When to switch to all grain

I got about 15 brews all extract w/ spec. grains under my belt, and i'm debating all grain. How much more time is involed and equiptment. I have an outdoor burner w/ an 8g polar brew pot. with temp. and ball vaule.

Add a simple cooler mash tun and a second kettle or cooler for HLT and you're set, under $100 easily. My brew days take about 4.5 hours.

Yup, Add a mash tun, you could get away with not getting a HLT (hot liquid tank) but i would suggest you get one. An aluminum turkey fryer would work.

If you search craigslist or E-bay, this is what i paid:
Mash Tun ___________$30 (used cooler and fittings)
HLT & extra burner ___$20 (Turkey fryer kit from craigslist)

If you search you could pay $50 to upgrade to an all grain kit, i made that money back in savings after my 3rd batch of beer. It adds a few more hours to your brew day but your not really doing anything too advanced, you may need help with getting your temperature correct the first few times though.

You will make better beer. That's why i switched.

You should try this next little baby step, Australia's full volume, no sparge, BIAB. It allows you to try out all grain for less than $10.

When you feel you're ready, you'll know. You'll just need a MLT of some sort or another, and an extra pot or way to heat up sparge water is handy.

Some people just keep doing partial mashes throughout their brewing career, and some go to all-grain quickly. Both ways can make exceptional beer, so there isn't any need to move to AG unless you feel you really want to.

Doing partial mini-mashes cost me nothing more.If i were going all grain i would have to buy a pot with valve or cooler.Wont cost much really.For now im doing half extract half mash just because i have a lot of extract left otherwise i would be trying all grain,for now im seeing how much better it is.Doing 2 gallon batches makes it pretty conveinent for this for me.

+1 for BIAB method... very fun way to start all grain!

check out deathbrewers easy stove top all grain. I haven't gone all grain yet, but plan to via that method. Might as well try it out for very cheap to free, and then I would imagine you will know for sure if its for you or not.

Or partial mashes will help you decide too. Thats probably the next logical step because you are going to end up with beer and not wasted ingredients. You might get discouraged if something goes wrong with a deathbrewer method AG, but from what i can gather its relatively hard to mess up a partial mash.

Sounds like all you need is a HLT and possibly another stockpot. I use a cooler with a homemade braid and batch sparge. I heat my strike and sparge water on my stovetop then use my turkey fryer outside. Works great and I get pretty good efficiency.

I wouldn't jump for another pot to be an HLT. Use your existing pot for the HLT and upgrade to a larger brew pot. Pick a cooler size and convert it. Done.

When I was ready to try partial and all-grain, I choose to go to half-batches. I bought a $25 5g cooler, and now I brew 2.5g batches. For beers under SG 1.070 I get away without sparging at all. I just add all the water to the MLT. For larger beers I lauter to a bucket when I have heated sparge water in the boil kettle, then move it to the BK after I have sparged. Although, I only get about 20 bottles, and many would say it is not worth it, I have brewed 30 batches last year with this operation. I brew in about 3-3:15 hours, which is nice, because I can brew after work. The small amount allow for cheaper ingredients, and I get to brew more often and try many different styles. It also helped when brewing different experiments. Just another idea.

just2brew said:

I wouldn't jump for another pot to be an HLT. Use your existing pot for the HLT and upgrade to a larger brew pot. Pick a cooler size and convert it. Done.

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+1 to this.

Cake. I like to brew 2 all grain batches on my brew day as I enjoy multi tasking when many of the operations overlap. For example, while mashing batch #1 I heat the strike water for batch #2. When batch #1 begins to boil I usually have batch #2 doughed in. With the overlaping operations it only takes a couple hours longer for 2 batches, usually 6 hour brew day.

Oh yeah, my beer tastes way better since going to all grain.

Contrary to other posts on the AG time requirement, my brewday is 7 hours excluding cleanup. I'm also full-boiling 5 gal. batches, starting with around 6.5-7 gals. in the kettle, on a gas stovetop. Honestly, my brewday goes like this: start to heat strike water/ weigh grains. wait 40 minutes, mash in. sit an hour. drain first runnings/ heat sparge. wait 30 minutes, sparge. wait 10 minutes, drain second runnings. 30 minute wait, then boil. wait 1.25 hours to actually achieve boil, then it's a normal extract brew day. Wow....all laid out, my system waits a LOT of time. Eh, apartment with no ability to cool wort in the parking lot. I say try a BIAB, and if you do go AG or even PM, think ahead when buying new equipment. Kyle

eanmcnulty said:

When I was ready to try partial and all-grain, I choose to go to half-batches. I bought a $25 5g cooler, and now I brew 2.5g batches. For beers under SG 1.070 I get away without sparging at all. I just add all the water to the MLT. For larger beers I lauter to a bucket when I have heated sparge water in the boil kettle, then move it to the BK after I have sparged. Although, I only get about 20 bottles, and many would say it is not worth it, I have brewed 30 batches last year with this operation. I brew in about 3-3:15 hours, which is nice, because I can brew after work. The small amount allow for cheaper ingredients, and I get to brew more often and try many different styles. It also helped when brewing different experiments. Just another idea.

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This is what I plan to do when I go to all grain in a few months. Its only me drinking it so smaller batches are perfect. Still have a lot of all grain reading to do though.

It is never too soon. There is no prerequisite, extract doesn't learn ya to do all grain in my opinion. Nothing wrong with either process, just different.

Sounds like you just need a converted cooler to mash. This site has a few good conversion threads. Make sure you leave plenty of time your first AG, as it may take longer than you think the first time.

Luck!

Adamb258 said:

This is what I plan to do when I go to all grain in a few months. Its only me drinking it so smaller batches are perfect. Still have a lot of all grain reading to do though.

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You know, it works for me. I've been asked, "why bother?" But to each his own. I really enjoy brewing, and I am able to do it often this way. Be warned that if you are sharing, your beer will go fast. Be stingy. I am about to brew three different clones of Spotted Cow, and I am going to brew them three days in a row after work. I heat on a banjo burner in a 5g BK, so it heats very quickly. I use the 5g cooler to mash in, and I built myself a counter-flow wort chiller. I also have an immersion chiller I made for about $18, but I really like the CFC. I ferment in 3g Better Bottles. I have six of them now. The key is to keeping the pipeline flowing.
I will eventually put together a larger system, but with 41 batches under my belt I'm still learning.
Good luck!

For me, the real requirement to decide whether to switch to all grain is the ability to bring water to a specific temperature. With extract and specialty grains, if you can get the temperature between 150 and 170, you're good. Mashing all grain requires more control as your final product changes with only a small temperature difference. You need a thermometer that is accurate in the range between 140 and 175. If it is off by 5 degrees in that range, you will have problems.

jafo28 said:

+1 to this.

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Double +1 to this. My brew day is usually 5-6 hours including clean up. I would also recommend trying your hand at some brewing software to help determine all of the numbers for temperatures, SG and volumes of water. You can figure out all of these numbers on your own but I like having beersmith run the numbers for me so I can focus on the details of the process of brewing all grain.

You can get a free 30 day trial to beersmith (w/o signing up for anything needing a credit card and then having to cancel later). After that it is just a one time fee of $25 which is about the cost of an all grain kit. Beersmith has help me prevent ruining several batches of beer so I figure it has paid for itself.

If you choose to brew outside using a turkey fryer or propane burner and go with the cooler as a mashtun I recommend wrapping your cooler with several blankets or sleeping bags during the mashing to help maintain temps.

Once I had a few all grain batches done I found it to be much easier than I previously had thought.

Good luck.

If you have a 10 gal brew kettle and you're brewing 5 gal batches, you can heat all of your water (mash/sparge) in 1 kettle at the same time. After you heat to your preferred mash temp, dump that into an Igloo cooler converted to an MLT/add your grain. Continue heating the water that is left over to sparge temps, then empty into a 5 gallon Lowes cooler that you installed a ball valve into. Drain your wort into the brew kettle and sparge from your cooler. Wah lah. So, if you have a large enough kettle you just need to add a cooler that is converted with a ball valve and SS braided line, and a 5 gallon cooler from Lowes that you add a ball valve to.

BIAB is a way to go, I done 10 batches or so, all great beers and I don't see myself moving to MLT design any time soon.

paraordnance said:

BIAB is a way to go
...

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How long is your brew day?

Do BIAB & No Chill and your brew day will be about 1-2 hours longer, depending on a few variables:

1. Is your grain already milled?
2. How long are you mashing?
3. Are you doing a mash out?
4. Are you sparging?

Etc, etc...

kable said:

How long is your brew day?

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I BIAB and no-chill for last 9-10 batches. My brew day is no longer than 3-4 hours including clean-up unless I do 90 min mash or 90 min boil. I preheat my water while crushing grains, mash them in, pull the bag out and it goes right on the burner while last drops of wort come out of the bag, no mash-out, no sparge, and I still get 72-75% efficency. After boil I transfer hot wort to the cube and usually leave it to cool for 5-24 hours depending how cold it is outside. Most of the time I pitch yeast next day.