 degs as your house will allow, the closer you can get to this temperature the closer our final water temperature will be to correct when we add it to the grain
6 cascade hop plugs (plugs are important because no scales are required then) these are about $5.00bucks from www.craftbrewer.com.au
1 dried yeast pack $4.00 also from www.craftbrewer.com.au (i think you can get postage as low as $2.00 on these items
Equipment
4 buckets (9.8L) you can get these from bunnings $89c each
A thermometer $2.00 at the local $2 shop, the brand is Home innovations and the model number is KIT4314
( i checked this against a calibrated one at work and it was within 0.5degC which should good enough)
NOTES: these thermometers are not designed to be acurate when fully imerged, i found imerging just the stainless nose to give the best results, when i submerged another 50mm the readings went out to around +/-2degC
Also If you are serious about this hobby good temperature control is a must though all parts of the brewing procedure (eg fermentation), So i would recomend that you would invest \ in a decent quality temperature meter/thermometer.
Method
Take one nail, cover in some cloth to protect your hand and poke holes through the bucket, best to do this from the inside of the bucket as you will get a better flow of water ( i know the picture shows from the outside but its easier to get a pic this way)
BTW a big thanks to Steve for declaring he didnt have a drill and so making me do it by hand, when i had 2 cordless drills in reach :angry:
Well i have decided to drill out my bucket as well as i noticed the plastic had sort of closed over the holes overnight, i could have just re put the nail through the other way but could do it over again so got the drill out
Some pics showing the final product :super:
And the drill holes
Next you want to find a box that will hold the two buckets, you may have noticed that i only drilled holes in two of the buckets.
With the other two buckets you want to get aluminium foil and wrap them
Then get some bubble wrap (your should be able to find this as scrap if not just use scrunched newspaper as shown further down
Place this as a layer on the bottom of the box
Place buckets (without holes) in box and surround with paper, or bubble wrap
you will notice in the next picture one of the buckets with holes in it sitting inside the other bucket, these buckets together and your box for the mashtun/lauter tun
Next step is the lid, cut a peice of a carboard box big enough to cover the top of the bucket
Then cover with aluminium foil
This will then sit on top of each bucket in the box and you need to cover and tuck in two towels on top of each bucket
I did a test with water at 65degs in the bucket, it loses about 2deg per 30mins, this shouldnt be a problem with this recipe, but i will adress that when we get to the beer making part.
Pat yourselves on the back, you have just created a mash/lauter tun for under $4 using off the shelf stuff
As a AG brewer with a few brews already vanished from the keg i figure i might try and do something to help others.
Ive set a challange as i keep hearing on this forum All grain is to expensive and difficult. It does not have to be either, the only thing about all grain is its time consuming, but im sure doing kits and bits and extracts also gets time consuming once you start steeping grains etc
Tonight i will head to bunnings and kmart and hopefully aquire all that is needed, i will post up picks of the required equipment hopfully tommorow
I will post pics of the equipment and the cost and a method over the next couple of days
This will assume that people already have a few cooking pots and a 23L fermenter (to be used as in between liquid storage vessil)
I will also assume that you can use some very basic hand tools, or maybe possibly a drill
Im thinking i will do a APA for the recipe as they are easy to ferment without the need for specilty lager temperature equipment.
NOTE: PLEASE DONT BUY OR DO ANY OF THIS UNTIL I POST THE METHOD AND RESULTS
I will be slowly adding to this and want to do it and prove it before i get anyone to spend anything
Required tools
1 nail
Or the prefered tool a drill and about a 3-4mm drill bit
Recipe
4.5kg of Pale Malt (joe white) $2.5 (at most) per Kg
300grams of medium crystal
Get these crushed (store these as close as 18 degs as your house will allow, the closer you can get to this temperature the closer our final water temperature will be to correct when we add it to the grain
6 cascade hop plugs (plugs are important because no scales are required then) these are about $5.00bucks from www.craftbrewer.com.au
1 dried yeast pack $4.00 also from www.craftbrewer.com.au (i think you can get postage as low as $2.00 on these items
Equipment
4 buckets (9.8L) you can get these from bunnings $89c each
A thermometer $2.00 at the local $2 shop, the brand is Home innovations and the model number is KIT4314
( i checked this against a calibrated one at work and it was within 0.5degC which should good enough)
NOTES: these thermometers are not designed to be acurate when fully imerged, i found imerging just the stainless nose to give the best results, when i submerged another 50mm the readings went out to around +/-2degC
Also If you are serious about this hobby good temperature control is a must though all parts of the brewing procedure (eg fermentation), So i would recomend that you would invest \ in a decent quality temperature meter/thermometer.
Method
Take one nail, cover in some cloth to protect your hand and poke holes through the bucket, best to do this from the inside of the bucket as you will get a better flow of water ( i know the picture shows from the outside but its easier to get a pic this way)
BTW a big thanks to Steve for declaring he didnt have a drill and so making me do it by hand, when i had 2 cordless drills in reach :angry:
Well i have decided to drill out my bucket as well as i noticed the plastic had sort of closed over the holes overnight, i could have just re put the nail through the other way but could do it over again so got the drill out
Some pics showing the final product :super:
And the drill holes
Next you want to find a box that will hold the two buckets, you may have noticed that i only drilled holes in two of the buckets.
With the other two buckets you want to get aluminium foil and wrap them
Then get some bubble wrap (your should be able to find this as scrap if not just use scrunched newspaper as shown further down
Place this as a layer on the bottom of the box
Place buckets (without holes) in box and surround with paper, or bubble wrap
you will notice in the next picture one of the buckets with holes in it sitting inside the other bucket, these buckets together and your box for the mashtun/lauter tun
Next step is the lid, cut a peice of a carboard box big enough to cover the top of the bucket
Then cover with aluminium foil
This will then sit on top of each bucket in the box and you need to cover and tuck in two towels on top of each bucket
I did a test with water at 65degs in the bucket, it loses about 2deg per 30mins, this shouldnt be a problem with this recipe, but i will adress that when we get to the beer making part.
Pat yourselves on the back, you have just created a mash/lauter tun for under $4 using off the shelf stuff
I have some screwdrivers and a socket set 
