Moving From Kits To All Grain

[hughman666]

Hi all,

I have been pretty successful with my last few months of kit & kilo brews and now I want to take it to the next level, ie all grain.

Considering I will be on a pretty tight budget, what sort of equipment do I require to get by with the bear minimum (I will be building up to decent equipment after a while). How much do typical ingredients cost compared to kits?

Also where can I find some good beginner's instructions minus the jargon, as I'm at a loss as to what it all means.

The net is a great wealth of information but in this area I'm finding that it's all over the place and a lot of it conflicting. Would really appreciate a few simple guides/advice in this area as I'm keen to get started.

Apologies if this has topic been posted before, I haven't been able to locate it.

Cheers in advance! :beer:

 

[Darren]

Hugh,
I would start with an " malt extract" (available from any supermarket) and partial mash brew.
A crockpot, a pot on the stove or the oven, or an esky is your starting point.
You need to "cook" the cracked malted barley at around 66 degree C for about an hour. That will enable you to convert the starch in the grain to fermentable sugar. Then you just simply take the liquid, boil for a while, add the extract, some hops and you have it.
Once you have passed this milestone, there is no turning back.

cheers
Darren

 

[PistolPatch]

Good on you Hugh!

I know exactly what you mean by the above. Have to go now so I've just copied something I wrote in a prior post...

Never done an AG before but saw a great illustrated site yesterday thanks to the recommendation of someone here. It's called Paul's Brewing Page and can be found at...

http://cruisenews.net/brewing/index.php

After looking through this, I now for the first time have some idea of what AG is all about and the pictures (about 5 photos for each step)make it look pretty easy to do.

Also got a 3 ring Primus burner yesterday for $40 which seems to be the going price at camping stores. Other guys here would know but I don't reckon a single burner would be enough for you. Hate to see you sitting there for a year waiting for a boil.

So there's my 2c. The above was posted here but have run out of time to read through that thread to see of how much value it will be for you.

Hope this helps Hugh.

 

[Ross]

Hugh,

Try listing where you live - ask to watch someone do an AG brew in your area - most brewers welcome the company on brew day... :beer:


cheers Ross...

 

[hughman666]

Hugh,

Try listing where you live - ask to watch someone do an AG brew in your area - most brewers welcome the company on brew day... :beer:


cheers Ross...

[post="113023"][/post]​

good idea ross, thanks. for anyone interested i'm based in como, (south perth) wa. if anyone has a brew day coming up, would love to have a look and see how it all comes together.

thanks for the links PP, i'm going to have a look now.

cheers

 

[tangent]

this is my experience - not "how to brew" (excellent read)

i know what you mean, the jargon can be a pain when starting. i even got hassled for calling the kettle a boiler (although everyone seems to do it)

do a search for mash tuns and buckets. you'll find people talking about drilling holes in food grade 20L buckets

work out how many litres of boiling capacity you have at home. can you boil 15 litres of hot sugary syrup and still have space for a big foaming boil? maybe 2 BIG pots on the stove and 1 on the bbq side burner, or bite the bullet and get a pot and gas burner.

do no bigger than a 4kg of grain mash - preferably pre-crushed by a decent HBS or AHB member.

buy a thermometer, preferably something you can use around hot things (long enough not to scald fingers & drop)

watch Krotchrotts video - it's a bit long but you can see what all the jargon is about

take it easy, no-one's watching you, so plan it out step by step on a sheet and have a copy nearby all the time. like a count down.

if you f&^k it up and learn why, it's not a loss it's a gain

life is fluid, if you adapt to unplanned changes, you'll cope. (if the finishing hops all boil over and your measurements are all screwed up, who cares? once upon a time they didn't take measurements! taste what you're making to see if ur mash runnings are sweet or if there's much sugar left in the sparge runnings. a tongue is a good device because you're trying to make that 1 thing happy at the end of all of this)

i hate to sound like a brew-nerd but AG brewing is cathartic as well as exciting. last minute hop additions get my blood pumping.

once the wort has cooled to pitching temp, it's cruise control - all the stuff you already know

 

[big d]

hi hughman666
the location you need to post to help you out is in your sign up details.i know quiet a few of the west coast boys and they often have get togethers that you may wish to get along to.keep your eyes posted on ahb.
another good contact point is the west coast brewers club.
from memory they meet every 2nd monday of the month.7.30 pm
location Rivervale Community Centre
cnr surrey road and francisco street.they have plenty of members on this site.

cheers
big d

 

[MHD]

I agree entirely with Ross... Go watch some one do it, after that there will be no stopping you...

Keep an eye out for:
20L+ eskis
Big stockpots or old Kegs
Gas stoves and burners
Or one of those wash copper things that occasionally go on Ebay

 

[major]

Had my first go at an AG on the weekend. Gave Jason Ys version of Skunk Fart Ale a whirl. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Never done an AG before but saw a great illustrated site yesterday thanks to the recommendation of someone here. It's called Paul's Brewing Page and can be found at...

http://cruisenews.net/brewing/index.php

After looking through this, I now for the first time have some idea of what AG is all about and the pictures (about 5 photos for each step)make it look pretty easy to do

Like PistolPatch I used Pauls Brewing Page as a reference fairly extensively. Good site for a first timer.

 

[Steve Lacey]

Here is just a quick potted reference. You can fill in a lot of the detail on the equipment mentioned via the "How To" guides posted already or in other threads.

Equipment Needed for kit brewing
1) Fermenter, hydrometer, bottling equipment.
2) 5-6 L saucepan to heat up your water
3) Can opener & scissors

Minimum equipment needed for all grain
1) As for kit
2) A mashing vessel & large strong stirring device a bit of curtain rod will almost do
3) A lautering device & tubing -- grain bag or false bottom or manifold
4) a decent quality glass thermometer
5) A large boiler/kettle to heat up water & boil the whole batch
6) The wherewithall to boil your large vessel -- strong gas flame or electric elements fixed inside the vessel -- an electric stove is unlikely to do the job (I've never tried).
7) Several clean 20-25L buckets
8) Decent kitchen scales for measuring grain (up to several kg) and hops (gram-level sensitivity)

Short list of optional extras for all-grain
1) Another large water heating/boiling vessel (saves lot of messing around switching your one vessel from hot water tank to boiler during the sparge)
2) A second manifold device for excluding hops and trub when siphoning from boiler
3) A wort chiller -- you can get by immersing the boiler/kettle in a bathtub of cold water.
4) A grain mill. Not needed until you start buying grain by the 25-kg bag.
5) Iodine for testing starch conversion
6) A dedicated timing device

OK, if you get to this point you are quite well set up, but theer is still plenty of more you could add. A pump for example. Some of the things above will definitely cost money, some can be scrounged or acquired on the cheap. It all depends on how long you are prepared to wait and how much time you can spend researching and scrounging around. The problem with scrounging is that you do need to have a pretty good idea what you need in teh first place. For example, to make 20-24L batches, you need to know that your mash tun needs to be 20-25L and your boiler 30-35L (in both cases, the bigger end of the range is better).