Equipment For Extract Brewing

[Brewlord]

Fellow Home Brewers,

Ive been doing K&K for a few years now and have pretty much got fermentation, sanitation, kegging and the other basics down pat.

This year I have been working on flavour and quality improvement and making a few tweaks to the basic kits. I have been reading John Palmers How to brew and have become interested in moving up a few steps not quite to all grain but perhaps starting at extract brewing.

That said, the FIRST part of my question relates to what gear I would need to do an extract brew. I have all the basics already for K&K but what extra hardware do I need? (I am in the Riverina and can get to all the big chain stores and I can also get to Wagga and Canberra home brew shops to get what ingredients I need. There are plenty of recipes around so that aspect is covered.)

The SECOND part of my question is whether there would be enough heat in a butane camp stove to do the boil on? The one I am thinking of is the one that takes the aerosol butane cylinder. My concern is whether there would be enough heat to boil the normal volume for one 23lt batch? (My wife just doesnt understand my passion so the kitchen is ground zero with respect to using those facilties so I am thinking of alternatives. I have heard of the camp burner rings connected to a 9kg gas bottle but thought the butane might be smaller and simpler.)

I have searched the forum but could not find a definitive list of requirements. Whilst Palmers text is outstanding and he does mention what gear is required I would like to see what the local brewing community uses and where best to get it.

Thanks in advance for your help.

BL :icon_cheers:

 

[bum]

If you're already doing long boils for hop additions then you're ready to go for extract brews, IMO. If not you'll just need a large-ish stockpot.

If the stove can keep 7lt on a rolling boil for an hour then you're probably good to go.

Others will have other ideas but I'm sure that covers your minimum requirements.

[edit: those drops they give you at the opthomologist are pretty brutal, huh?]

 

[brettprevans]

large pot. thats it. (if you no chill).

 

[Phoney]

I doubt one of those butane cannister campstove things would be hot enough, remember you need to bring ~10L of water to the boil and hold it there for at least an hour. It takes about 15 mins for one of those little stoves just to boil enough water to make pasta for 2 when you're camping. (well the ones ive tried anyway)

So your options are: a) Do it when the mrs isnt home b ) bribe the mrs or c) buy a 3 ring gas burner that fits your LPG gas bottles, they cost around $70. - tho you might find something cheaper at a camping store

Equipment ideally you need;

* Medium grain bag
* Cooking thermometer
* >10L stock pot (BigW sell 19L ones for $20)

Here's a good summary of what you need to do:

Apart from your basic fermenting equipment you will also need; a large stock pot (10 litres or bigger is fine), a cooking thermometer, a muslin grain bag or strainer and a muslin hops bag or strainer.
Put the cracked grains in the muslin grain bag.
Heat a few litres of water up to about 67 degrees (no less than 65 or more than 70), turn off the heat, and add the grain bag, put on the lid. Leave the grain to steep for 20 minutes.
If you used a grain bag, lift it out of the liquid and pour a couple of litres of warm water through the grain bag into your pot. This is called sparging and rinses out some of the fermentables that were left behind in the grain. Throw away the used grain.
If you are not using a grain bag pour the liquid, grain and all, through a strainer into a second pot. Return the liquid to the stock pot and sparge the grain as per the above instructions. Throw away the used grain. (Its great for the garden.)
Add the malt extract to the pot, stir to dissolve, top the pot up to at least full, then bring the liquid up to the boil.
Once the liquid is boiling add the bittering hops to your hops bag and tie off the top with a piece of wire or paper clip. Add this to the boiling liquid. Your recipe will tell you how long to boil your bittering hops but a general rule of thumb is that hops need to be boiled for at least 60 minutes to give your beer its bitterness.
Your recipe will recommend when to add the flavoring and finishing hops. Just fish out the hops bag, remove the wire, add the hops, rewire and replace into your wort.
Around 15 minutes before the boil ends add some finings to the pot. I normally recommend a tsp of Irish moss for a 20 litre batch. This will help the solids to settle out of your brew.
Once your boil is finished remove the hops bag and pour into a sterilised fermenter. If you did not use a hops bag strain the wort into the fermenter. Top the fermenter to the amount specified in the recipe and put the fermenter into an ice bath. (A laundry sink with ice water will work fine.)
Once the wort is cooled down to a temperature the yeast can tolerate, remove from the ice water, pitch the yeast and brew as you normally do.

 

[petesbrew]

Or a portable electric hotplate. Not sure of the cost of one as I've just got the inlaws on a permanent loan. Although it's only really good enough for a concentrated boil, say 10-15L.

 

[discoloop]

I do stove-top half-boils in a large stockpot. The magic is that you can boil 100% of the hops in 50% of the wort and achieve the exact same IBU's as for a full boil.

The trick works as follows:
- half boil volume (so 11 litres)
- boil only half the extract
- hop as if for a full batch
- add remainder of extract at flameout
- use 11litres pre-frozen ice and iced water to top up fermenter and bring wort to pitching temp.

It really couldn't be easier! I don't worry too much about the extra gravity points if I use specialty grains unless I'm using a lot, in which case I'll plug the figures into beersmith to get my hopping right....

 

[ianh]

Hi

Has others have said you need a reasonable size brewpot and a digital thermometer. A grain bag and hop bags would be beneficial.

I would suggest that the portable butane thing would be very expensive, better off using a 9kg cylinder and burner or even better use the kitchen stove when the wf is not there, which is what I do.

Also give a plug for my spreadsheet available on this forum

 

[AntCoop]

+1 Discoloop with his method with extract brews. I use the stove top with the wok burner on with 15 litre pot from Kmart - $25 for a stainless job.

Also I use Ianh's spead sheet...it the business! :icon_cheers:

Cheers Coops :icon_chickcheers:

 

[Bribie G]

Apart from the 10 or 15L stockpot then seeing as you aren't using kits, a good digital kitchen scales that measures to the gram is a great investment for hops and crystal malt etc. Target do a great one with a built in SS bowl that can hold up to half a kilo of grain, I love mine although it's a bit exxie. Thanks to Kevvie I didn't mind paying at the time :icon_cheers:

However the best value in the entire universe is to get yourself off to a two dollar shop or the reject shop and spend about $4 on a big metal mesh kitchen strainer that fits nicely in the opening of the fermenter, for straining out of the stockpot straight into fermenter. If you go on to doing partial mashes the strainer is a brilliant piece of kit as it should also fit neatly into the top of the stockpot.

 

[RagingBull]

$20 gasmate camp stove from Kmart, uses up 1.5 little cylinders per boil. It takes 1 hour to get about 13L to the boil, then i have to change the disposable cylinder (4pk for $7) half way through.. its a bit tedious.

Hope this info helps.

 

[Nick JD]

The only extra gear I use for extracts are a 5L saucepan and some nylon cloth.

I have a 50cm x 50cm nylon cloth (tied up like a swag) to hold the steeped grain. And 20cm x 20cm nylon tied with string for the hops.

I use hot tap water for my steep, giving it a little blast of heat in the middle to keep it above 50 degrees C. Then 1/4 of a 90g hop pack is 23ish grams, which is a good amount for the bittering is boiled in the steeped liquor for an hour. I dry hop another 23g.

My worst ever extract using this technique was a hundred times better than any K&K I've ever made.

 

[altone]

For heating I use a portable LPG gas ring bought from the local asian shop for about 30bucks.
Nice strong flame and also a good companion to the BBQ when you've got people over to taste your latest brew.

I use a cheap big stockpot like the other posters are suggesting, but because they're quite thin and can cause
burning I put a steel plate between it and the burner to even the heat out a bit.

I had all the other gear like scales etc. from basic modified kit days, and would think you might also.

Good luck with the brewing, you won't regret it.



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