Easy Stovetop All-Grain Brewing (with pics)

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1) I put the batch in a 5 gallon carboy, because thats all I had. I'm not sure how I will be taking a gravity reading because it's so far down...

You could buy a couple of these plastic wine thieves and use two of the middle extension pieces:

eqp6017.jpg


Or just let it go 3 weeks and I'm sure you'll be fine.

2) I have a half ounce of willamette and a half ounce of cascade.. what can I make now?

Get some bittering hops and you could make an american brown or an interesting pale ale.
 
Just as an update, I'm buying a few more of the same bag. My last bag I turned inside out (seam out) in order to help with cleanup, but I'm gonna try using the bag seam in and see if it lasts. I'll post later if this works.

Update, I bought 3 more bags. My first one got a hole in it after three brews (broke today), using it seam in this time. Gonna whip out my second bag and use it seam out and see how far it gets.
 
Or just let it go 3 weeks and I'm sure you'll be fine.
I think that's just what I'm going to do. It's not a big beer so three weeks will be plenty.

Get some bittering hops and you could make an american brown or an interesting pale ale.

It's getting colder.. so I'm going to use this recipe for a stout!

3.5 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
0.75 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM)
0.5 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt 60L
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Lactose (Boil 10 min)

0.50 oz Willamette [4.9% AA](60 min)

Mash 60 min @ 152

Ferment 1 month @ 67 degrees F
 
Ok, I'm in! With the holidays coming, I am looking for some ideas for my first AG or PM. I am looking for a smooth, well balanced, and festive brew. Again, this will be my first AG / PM so simplicity would be nice, but I am not afraid of a challenge. I will be doing the stovetop method first.

Primary #1 - Oktoberfest - Extract
Primary #2 - Coopers English Bitter-Extract
Drinking - Commercial - Blue Moon Fall Variety Pack
 
This looks tempting. I found a LHBS that has low prices for grain compared to what I've seen anywhere else. Sure it's Quebec grown grain, but I would be helping the local economy :)

What I'm not sure though are my calculations for mash/sparge and my ability to not overflow my pots. I have a two stockpots: 3.5 and 5 gal, so I really do not want (or have the possibility to for that matter) to venture into standard AG batches. With that in mind, I would be looking at 2.5 gal max.

Here are my calc for a standard 5.5% ABV pale ale (shooting for 65% efficiency)

Desired batch size: 2.5 gal
Boil-off rate : 1gl/h
Grain absorb. : 0,110 gal/lb
Grain bill: 6lbs
Mash const: 1,33 qt/lb

With that in mind I need 2.5 +1 = 3.5 final wort volume to nail my 2.5 gal batch goal post boil.

Mash water calc:
6lbs * 1,33 qt/lb = 8 qt = 2 gallons

Mash wort:
2 gal - (6lbs*0,11gal/lb) = 1,34 gallons wort post mash

Sparge water calc:
3.5 gal - 1,34 gal = 2,16 gals

Now, everything seems to add up fine, but I still have my doubts. I would mash in the 3.5 gal pot (Green Bay Rackers gives me 2.48 wort volume, so I would have a gallon of headspace, tight, but doable), sparge in the 5 gal and boil in the 5 gal. Would 3.5 gal in 5 gal would pose a serious of risk overflowing ?

Thanks for the great tutorial
 
Looks good! I've done 3.5 gallons in a 4 gallon kettle and it didn't overflow, just keep an eye on it.

I have read a good tip to control overflow is keeping a spray bottle with cold water in it to spray on the foam in case it starts to act up.
 
I've seen friends do the water bottle thing to prevent boilovers and it has worked 80% of the time. It's the other 20% that I'm worried about :) Maybe I'll just rig a small (clean and sanitized) fan to constantly blow on the kettle like I've seen suggested on here a few times.
 
I've been looking at giving this a try too, but I have a couple questions.

First, I'm wondering what size batch I could get away with with my current pots: I have a 5 gallon and a 3 gallon, what do you guys think would be the best way to go and what would be a good batch size? (I have a third that's 2 or 2.5 gallon, but I don't know if splitting a step up would make any sense?)

Second, I've been lurking in the recipes section, and found two I want to try, Default Ó Flannagáin Standard and this Strong Scotch Ale, and wondering which I should start with. I love scotch ales, but would I be right in assuming it would be at least a little more difficult than the stout? I have this impression because the wee heavy has a much bigger grain bill/higher OG, and I seem to recall reading that stouts are relatively tolerant to error. Any advice?



I found a LHBS that has low prices for grain compared to what I've seen anywhere else. Sure it's Quebec grown grain, but I would be helping the local economy :)

Hey, are you talking about La Fabrique du Vin on St Jean? Or somewhere else?
 
Bradmont, I'm pretty much in the same shoes as you. My advice would be to brew something very simple in a small batch (2,5 or 3 gallons) to start with and get your process down. I will probably do a simple blonde or summer bitter first: basic 2-row, very few speciality grains (if any), dry yeast and simple hop additions. Sure it'll be plain and probably not the best beer I've ever had, but it'll be a test and it'll be homemade. It'll also be cheaper if something goes horribly wrong since I won't have waster precious speciality malt or fancy yeast/hops.

Regarding batch size, if you top-off post boil, you can get away with doing bigger batches of smaller beer. I read somewhere on another BIAB forum that a guy was basically always doing partial boils and topping off since he could always (or almost always) compensate for efficiency losses using the BIAB method. From experimentation in BeerSmith, I'd say that it would be helluva hard, for someone like us who only has a 5 gallon brewpot, to break 6% ABV on a 2,5+ gal batch without goign adjunct crazy.

Finally, I would also experiment first with how much wort your stove/equipement can safely and swiftly boil. After careful experimentation, I learned that I could NOT go for more than 4,3 gallons of plain water with what I had or I would risk serious overflowing or spending the day in front of the stove (wich I do from time to time, since I cook a lot). This means, in wort terms, that 4 gallons is the absolute limit I would be willing to go to. Cuts the options, but I can always do smaller batches of speciality stuff and knowing that 4 gal is my max boil, I can tailor the recipes I find on here to my specific needs.

PS: Yes, I'm talking about La Fabrique du Vin wich probably wins the price for worse name for a business ever. I know a lot of guys who brew beer and they all go there, but none of my wine making friends frequent the shop.
 
Good advice from jfr.

Also, I still recommend for people to use partial mashes when they have smaller pots. I know it's tempting to want to go all-grain, but it's really not possible until you have a larger pot for your sparge and boil. You are just going to hurt efficiency and probably need extract anyway. Besides that, beers with extract do not suffer in quality compared to all-grain. You can make JUST as high quality beer with extract.

My main reason for saying this is that 2.5 gallons seems like such a waste when you could still easily make 5 gallons with this system and a little bit of extract.

HOWEVER! :D Many people seem to have had great luck and good experiences with smaller batches or pushing the limits of their equipment, so feel free to carry on! (just remember that extract doesn't suck :D)
 
To be honest, I'm perfectly fine doing smaller (2.5-3 gallon) batches... I love beer, but I'm by no means a heavy drinker (3 in a week is a lot for me), so 5 gallons beer would just sit around and I wouldn't get much variety. And for times when I want to do a bigger batch with buddies, I can borrow a burner & 10 gallon kettle from a buddy of mine. :)
 
Good advice from jfr.

Also, I still recommend for people to use partial mashes when they have smaller pots. I know it's tempting to want to go all-grain, but it's really not possible until you have a larger pot for your sparge and boil. You are just going to hurt efficiency and probably need extract anyway. Besides that, beers with extract do not suffer in quality compared to all-grain. You can make JUST as high quality beer with extract.

My main reason for saying this is that 2.5 gallons seems like such a waste when you could still easily make 5 gallons with this system and a little bit of extract.

HOWEVER! :D Many people seem to have had great luck and good experiences with smaller batches or pushing the limits of their equipment, so feel free to carry on! (just remember that extract doesn't suck :D)

The thing is, from experience of seeing my friends brew, and not actually doing it first hand, I can tell that working with LME would suck. Actually finding fresh, unhopped LME seems to be hard in Quebec, wich is an hour and a half from where I actually live. DME is nice and all, but the lowest price I've seen for it locally is about 5,95$/lb (3,3 lb of LME is also about 14$ per can). Yeah, not cheap. Not cheap at all. I'm reasoning that with that cost, it's actually CHEAPER for me to buy a 35$ ready made wort kit, not canned extract but real pasteurized wort that you just pitch your yeast into, than to go with partial mashes in order to hit 5,5 gallons.

Compare that with grain prices. I can get, without buying huge amount, about 0,85$ a pound of domestic 2-row. You can easily see that brewing small AG batches might actually be A LOT cheaper than messing with partial mashes. More hassle. Defininately, but less headache as far as calculating for recipes and the like (what do you do with the leftover LME if you only need 2 pounds for a recipe ?).

Plus, I'm toying with the idea of actually having two 5 gallon kettles (already have one, can probably pick one on the cheap), boiling for 60 minutes the mash water + some sparge while only flash boiling the remaining sparge (15 minutes or so) to pasteurize, minimze wort loss and insure against DMS. It would be easier for my stove, easier to cool off and I would be able to do bigger batches. The only things I'm worried about are the logistics and boil-off, but it's in the far future, when I'll get tired of brewing 4 gallon batches of session Bitters and APA :D

BTW Bradmont, have you found a local source for brew bags ? All me searches have been in vain and I'm wondering if I'll have to buy from a stateside merchant, wich would suck due to customs, taxes and shipping.
 
...Quebec, wich is an hour and a half from where I actually live. ...

BTW Bradmont, have you found a local source for brew bags ? All me searches have been in vain and I'm wondering if I'll have to buy from a stateside merchant, wich would suck due to customs, taxes and shipping.


Where are you?

I haven't bought any yet, but I'm pretty sure I saw some at La Fabrique, on the wall just beside the door.
 
Crap, must have missed it. My trip there was brief, talked a lot more with the lady on the phone.
 
Deathbrewer, do you feel that when using a grain bag versus a lautering ton, you may lose some sugars, flavors or oils from the grains/hops? I'm about to brew my first all-grain batch and the grain bag seems to make everything very convenient!
 
Efficiency can take a hit if you start to decrease the water to grain ratio too much since you still need to be able to mash your grain bill correctly. You can avoid this by mashing in a 8 gallon cooler or bucket, for example. There's no rule saying that you need to mash into the kettle, altough it is more convenient.

You also have to keep in mind that you still need to be able to boil the wort and that too much grain in the pot can be unwieldy or even dangerous: we are brewing on a kitchen stove after all, and most are not build to take a lot of weight on a single lit burner. Some BIAB fans who use the Aussie method (you basically put all the water needed in the pot accounting for losses and boil-off) use small cranes or hoist to get the graisn out of the kettle.

If you decide to do BIAB in a turkey fryer and brew outside, you would not have these limitations. If you can find a grain bag that can take the weight, a vessel big enough to mash in and a way to heat up/boil the water/wort, there's really no limit to the amount of grain you can mash.
 
Deathbrewer, do you feel that when using a grain bag versus a lautering ton, you may lose some sugars, flavors or oils from the grains/hops? I'm about to brew my first all-grain batch and the grain bag seems to make everything very convenient!

No, these beers are as good as any of the batches I make when I mash in a cooler or keg. Sometimes better. Give it a shot!
:mug:
 
Update:

Just bottled the american wheat (see earlier post).. holy hell did that taste good. Finished a little higher than I thought it would but it tasted damn good. Very crisp and clean. This will be a VERY sessionable beer.

Woo hoo!
 
To be honest, I'm perfectly fine doing smaller (2.5-3 gallon) batches... I love beer, but I'm by no means a heavy drinker (3 in a week is a lot for me), so 5 gallons beer would just sit around and I wouldn't get much variety. And for times when I want to do a bigger batch with buddies, I can borrow a burner & 10 gallon kettle from a buddy of mine. :)

+1 on Bradmont's post for me. I did about 4 or 5 extract+steeping grain 5 gallon batches before learing about this stovetop grainbag AG method. Since then I've done a 3 gallon pumpkin spice, a 2.5 gallon oktoberfest, and a 1 gallon smoked porter.

Like Bradmont, since I'm not a heavy beer drinker (read that as not a heavy beer drinker, but a heavy scotch drinker!), 5 gallons would sit around for me forever. I prefer smaller batches, brewing more often, and more variety.

+5 on this method. This stovetop method is a cheap upgrade from extract only, very simple to do (great instructions and pics Deathbrewer), pretty decent brewhouse efficiency (I've hit 75% on all the AGs I've done so far, according to Beersmith), and nice to do when you live in a small apt and don't have to buy lots more space hungry accessories.
 
I tried this method tonight and one word would describe my experience: catastrophe. Not because of the instructions, but because I probably didn't read carefully before I started. I had 18lbs of grain/malt and a 5 gallon pot...it was way too much. I needed probably a 7 gallon pot for something like that. My second pot for sparging was only 4 gallons. I borrowed it and was told it was 5 gallons...come to find out it was 4. I tried to make due but I just didn't have the right equipment I guess. I pressed on, but it was not pretty, let me tell you. I don't have high hopes for the beer I brewed. I know this info is probably buried in here somewhere, but how in the world do you possibly strain the grains before sparging? I saw the metal paddle method, but for something like I just brewed with that many grains, let alone water-soaked grains, it'd be VERY heavy. Help!
 
You would need at least a 6 gallon pot for that amount of grain. And a very large colander or a hoist to allow it to drain.

You probably got very low efficiency. Which means you can still make a great beer, but you would have to reduce your hops significantly to balance the beer out or it could be very bitter.
 
Brewing first AG this weekend. Ingredients have arrived but I can't get to them since I'm in Quebec for Law School during the week. The suspense is killing me. Expect trip report soon, with maybe pics. Thought gf was going away for the weekend, appears she is not, might have to steathily do this Friday morning since I put off eating with the inlaws to study.

Probably get killed if she finds out I spent 4 hours brewing beer instead. Planning to get up at 6:00 AM and start out as soon as she is out the door. Probably will still get caught if she notices the new batch.

You only die once :D
 
Brewing first AG this weekend. Ingredients have arrived but I can't get to them since I'm in Quebec for Law School during the week. The suspense is killing me. Expect trip report soon, with maybe pics. Thought gf was going away for the weekend, appears she is not, might have to steathily do this Friday morning since I put off eating with the inlaws to study.

Probably get killed if she finds out I spent 4 hours brewing beer instead. Planning to get up at 6:00 AM and start out as soon as she is out the door. Probably will still get caught if she notices the new batch.

You only die once :D

I'm a law school grad, and from my experience you could get a lot of studying done at your kitchen table waiting for your grains to mash or your wort to boil--no reason not to multitask.

Just don't go to a bar to study, retention suffers after your third pint or so.
 
You would need at least a 6 gallon pot for that amount of grain. And a very large colander or a hoist to allow it to drain.

You probably got very low efficiency. Which means you can still make a great beer, but you would have to reduce your hops significantly to balance the beer out or it could be very bitter.

Thank you for the tips, I will be trying again soon...with larger equipment!
 
Yeah I can multitask pretty good. I cook a lot and it's not new that I have something like a Bolognese sauce and a pie cooking while I'm elbow deep in Charter Law.

Yeah, I also know that I'm pretty much the woman in the relationship (ie. cooking). But if you want to have it your way (ie. not have food taste like dirt) you better do it yourself :D

Not that my gf's cooking taste like dirt... most of the time.
 
what does all grain mean? something different than using malt? or that the malt is already shelled and your just using the grain from it?
 
what does all grain mean? something different than using malt? or that the malt is already shelled and your just using the grain from it?

You can make beer from malt (aka "grain") or extracts.

"All grain" just means you don't use any extracts.
 
I'm glad I took a look at this thread; I have just moved to AG and will be doing most of my brewing outside. Of course, being in Winnipeg we have mighty cold winters and it could be pretty nasty to brew outside from November to March.

So I will use some of DB's hints to do a bunch of the work during the winter months inside, while still doing the main boil outside (glasstop stove that can't generate enough heat to boil 6.5 gallons). Should work well!
 
You can make beer from malt (aka "grain") or extracts.

"All grain" just means you don't use any extracts.

okay i see. i found a website that has partial and all grain kits that kinda gave me that idea after i asked.

http://www.homebrewers.com/product/AG1004/American-Pale-Ale-All-Grain-Beer-Kit.html

now i would do a partial kit first but just so i'll know, if i bought this all grain kit, it would have everything i need to make the actual wort ingrendient wise? i would just mash the grain then add the hops at the right time during the 60 min boil correct?
 
okay i see. i found a website that has partial and all grain kits that kinda gave me that idea after i asked.

http://www.homebrewers.com/product/AG1004/American-Pale-Ale-All-Grain-Beer-Kit.html

now i would do a partial kit first but just so i'll know, if i bought this all grain kit, it would have everything i need to make the actual wort ingrendient wise? i would just mash the grain then add the hops at the right time during the 60 min boil correct?

I think it would be a really good idea for you to spend some time reading here to get your legs under you before you take the plunge into all grain (or any) brewing. An extract kit may be a good way to start before you get to all grain just because there are a huge number of things you need to learn about, so make brew day as simple as you can for now.

This site has all the information you will need, but probably the most widely read brewing resource in the world is John Palmer's "How to Brew." The first edition can be read for free at http://www.howtobrew.com/

Good luck!
 
oh yea, it will be a while before i even do partial kit cuz i would need bigger pot sizes. i've done 3 extract kits so far. i might like to step up to the partial kits sometime if its really that easy to do on the stove top :mug: i really don't see any difference in partial and whole grain kits than boiling more grains and not using any extract at all. seems easy as long as you have the proper pot sizes
 
You also have to account for your stove. Many home ranges are wimpy. I know mine is, so doing 5 gallon batches is impossible. You can't just put an 8 gallon kettle and expect it to boil :D
 

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