I’m going to try all grain within the next few weeks here and was looking for any advice you guys might have.
I have all of my equipment from my extract brewing (turkey fryer, fermenters, stir plates, ect) and I’ve purchased a rectangular cooler style mash tun second hand on craigslist. I don’t have a wort chiller as I’ve always used ice baths. Is the wort chiller vital? Any other equipment I should consider?
Any other tips or things to watch for? Also can anyone recommend an easy recipe to start with?
1st, relax. After you do a couple of brews you will realize you worried about it the same as when you did your 1st extract batch.
If you are doing full boil extract w/out chiller and making good beer, you will be fine doing AG brews.
Only thing I can think of is a thermometer for the mash temp.
Being a used cooler, you may want to give it good soak in a bleach solution. Add 1oz of bleach to 5 gallons of water. Then add 1 oz of vinegar. This lowers the PH of the bleach and actually turns it into a no rinse sanitizer.
My procedure: Heat my mash water to 170*. Add to mashtun. Allow to cool to 160*. Add grain and stir. Temp should settle in at 150*. After 30 minutes, start heating the sparge water. I bring it up to a boil.
Mashwater 3.3 is helpful in your water calculations. Have some extra water heated just in case.
Awesome! Thanks for the advice! Right now I’m only doing 2.5 gal boils. My pops has some copper tubing in his garage, maybe I should look into a DIY wort chiller… hmmm.
I know it’ll take a few batches to figure out my equipment exactly. The thing I’m most worried about right now is figuring out how to hit my temps properly. Thanks again!
Also just realized that I’m going to need a bigger kettle. For some reason I completely overlooked the increase in boil volume when I was thinking of this.
for mash in water temp calculation try http://www.tastybrew.com these calculators will get you close. for a full boil of 5 gal get a 10 gal pot, aluminum is fine. if you have a roll of copper go ahead and make a wort chiller. without a wort chiller cooling the wort in a bath could take hours.
You have a turkey fryer? That pot will work. It could be a bit tight. Just keep an eye on it and have a spray bottle ready to knock the foam down. A 30qt pot (7.5g) will work for a 6.5-7g boil.
You may need to do some cleaning on it if there is a lot of oil residue on it.
I have the turkey fryer setup with 7.5gal pot and no chiller. I chill my wort in my swamp cooler; basically a big storage bin filled with water and ice jugs. I can get to ale temps in about 15 minutes. If you constantly stir the wort while stirring the cold water in the bin, you will get it down very very quickly. Take into account that my turkey fryer pot is aluminum, if you have stainless steel it won’t work as well because of the conductivity of the metal.
This is the site I use for mash temps: http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml
I add 10*F to that number to preheat my cooler. I.e. If the calc says to get to 165, I heat my strike water to 175, add it to the cooler, wait 10 minutes and stir the water until I’m at 165, then I add the grains. I’ve done 4 AG batches and have nailed the temp every time.
make sure you have a good thermometer. Check it in some crushed ice water, should be at 32*. check it in boiling water, should be at 212*.
Make sure and stir, stir, stir you’re mash. Doughballs kill efficiency.
Double crush your grains if you’re using a store crusher. They’ll do it for you if you are ordering online most likely. This will also help with efficiency.
If all else fails, it never hurts to have some DME on hand in case you miss by enough to bother you.
Get a notebook! Write down everything you do. All your temps of volumes of water added. Temps at the end of the mash. Pre-boil volumes and gravity. Post boil volumes and gravity. Boil off. Anything you can think of.
