I just had my first bottle of my first all grain brew, and frankly it's tremendous
. This post is me drawing a line under my extract brewing days, and hopefully adding something tiny to the combined knowledge of this awesome community.
I held off the switch to all grain brewing (had 12 5 gallon extract brews under my belt when I finally made the change), but I wish I had done it sooner. That's not to say that I regret all those extract brews - I made some damn nice extract brews. I think that anyone jumping into brewing should start with extract because if you can nail the temperature control and cleanliness aspect of brewing then you're most of the way there and the jump to all grain is much easier.
After I read about BIAB I realized how ridiculously cheap it is to go from extract to all grain BIAB. If you have any questions at all there are many great threads on this forum and over at
http://www.biabrewer.info/. Get a bag from your vendor of choice and do a batch.
If you're an extract brewer - at least poke around BIAB brewing, it's barely any more difficult or expensive than extract brewing, and gives you a great amount of control over the brew.
Other things I wished I had done earlier... I wish I had read Yeast by Chris White (http://www.amazon.com/Yeast-Practical-Fermentation-Brewing-Elements/dp/0937381969). I wish I could work out why my extract brews would get stuck around 1.020 - seriously, out of 12 batches only 2 got under 1.020. I tried everything from temperature to when extract is added to the boil, and I couldn't find the cause. I dissected it at length with other homebrewers and a couple of professional brewers, and nothing we tried worked. I'm forever putting that down to older LME amassing a load of unfermentables. I also wish I had started to mess around with water quality earlier (see http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/ for a start).
My first all grain was an AHS porter to which I added a cup of Ardbeg Corryvreckan in the bottling bucket (
http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2009/08/ardbeg-corryvreckan-exclusive-tasting-notes/).
My BIAB process isn't standard because I don't want to set up a boil outside, and my stovetop would explode under the weight of all the grain and water, so I do a split batch with a dunk sparge. Yes, I know the purpose of BIAB isn't to have a sparge, but I wanted the extra efficiency, and it's really no more work.
My first batch (the porter) came out at 72% efficiency, my second (a Heff) came out at 68% even after a 90 min sparge. I've read that heavy wheat beers like Heffs are a pain in the arse to get a great conversion out of, so I'm happy with that.
If anyone is reading this and cares, my brew day plan stats as the following and is tweaked where necessary:
1) 3 pots, 2 6 gallon, one 2.5 gallon:
a) 3.25 gallons water, b) 3.25 gallons water, c) 1 gallon water
2) ½ of a campden tablet crushed and split between the 3 of them, stir
3) split the grain bill between 2 containers equally
4) get the 2 big pots to 155, place nylon bags into pots and clip to edges.
5) slowly add grain while stirring, so not to clump. stir a lot for couple of mins, reheat to 152 then cover. Surround with insulation. Start timer for 60 mins. I use an old duvet I stole from my son's bedroom, drops 2 degrees over an hour.
6) after 5 mins give grain a good stir
7) after 10 mins give grain a good stir
8) after 20 mins check temp.
9) raise sparge water to 170
10) give each bag a good stir, then squeeze the hell out of each bag by placing in a colander and pushing down with a pot lid.
11) dunk sparge each bag, squeeze again, pour sparge water into each pot (split equally). Keep a few cups of grain to add to homemade bread, veggie burgers and dog treats
12) get first pot to a boil
13) Start 60 min hop addition, etc. Get first cooling while 2nd goes through boil.
14) Cool both pots, combine in ferm bucket, take OG
15) pitch
Goodbye extract brewing
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