All-Grain Tutorial/Nut Brown Ale

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... and she caps them. Note the Troeg's Brewfest shirt because she rocks!!!

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Everything is capped and then gets a quick dip in a bucket of warm water. I like to rinse the beer off of them.

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And they are cased up and ready to store in the basement at 65-70 degrees for 2-3 weeks.

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I got 44 bottles this time... I was a little under 5 gallons, so I got more than I thought, actually. I am going to rig up a dip tube for the back of my bottling bucket valve asap. I leave too much in the bucket.

I have a label design in the works, but I am going to alter it a bit before posting. I used blue caps this time, and the graphic artist in me needs to match. More soon!

Thank you...first thanks for this awesome thread and tutorial, it has been immensely helpful, my hat is off to you and I salute your great efforts to teach us about AG...and secondly and most importantly thanks for reminding me why I keg and gave up bottling about 5 years ago.....I forgot how much extra work it is...seeing your photos of the bottles int eh dish washer and you and your wife racking into them brings back years of bad ,yet fun memories, thanks again and keep up the great work!!! :mug:
 
I'm sure this is a dumb question, but I'm new! Are there holes in the PVC pipe that goes into the cooler?
 
great post! When I finally venture away from BIAB, i'll definitely be consulting this thread
 
Yup, guess I should clarify. What did you use to mark it with?

A Sharpie... High tech up in here!

I'm sure this is a dumb question, but I'm new! Are there holes in the PVC pipe that goes into the cooler?

Yes, on the bottom:

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Nice tutorial here, did using your own grain mill ever increase your efficiency?

It did.... I went up by about 10%. Not long after that, the LHBS got a new mill too. Ha!

I know this post is old but...wouldnt it work nice to put the piping in a grain bag to keep out the grain and make it so much easier to clean and such?? I am going to try this...thanks Jeff

No.... Not a factor. Never had it get clogged, or had a stuck sparge. I usually vorlauf twice, about a pints worth each time until it runs clear, so no grain rushing through. To clean it, I just set the hose to "jet" and blast it through the opening, making it rain out. About every 5 brews or so, I take it apart and soak it really well in Oxy.
 
Huge thanks to ya DubbelDach for the write up and pics, and the rest of the posters with thier great insight and helpful tips. Helped make our first two AG batches run smooth. :rockin:
 
Thanks, Dubbel Dachs! I am still an extract brewer, but I am a couple of batches (and paychecks) away from going all grain. I really like your CPVC setup in your mash tun.

Right now, I only have a 5-gallon brew kettle and that is keeping me from going AG. Once I get the budget for a new kettle, I will convert a Coleman Extreme cooler into a mash tun and go AG.

Thanks for the inspiration!
 
I know this is an oldie but after reading this whole thread, I finally feel ready for my first AG batch coming up soon. Thanks everyone!

Tom
 
I always use this Mash Calculator for my strike and sparge water. Now, call me crazy, but it always gives a larger volume of water for the sparge, not the strike, so I always reverse them. Makes sense to me to add the larger volume first, where grain absorbtion is higher.

Are you still doing this? I'm reading How to Brew by Palmer and he says you'll use approx 1.5 times as much sparge water as you do for the mash. Just curious, as I'm about 1 mo away from my first AG batch.
 
excellent job..nice step by step pics and instructions. some times its the little things that people leave out that have people scratching there heads and wondering
 
Come on, fellas. No one has answered the question about whether or not it is important to wait 10 minutes after adding in the sparge water but before emptying said sparge water.

WHAT'S THE ANSWER? INQUIRING MINDS MUST KNOW.

Here's the steps I've determined from this thread (modified for my own water's needs for extra chemicals)

1) Pre-heat MLT with boiling water.
2) Treat strike / sparge water with campden tablet (to get rid of chlorine and chloramine).
3) Heat strike / sparge water to x. Find x by using mash temp calculator online.
4) Drain pre-heated water from MLT.
5) Add strike water to MLT.
6) Add grains (“dough in”) and stir as you pour grains, breaking up any clumps (“dough balls.”)
7) Add lactic acid and calcium chloride to the mash (in the amounts as recommended by EZ brew spreadsheet 3.0). Stir.
8) Check temp. If too high, add really cold water. If too low, add really hot water. Stir again. Check temp again. Keep doing this until you stop messing up. Temp should be x.
9) Close lid. Wait 45 minutes.
10) While you’re waiting, treat sparge water with lactic acid and calcium chloride in the amounts that EZ brew told you for the sparge water. Stir.
11) Heat sparge water to 185.
12) Keep sparge water around 185.
13) After 45 minutes, open lid of MLT. Stir. Grab a sample and use iodine to check for complete starch conversion. If it’s not done yet, then keep checking every 15 minutes after stirring. If it is done, then go to the next step.
14) Drain a few quarts (“vorlauf”) until the wort is clear of grain particles and husk material. Check the temp to see how badly you screwed up. Nothing you can do about it now. Lay out a piece of foil or drain through a colander to protect the integrity of the grain bed as you dump the mash back into the top of the MLT.
15) Drain the MLT completely of the initial strike water into the kettle.
16) Begin to heat up the kettle and first runnings. Once the temp gets over 170, then the mashing process is over, because all enzymes become denatured. So it’s a good thing to end it when you can.
17) Add sparge water, pouring onto the grain bed, GENTLY stirring as you go. If you can’t put in all of the sparge water in one go, then you’ll have to add it in multiple steps.
18) Close the lid and wait 10 minutes. (NOTE: verify that you have to wait 10 minutes – it seems like some people do not wait)
19) Vorlauf again. Add it back to the top of the batch through a colander or foil layer.
20) Completely drain the second (or third) runnings into the kettle.
21) If you still have more sparge water, repeat steps 17 through 20.
22) Grab a sample for testing with thermometer, pH, refractometer, hydrometer. Record results. Cry. Curse the gods for giving your town such crappy water.
23) Proceed to finish the boil anyway.
 
Come on, fellas. No one has answered the question about whether or not it is important to wait 10 minutes after adding in the sparge water but before emptying said sparge water.

i believe it is to settle the grainbed again..

hey OP, took me all the way to the blue ribbon shot to see that you are in lancaster county.. same here, send me a PM sometime
 
Come on, fellas. No one has answered the question about whether or not it is important to wait 10 minutes after adding in the sparge water but before emptying said sparge water.

WHAT'S THE ANSWER? INQUIRING MINDS MUST KNOW.

No need to wait. Add sparge water, give it a good stir, vorlauf (if you do that) and collect the runnings. I've done about 70 AG batches this way.
 
I wait about two minutes after stirring just 'cause I used to fly sparge and worry about the bed settling. It's probably not necessary since the vorlauf sets the bed anyway.
 
No need to wait. Add sparge water, give it a good stir, vorlauf (if you do that) and collect the runnings. I've done about 70 AG batches this way.

Thanks! Wish I had known this earlier today, but oh well. This was our second time AG, and it went a lot better than the first time. Looks like we got 70% efficiency. Eh. Not too bad, but there's a lot of room for improvement.
 
Thanks! Wish I had known this earlier today, but oh well. This was our second time AG, and it went a lot better than the first time. Looks like we got 70% efficiency. Eh. Not too bad, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

Don't sweat the efficiency. I used to chase that. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I even calculated it. It's really a non-factor once your process gets nailed down.
 
I use this method and this helps confirm it, great photos and clear instruction You get an A young man.:mug:
 
This IS a great thread !! I am a BIAB brewer, so some of it is not 100% applicable to my system, but it is all nicely documented and if I ever decide to mash differently, I will start here. Can I ask about 3/4 cup of priming sugar? My last 2 batches of brown ale were disappointing .. not from taste so much as carb and head. I used a calculator which gave me the sugar amount for the style and desired volume of CO2, but it was less than I like in a beer. How do you figure 3/4 cup? Is it from a calculator?
 
Just set my brother up with a mash tun so he may begin all grain brewing. I made a great nut brown ale very similar to this recipe and this would be a great one for him to try out.


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If you're going to be packaging this beer within a couple of weeks, it'll be fine, just let it settle. Any mechanical advantage you have toward clarity will be offset (bigtime, in my opinion) by the chances of infection and oxidation that come with racking to another vessel.

I wish that this home brewing myth would die. Oxidation is only a major problem after been has been filtered. The chance of oxidizing a beer that still contains yeast cells is slim to none. The amount of oxygen that is picked up during racking to a secondary fermentation vessel is very very small, and any oxygen that is picked up will be rapidly scrubbed from the beer by the yeast cells that are still in suspension. Another thing that home brewers overlook is that green beer contains dissolved CO2. Anyone who has ever racked beer to a secondary fermentation vessel has experienced what appears to be a restart of fermentation. What one is seeing is dissolved CO2 coming out solution. That off-gasing is purging oxygen from the fermentation vessel.
 
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