Easy Stovetop All-Grain Brewing (with pics)

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It was sticky'd once. Then it appears someone thought my partial mash thread was more important. Everyone still seems to be able to find it...I'm not concerned.
 
Hey there DeathBrewer,

Question for ya: Once you are doughed in, and you are at your desired mash temp, you cover and wait. But do you shut the burner off, or down to low, or? All my grains showed up yesterday. I'll be brewing my first AG this weekend! Want to make sure to get it right.

Thanks again for the inspiration.

Slán go foill,

Sláinte
 
Great stuff. I'm also psyching myself up for my first ag. Sorry if this has been covered, but I was wondering if it would be possible to use an unmodified cooler as a mash tun and otherwise follow this method. Is there any reason you couldn't (or shouldn't) put the grains in a bag into the cooler with the strike water and mash there (assuming you could keep a steady temp). Then take the whole bag out, put the wort in a pot, and then sparge in the cooler. Then combine the wort and boil from there. I'm wondering if this would accommodate more grain and hence allow for a higher o.g. for stronger beers.

I was just trying to brainstorm ways to do a bigger beer with a 5 gallon pot. My other thought was to try a 3 gallon batch, but I wondered if after the sparge, you'd end up with too much wort and have to try to boil a lot off.

(I know it's not that difficult to make a proper mash tun, but I don't really want to go to the trouble just yet, and haven't completely figured out why all the sawed-up copper tubing is necessary.)

Thanks a lot. This thread and the partial mash one have been great inspirations for me.
 
Slainte said:
Hey there DeathBrewer,

Question for ya: Once you are doughed in, and you are at your desired mash temp, you cover and wait. But do you shut the burner off, or down to low, or? All my grains showed up yesterday. I'll be brewing my first AG this weekend! Want to make sure to get it right.

Thanks again for the inspiration.

Slán go foill,

Sláinte
Click to expand...

Turn your burner off. If you leave it on, covered, your temp will jump way up.
 
mrjeffrey said:
Great stuff. I'm also psyching myself up for my first ag. Sorry if this has been covered, but I was wondering if it would be possible to use an unmodified cooler as a mash tun and otherwise follow this method. Is there any reason you couldn't (or shouldn't) put the grains in a bag into the cooler with the strike water and mash there (assuming you could keep a steady temp). Then take the whole bag out, put the wort in a pot, and then sparge in the cooler. Then combine the wort and boil from there. I'm wondering if this would accommodate more grain and hence allow for a higher o.g. for stronger beers.

I was just trying to brainstorm ways to do a bigger beer with a 5 gallon pot. My other thought was to try a 3 gallon batch, but I wondered if after the sparge, you'd end up with too much wort and have to try to boil a lot off.

(I know it's not that difficult to make a proper mash tun, but I don't really want to go to the trouble just yet, and haven't completely figured out why all the sawed-up copper tubing is necessary.)

Thanks a lot. This thread and the partial mash one have been great inspirations for me.
Click to expand...

Sure, it would work, but with conversions costing less than $40 with 30 minutes of effort, I would get that thing converted. You can buy kits from morebeer, northern brewer, austin homebrew or make it yourself for half the money.

My method is not intended for doing bigger beers. If I were doing a bigger beer with this method, I would use extract and step it up over time (add extract after fermentation begins.)

I use my cooler for bigger beers ;)
 
OK, thanks. Guess I better start with baby steps. I'll try a less big beer with this method first and see how it goes.

Interesting tip about adding extract, too. I hadn't heard about that.

Thanks again!
 
Great tutorial, I did this yesterday and was very successful.

I had trouble keeping the mash temp consistant... I had to check every 5 minutes and apply heat or remove from heat and stir almost every time.
But got full conversion and 77% efficiency so it was worth it. :)

Maybe because the pot I have is rather cheap, and very thin stainless steel...
 
I'd blame it more on hot/cold spots and opening it up every 5 minutes. Try to get your temp right the first time and wrap that sucker in a blanket, with a pillow on top. Insulation will always help and a slight drop in temp is not a big deal. My beers used to ALWAYS drop to 140°F by the end of the mash...always made great beer, never was a problem (and I think my end measurements were wrong, anyway, there are SPOTS that are 140°F, and others that were higher ;))
 
Wow this is the first time I saw this thread....very interesting indeed. I am very excited by this idea and I can't wait to try it out.

THIS FORUM KICKS ASS:mug:
 
DeathBrewer,

I did my first all grainer on Saturday night, following your directions, and had complete success. Thank you again for your wonderful write-up.
Now my only problems are that I only have three kegs.... and wondering which recipe to try next!

Beoir agus Ceol agus Craic!!

Sláinte
 
Got another question for you DeathBrewer, or anyone who has input.

On my last batch (Blonde Ale), using your method above, I kept the mash wort and the sparge water each in their own pot instead of combining. I was able to achive a boil much easier, and use more sparge water, and I didn't have a problem with boil-over as I had plenty of headspace in each pot.

Is there any proble you can see with doing this?

Any and all input will be much appriciated.

Sláinte!
 
No problem with that, i've done it many times and just split the hops between them. Some people leave teh hops in one pot and just boil the other one down...personal choice. Either way it works just fine and can really make a difference with those touchy stoves.
 
It's been said plenty, but I just wanted to add my thanks to all the effort and patience that you put into this thread and the one on partial mash. You have cut my learning curve way down, and I will definitely be moving towards mashing much sooner, ( a partial) probably for my next batch (my second)
Thanx for all you do.

Cheers
:rockin:
 
I really wanted to start AG but thought i couldnt afford it. I've already got the stuff to do this. My next batch will be all grain fo sure! This was awesome, consider this thread prosted! And you are now on my very short list of freinds!
 
Thanks guys. Always good to see this thread is helping people out! I'm druck...just got back from a meeting with some friends...we're going to be pushing out a 40 gallon batch soon. There are differences, but whether it's a 5 gallon bag-in-a-can batch or a 40 gallon 3-hour run-off, it all makes good stuff ;)

Keep brewing!
:mug:
 
Ok, so now you've done it. You've really done it. I should call a divorce attorney since I'm going to be buying a few more items and spending a lot of my not-so-free time making beer. I can tell this is going to cost me thousands by the time I have the setup I want. This is not a busy married man's hobby...but it's more like an obsession now.

You guys are great. I'm going AG or partial from here on. Unless I'm pressed for time....then I'll do a LME w/ steeping grains.
 
My first EASY stovetop all grain brew was a success. Thanks DB!

One bit of advice that may make the process even easier is using the OVEN to keep your mash/sparge temp steady. This seems easier than other techniques I have heard (e.g., wrapping the pot in blankets or pillows). Worked like a charm for me.

Thanks DB--you are the man!! You got me into partial mash and now all grain. Whats next??:tank:
 
DB, I've got to echo the other thanks that have been sent your way on this thread. I used this method for mashing and then sparged and boiled on the propane burner outside, and hit my OG perfectly for BM's Centennial Blonde. This has definitely got me going all grain from now on. I'll use the stovetop to mash until I have the time and money to build on MLT. Thanks again.
 
Toss up another "mad props to Deathbrewer"!

I'm going to try this saturday along with BM's SWMBO Slayer - Belgian Blonde recipe.

GF is going to go ape when she sees a kitchen full of fermenters when she gets back from vacation.
 
Got my first AG recipe from AHS in today. Gonna give this a try this weekend while SWMBO is out of the country. I like brewing but not sure if all that gear is really what I want and besides, I only have one closet to keep everything in.

Thanks DB for putting this together, very helpful.
 
I did this recently with the Banana bread ale and my APA. The technique worked well. The beers turned out fabulous.
I wanted to do it with my saison, but had to go outside to the propane set-up ( SWMBO was cleaning the carpets.)

Upstairs neighbor lady is having a tea-party on her patio, so no outdoor brewing for me today... so it's my hopped up spicy terminator stout clone on the stovetop today.


12 lbs. of grain, 3.5 gallons of spring water. mashed at 153. Fit in the pot with absolutely no room to spare.
3.5 gallons of Sparge water at 175. Pre-boil gravity was 1.050. :)

The condo smells of hops and Christmas Stout aka 'The Santanator'.
This is the Biggest beer I have done with this method. Anything bigger would require the coolers and propane rig.
Which is not a bad thing.
 
To date with this method i have done:
Hopsferatu stout, Do ya in Dunkel(Big) 7.5% abv(My proudest), Strawbetty WIT, Hop hammer Pale(My SN version), and doing a summer hop monster light ale tonight. Its an awesome method and i didnt have to buy anything.
 
dude....the shower curtains......awesomeness:rockin:
I'm hoping to try this soon-the method, I mean. although, if I could find me some curtains like those..........
 
I tried this with a small (3 gal) batch of special bitter about 3 months ago and it turned out great -- today I brewed a 5 gal batch and got around 80% efficiency!
-Andy
 
I just want to add the plumber's grain pic in the beginning made me laugh out loud at work! Thanks alot! My co workers already think I'm odd enough :D
 

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