So, I’ve decided to jump into all-grain. Of course, I did not rush right out and spend gobs of money I don’t have on equipment, so I instead spent some time compiling a wealth of information (Thanks, guys!) on different methods and workarounds, and so have come up with a batch sparge method I can use with equipment I already had, just modified slightly.
I have a giant tamale pot, with a false bottom, and a few nylon mesh boil bags. The pot holds 7.5 gallons.
I have a length of copper tubing, and have modified the ends to attach to my kitchen sink = Wort Chiller!
My plan is to do a yeast starter until I have enough cells, measure out a total of about 15 lbs of barley (12-13 lbs base plus specials), hold at mash temp for 90 mins. , rinse out the grain bags (sparge), boil as before.
Cool as quickly as possible, filter out any grain husk on the way into the fermentor, aerate, pitch and done.
Aerate at 18 hrs, and pitch a second yeast at 3-4 days (0029 - to get better attenuation, without adding its own flavor), rack and lager for at least a couple weeks to a month, bottle and enjoy.
Goal = 5 gal batch @ ~1070+, looking to make a pale/golden ale, with complex malt profile and IBU around 27.
Filtering wort is a no-win situation especially after boiling. Let it settle and rack off the trub if you care to.
+1 on the yeast comment, one good pitch and one aeration is adequate.
Otherwise sounds like you have a good plan, making use of existing supplies and equipment is a great way to go. Theres no end to the procurement process once you start down that road.
+1 on the previous two comments and let me add one thing: if you haven’t already bought your ingredients, you might want to start with something that has a larger margin of error for your first all-grain than a pale/golden ale
…but then again you may not and more power to you.
[quote=“The Mad Zymurgist”]@Tom- your suggestion in lieu of filtering is what I had wanted to do in the first place. Keeps more yeast in the secondary, right?[/quote]Filtering the wort going from the kettle to the primary has no effect on the the amount of yeast but it would cut down on the trub in the fermenter. As Tom said, not worth the effort to do a filter - just let the wort sit a while once chilled to allow the sediment to settle, then rack the wort off the top of the cake.
Your OP was back in July - did you brew it already or still thinking about it?
Ha, no that’s when I Joined (for the second time). the post was this week. Don’t have the ingredients yet, and am open to suggestions concerning an easier first batch.
