(UPDATE) All Grain Brew In a 30 Gallon Steam Kettle

Hey All,

Here's my step by step process with the steam kettle.

So here's to starting the day, have all the grains ground and the 60L fermenter sterilizing.


Just started the mash, i brought the strike water to 155 degrees, added the 35 pounds of grains, the water then dropped to 135 degrees. Took 15 minutes to bring to my target mashing temperature of 153.


The mash ended up spiking at 160 degrees (7 more than planned) but still worked out just fine. Found that once i hit the target temp, the steam kettle kept raising the temp even when off (which kicked ass for boiling by the way)

Still mashed for the full 120 minutes, then a mashout at 170 degrees for 10 minutes.


Here's my mash-tun setup, it worked great!

So i sparged at 170 degrees for about 40 minutes.


Yield before the boil was 19 gallons

With a pre-boil OG of 1.050


Did the standard 1 hour boil, adding 3 different hops

2 pots in an ice bath, one with a coil wort chiller


Third pot chilling.

Got to 70 degrees in under an hour.

Ended up with a OG of 1.078! my target was 1.060
Also hit the 15 gallon mark right on the nose!


here's the 60L fermenter in action.

Here's to the 7 week wait!

Wow, ever thought about resizing pics? Do you work in a restaurant or something? You should post those pics in "the tap room" thread

Sorry about that, just resized them, and yes i do work in a restaurant. So much easier to brew there then at home!

blueturtle00 said:

Sorry about that, just resized them, and yes i do work in a restaurant. So much easier to brew there then at home!

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I like your idea.

blueturtle00 said:

Sorry about that, just resized them, and yes i do work in a restaurant. So much easier to brew there then at home!

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I wouldn't brew at work.

Hmm won't be doing that again. Still it's just for me to consume at home.

It's not beer until you pitch the yeast. So you could make the wort and take it home before pitching and fermenting? Maybeez?

BeerEagle said:

It's not beer until you pitch the yeast. So you could make the wort and take it home before pitching and fermenting? Maybeez?

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Yes you can but it still could be a legal battle if they wanted to come after the place. Best to brew at home and not risk it, tho i want that steam kettle for my brew room in my house when i get it lol!

blueturtle00 said:

Hmm won't be doing that again. Still it's just for me to consume at home.

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I shared a similar feeling/idea. I even tried the excuse that it was just barley soup. No go.

BeerEagle said:

It's not beer until you pitch the yeast. So you could make the wort and take it home before pitching and fermenting? Maybeez?

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See above

Vance71975 said:

Best to brew at home and not risk it, tho i want that steam kettle for my brew room in my house when i get it lol!

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Again, see above above. As far as the steam kettles are concerned, you can go to govdeals dot com and they usualyy have more than one up for auction. I want one too. They are basically a smaller version of what commercial breweries use. Cheers

Where did you get that fermenter - I mean barley soup container?

You can make the wort at work, it's not considered "brewing" until you pitch the yeast, so pitch it at home (assuming thats where you're fermenting).

BigRob said:

You can make the wort at work, it's not considered "brewing" until you pitch the yeast, so pitch it at home (assuming thats where you're fermenting).

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That was already suggested 3 and a half hours ago.

My work here is done. Another dream crushed and onother notch on my belt. JK. There is a moonshine enforcement officer in Kentucky (was gonna type KY, but thought it would confuse some) who knows when to plan a raid by tasting the shiner's beer and knowing when it will be ran through a still.

Must be different up here, BOP's get away with making your beer for you, except you have to pitch the yeast, there's a brewery that sells vac packed wort, various wineries/farmers sell juice, etc. Can't really see how making Wort anywhere you so please, and transporting Wort to your house, where you pitch the yeast and ferment it into beer, is any different than picking up a bunch of apple juice or grape juice to do the same thing.

In any case, you can't win the fight against the corrupt licensing system, you can lose your license a million ways and they will find one, even if you somehow brought something like this to court and won.

It'd be interesting to see someone doing this at an unlicensed establishment, with no license to lose, there's really not much than can be done if the product is non alcoholic and transported off-site to become beer.

Just to clarify, the OP was definitely in the wrong, fermenting there was an absolute no-no. The above text is just for arguments sake, as I said I know you can't win, big brother always wins.

Instead of calling the guy out and possibly getting his arse in a sling, maybe next time just send him a PM and give him his warning. That would be the nice way to handle it.

They are pretty smart. Here in WA, they use a 20 year old bearded guy that looks like he's 30 to go to wine and beer tastings, as well as buy alcohol from stores. All tastings have to be reported to them a month in advance, so they know when to go. After the first offense, the fine doubles, and so do their efforts to catch/trick that store into a fine.

BigRob said:

Must be different up here, BOP's get away with making your beer for you, except you have to pitch the yeast, there's a brewery that sells vac packed wort, various wineries/farmers sell juice, etc. Can't really see how making Wort anywhere you so please, and transporting Wort to your house, where you pitch the yeast and ferment it into beer, is any different than picking up a bunch of apple juice or grape juice to do the same thing.

In any case, you can't win the fight against the corrupt licensing system, you can lose your license a million ways and they will find one, even if you somehow brought something like this to court and won.

It'd be interesting to see someone doing this at an unlicensed establishment, with no license to lose, there's really not much than can be done if the product is non alcoholic and transported off-site to become beer.

Just to clarify, the OP was definitely in the wrong, fermenting there was an absolute no-no. The above text is just for arguments sake, as I said I know you can't win, big brother always wins.

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The fermenters actually back in my garage. For sake of argument removing the photo's anyways. I did have a foam out over night ugh...

samc said:

Where did you get that fermenter - I mean barley soup container?

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^^This.

blueturtle00 said:

For sake of argument removing the photo's anyways.

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This defeats the purpose of the thread if you ask me. Without them it's just a bunch of dudes talking about barley soup and whatnot.

I can't see any pictures in the OP post.

seminoleAle said:

I can't see any pictures in the OP post.

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He took them down. Now let's cut to the chase, how do you feel about barley soup and brewing at restaurants. That is now the new topic of this thread.

I think if you endure the bad conditions/pay of kitchen work there should be a little ray of a sunshine if the owner/chef is cool with you using equipment to make wort.

I'm really interested in direct injection steam mashing. Is there anyone out there that has done this more the a few times.

You guys aren't very imaginative. Barley soup? Really??

Try these:
http://www.google.com/search?q=malt...d=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8 - Google for excuses, um, I mean "ideas"

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cooking/msg011823425948.html - Malt bread!

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/14352/what-malt-products-are-used-baking - ethnic baking and browning of baked goods

http://www.maltproducts.com/index.html - Cereals and syrups

http://www.velmadinkley.com/malt.html - Milkshakes!

http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,homemade_malt_candy,FF.html - Candy!

Come on, barley soup?? If there's no beef, it's not barley soup.

I used some extra second runnings (already had 6.5 gallons before the boil!) and made a delicious cold drink with the wort, ginger syrup, and ice. It's amazing how thick and almost chewy wort tastes. Will do this again! If you work at a restaurant, I'd suggest that they put this or something similar on the menu. Maybe next time I'll try vanilla extract to make an un-milk shake for my milk-allergic family.