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As of today I have ordered or have all of the equipment I need to move to Partial Mash.

Today I got an 8 Gal Kettle for full boils, Bayou Burner to brew outside, and a 5 Gallon Cooler w/spigot. I also got some other small supplies Auto Siphon, more tubing, and other essentials (one step and StarSan).

I will eventually move to the BIAB Method and hopefully All Grain in the next year or so. My next brew day will be January 19 and it will be my first in almost 3 years. I am now formulating a recipe for a Zombiedust clone and a typical American Amber.

Trust me, I will be asking many questions over the next month.
 
Congrats! I need to get with the full boil crowd at some point here.

I got a keg with all the connectors, CO2 regulator, and tubing needed. Just gotta get a CO2 tank and I'll be ready to get started kegging. Woot!
 
Yeah, the keg and stuff was a Christmas gift from my brother. It'll probably be a bit before I can get the CO2 tank and then I need to figure out if I can fit the keg in my mini fridge that I just recently got for free when my mother-in-law's law firm moved to a new office space.
 
Today I got an 8 Gal Kettle for full boils, Bayou Burner to brew outside, and a 5 Gallon Cooler w/spigot.

= all grain capability

unless I'm missing something or you want to do some big beers, 5 gallon MLT is big enough for 12 lbs of grain @ 1.25 qts/lb. up to 1.059 OG

without the cooler, you would Brew In A Bag, using the kettle for mashing, the bag for lautering. the cooler is used for mashing & lautering, leaving the kettle for heating strike water and the boil.

how big your Mash Tun needs to be
 
Heh. I didn't look that closely at the equipment he said he had/was getting. Yeah, that's totally an all-grain setup.
 
I will be getting to an All Grain setup at this point but I want to work my way up there by starting with Partial Mash. Part of the reason I bought all of the equipment was so that I can move to All Grain if I wanted to.

As I said it has been 3 years since I have brewed and then I did extract with Specialty grains. I think this Partial Mash method will help me learn the intricacies of the grains so that I can find which ones work best for different types of beers.
 
I will be getting to an All Grain setup at this point but I want to work my way up there by starting with Partial Mash. Part of the reason I bought all of the equipment was so that I can move to All Grain if I wanted to.

As I said it has been 3 years since I have brewed and then I did extract with Specialty grains. I think this Partial Mash method will help me learn the intricacies of the grains so that I can find which ones work best for different types of beers.

When you do your partial mash, will you have the grains in a bag? If so, how much grain will you have? If you put about 6 1/2 gallons of water in the pot, bring it to about 160 degrees F., drop in a paint strainet bag and dump in your 12 pounds of mixed crushed grains and keep the temperature at about 152 for an hour by insulating the pot, you can remove the bag of grains, squeeze out all the wort, add a teaspoon of DME, bring to a boil and add your hops. It's still a partial mash because you added malt extract. :rockin::ban:
 
IT does sound like you've got everything you need to do a true all grain batch, not just a partial, as a 7.5-8 gallon kettle is perfectly fine for such a batch

You might have to do a little bit rigging to moddifiy the cooler, but I say that your set!

Good luck!
 
Congrats on the new kit! Sounds like you are all set for great things.:mug:

drop in a paint strainet bag and dump in your 12 pounds of mixed crushed grains

I am also a newbie, have done only 3 BIAB, and read much about it. A 5 gallon paint strainer bag may be too small for 12 lbs. You can do it and it will be beer. I used a 5 gal strainer on a 6 lb grain bill. The grain was packed tightly and the efficiency suffered. (My first batch. A little low on the ABV, but damn, it smells and tastes wonderful.)

Experienced BIABaggers (I have read) mention the grain should have lots of room to swim around and the bag should be large enough to fit around your kettle. I sewed a larger bag from a voile curtain. You can search the forums for online sources.
 
hey everyone, i have been using Brewers Best kits for a while, and want to try brewing a light beer from scratch. i normally drink American light (coors light, miller lite, bud light) want to try all grain next.

Trying to stay away from the kits and do this stuff for real. is there anyone that i can chat with around Pittsburgh Area that can help? let me know.

i would like to make another brew in the next month.
 
Congrats on the new kit! Sounds like you are all set for great things.:mug:



I am also a newbie, have done only 3 BIAB, and read much about it. A 5 gallon paint strainer bag may be too small for 12 lbs. You can do it and it will be beer. I used a 5 gal strainer on a 6 lb grain bill. The grain was packed tightly and the efficiency suffered. (My first batch. A little low on the ABV, but damn, it smells and tastes wonderful.)

Experienced BIABaggers (I have read) mention the grain should have lots of room to swim around and the bag should be large enough to fit around your kettle. I sewed a larger bag from a voile curtain. You can search the forums for online sources.

You may have accidentally gotten a 3 gallon strainer bag. My 5 gallon bags fit in my turkey fryer (30 qt) and reach nearly to the bottom. Even a 14 pound grain batch comes out looking like a thin porridge when I stir them in.:rockin:
 
Quick question...what would you suggest the average grain bill for my new setup would be? I was thinking 10 lbs. Is that too much?
 
I would think 10 lbs would be just about right

you could go up to 12 lbs @1¼ qts per gallon strike would be 3¾ gallons and fill 4.87 gallons of your MLT with the grain

follow that link in my first reply for more info on how big a mash tun should be. more information and detailed explanations further into the thread
 
Since I do not have a "False Bottom" and I am having a hard time finding a large enough bag to put the grains in, will a paint strainer from Lowe's or Menards suffice?
 
Got a 3 gallon pot for Christmas, so I too am looking at extract with specialty biab partial boil. Plan to work on aquiring the gear to go all grain labour day weekend, drinking my first all grain beer Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

Can anybody hook me up with a thread laying out the steeping specialty grains method?
 
Can anybody hook me up with a thread laying out the steeping specialty grains method?

it's very very very easy

heat 2 gallons of water, 155° is recommended, but heat your water a couple ° above your target, to account for the temp difference between the water & your grains.

throw in your grains, let them soak for 30 minutes.

pull the bag out and let it drain into your boil kettle (you can squeeze the bag a little).

if you're short on your pre-boil volume, you can heat up the water needed and pour that over the grains in the bag into the boil kettle.

proceed with boil
 
it's very very very easy

heat 2 gallons of water, 155° is recommended, but heat your water a couple ° above your target, to account for the temp difference between the water & your grains.

throw in your grains, let them soak for 30 minutes.

pull the bag out and let it drain into your boil kettle (you can squeeze the bag a little).

if you're short on your pre-boil volume, you can heat up the water needed and pour that over the grains in the bag into the boil kettle.

proceed with boil

Thanks!

I'm not a good searcher. I've been trying different search terms for a week and keep coming up with the same threads that didn't tell me what I wanted to know.
 
Google works best. To search here try this site:homebrewtalk.com key words here
example site:homebrewtalk.com steeping grains how too
still might not find what you really want but at least it will get rid of most of the crap
 
Google works best. To search here try this site:homebrewtalk.com key words here
example site:homebrewtalk.com steeping grains how too
still might not find what you really want but at least it will get rid of most of the crap

awesome, there ya go.

they say 160° for 20-30 minutes, that will definitely work too

tomorrow I'm redoing my very first recipe, which is steeping & extract. the first time I did the boil steeping method and the batch didn't turn out very good, so I'm doing the hot steeping this time.
 
I did a biab partial boil for my 5 gallon partial mash beers. The 1st was a midwest cascade pale ale kit,the 2nd my own recipe that changed the grains a little from the list of grains from the kit. But it was still 5lbs of grains in 1.5G of distilled water on the first,spring water for the 2nd,same amount. Mashed for 60 minutes,still having trouble maintaining mash temps. But still stayed between 152-160F,mostly about 155F for the majority of the hour.
Sparged with 165F 1.5G of water to get 3 gallons of wort for the boil. I used the same 5G SSBK for the mash & boil as for my AE brews (AE=All Extract,a term I came up with last month). I saved the plain Breisse gold LME 3.3lb on the first,3lb Munton's plain extra light & light DME for the 2nd for flame out late additiions. The fresh wort was great for all hop additions. And the same old equipment I've been using works fine for pm,just got a large grain bag to add to the process. And since the SS stock pot set we bought was 4 nested pots,I used the 3G one to heat sparge water. I got aftermarket heating elements for our electric stove that heat up way faster,which def helped. I posted a link for them in my profile.
 
Quick question on brew kettle thickness. How thick is a good brew kettle? I have felt some pretty cheap ones and wondered if there are some that are too thin for the prolonged heat exposure.
 
I have a small 2 gallon lunch cooler that i steep my grains in since i can't seem to keep temps stable. I just heat water the water a few degrees warmer and drop my bagged grains in. With 10 minutes or so left i fire up my brewpot to get a head start on the boil. Dump in the "tea" from the cooler and let the bag drain some more ( or squeeze ). Works for me. Got the idea from a brewing TV episode.
 
I have a small 2 gallon lunch cooler that i steep my grains in since i can't seem to keep temps stable. I just heat water the water a few degrees warmer and drop my bagged grains in. With 10 minutes or so left i fire up my brewpot to get a head start on the boil. Dump in the "tea" from the cooler and let the bag drain some more ( or squeeze ). Works for me. Got the idea from a brewing TV episode.

this is my plan with my steeping grains. have a 16-qt cooler.*

shiny new propane burner, so no idea how fast it will heat water. will get additional water up to 160° and dunk sparge

* have measured the inside dimensions on several coolers, and they're not as much as they say they are. the 70-qt I'm buying is less than 14 gallons (≈55 quarts). my 16-qt is actually 4 gallons
 
I have a small 2 gallon lunch cooler that i steep my grains in since i can't seem to keep temps stable. I just heat water the water a few degrees warmer and drop my bagged grains in. With 10 minutes or so left i fire up my brewpot to get a head start on the boil. Dump in the "tea" from the cooler and let the bag drain some more ( or squeeze ). Works for me. Got the idea from a brewing TV episode.

Another idea is to preheat your oven to 155F or whatever steeping temp you want, and place the kettle in the oven.
 
That would work too, but then i would have to heat my oven. Think of it as practice for partial mash. LOL
 
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