All-Grain Brewing with Extract Brewing Equipment (pics)

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

DRoyLenz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2009
Messages
702
Reaction score
6
Location
Chicago
MOD EDIT: PUBLISHED
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/all-grain-pictorial-video-tutorials-78963/


This weekend was my first adventure in to All-Grain brewing. I don't, however, have the money to secure any AG equipment, so I was forced to use a method that would work with only the equipment available in your basic extract starter kit. This is a GREAT way for a beginning brewer to start AG brewing, and to learn and practice the fundamentals. They can then spend the money down the line on more advanced equipment to make larger, more efficient batches.

Before I go any further, I wanted to give due credit to two other members. DeathBrewer's Easy Stovetop AG Brewing Method was really where I adapted all of my procedures from. Almost every step described below comes directly from his process. I just made a few minor changes. Also, the recipe I used in this example is a variation on BierMuncher's Belgian Wit. I learned a lot, not only from these two threads, but from asking both DeathBrewer and BierMuncher a lot of questions, and they were very helpful. Thanks guys!

Now for the good stuff.

To start off, it's important to point out that, without a 6.5 gallon kettle, you really won't be able to do a full-boil, which means you really will not be getting the efficiency you need for a good brew. I don't have a 6.5 kettle yet, so the example below is using a 5 gallon, stainless steel economy brew kettle, and I'm making 2.5 gallon batches. I actually made one 2.5 gallon batch on Sunday, then another on Monday, then combined the two. Everything else needed for this method that would not come in a basic starter kit can be purchased for a few bucks.

Equipment Needed for < 3 Gallon All-Grain Batch
-5 Gallon Kettle w/ lid
-Stock pot or Dutch Ovens capable of holding 10 quarts (you can use multiple pots if none of them are big enough, this will be used to heat the sparge water while the mash finishes)
-Stirring Rod (I will be using a 24 inch mash paddle)
-Dial Thermometer
-Paint Strainer bags (5 Gallon) (Can be purchased at Home Depot)
-Clean bucket (Ale Pale works) to hold wort while sparging
-Canister to dispose of spent grains (in other words, trash)
-Pan, pot, baking sheet or drip tray to collect drippings from grain bag (I'm using a tin foil pan, which can be bought from any grocery store)

For this, I will be brewing up a Belgian Wit recipe. I will post my exact recipe at the bottom, but if you're interested, I suggest you check out BierMuncher's Belgian Wit.

Process:

1. Calculate how much strike water will be required. In my example, I was using 4.75 lbs of grain for my 2.5 gallon batch. I decided to go with 2 gallons of strike water, for a water to grist ratio of 1.68 qts/lb.

2. Heat your strike water in your 5 gallon kettle.

HeatStrikeWater.jpg


3. Calculate your desired strike water temperature with the following formula:

Tw = (0.2/R)(T2-T1) + T2
Tw – Temperature of infusion water
T2 – Target Mash Temperature (this will be defined based on the recipe and grains you are using)
T1 – Initial Temperature of mash (assumed to be 65F, ambient temperature of my kitchen)
R - Water to grist ratio

Tw = (0.2/1.68)(155F-65F) + 155F
Tw = 165.5F (This will change for your recipe and process, so make sure to run your own calculations.)

4. When you reach your strike temperature, turn off the burner, double bag paint strainer bags in boil kettle. Wrap edges of bag over the sides of the kettle if possible to hold the bags in place and to keep the grains from falling out of the bag. Add grains to the strainer bags. Pour the grains in slowly, and while stirring, to make sure that you are evenly distributing the grains in the strike water.

DoughIn.jpg


5. Once you are doughed in, you should be pretty close to your target mash temperature. If you are more than a couple degrees off, add a little hot water to heat it up, or add a little cool water to cool it down, until you're within a few degrees of your target temp.

6. Because I have an economy kettle, the stainless steel is very thin, and I imagine that a lot of heat will be lost. So I decided to wrap my kettle in a big beach towel to insulate it throughout the mashing process. This is an experimental step, and is by no means necessary. Cover your pot and let sit.

EDIT: In brewing another batch with this process, I found another method for maintaining mash temperatures that proved very effective. I preheated my oven for my approximate mash temperature and put the kettle in there for the duration of the process. It was a bit of a PIA to take out and put back to stir, but my mash temperature did not fluctuate a single degree in the entire hour. Remember, if you do this, take the racks out of your oven before you preheat it, I don't want you to burn yourself, or a pet. :cross:

TowelInsulator.JPG


7. It is recommended by some people to stir the mash every once in awhile to increase efficiency. I plan to do this every 10-20 minutes. The downside to this is that the wort will lose heat every time the kettle is opened to stir. It may be necessary to add hot water to the wort if the temperature drops significantly below the mash temperature.

8. Now would be a good time to enjoy a good homebrew. I prepared ahead of time and decided to try a new craft brew I had never had. Bell's Expedition Imperial Stout, it was delicious.

BellsExpeditionStout_pre.JPG
 
9. Around 30 minutes in to the mash, begin to heat up the sparge water in the stock pots/dutch ovens.

If I can assume that my grains will absorb ~.5 gallon of water, and I will lose ~.5 gallon of water to my boil, and I started with 2 gallons of strike water, I will want 1.5 gallons (6 quarts) of sparge water. If you have a larger kettle and can boil more water, do so, you&#8217;ll get better efficiency. You want the temperature of the sparge to be ~170F once the grains are added, but not over. Heat sparge water to approximately 175F - 180F, then turn off heat.

10.Lift the bag, with grains, out of the mash and drain. This is pretty heavy, and we'll be putting it in a drip tray anyways, so I wasn't too worried about draining it all out.

DrainingMashedGrains.jpg


11. Put bag aside temporarily, perhaps in a bucket, baking sheet, or drip pan, just to catch the remaining drain off while you perform the next step.

GrainBagDripTray.jpg


12. Pour the wort from your mash in to your clean bucket. I'm using a Home Depot HOMER bucket. This is just a temporary vessel to hold your wort while you sparge. Pour as gently as possible. If you have an extra set of hands, pour the wort down the side of the bucket to minimize the amount of oxygen you mix in during this step. This is to prevent hot-side aeration.

13. Pour the wort from your drip pan to your original mash wort.

14. Put your grain bag back in to the kettle, and begin to slowly pour your sparge water over the grains. Do this a little water at a time (I used about a quart at a time) while stirring.

MashedGrainsWithWort.jpg


15. Let that sit for 10 minutes, while stirring every once in awhile.

16. Remove your grain bag from sparge water and let drain again.

17. Place your grain bag back in your drip tray again, no use wasting any available sugars.

18. Add the wort from your original mash to your sparge water. Just pour it right in there. Again, try and do this gently to avoid HSA.

FinalMashedWort.JPG
 
19. Bring your wort up to a nice gentle, but rolling boil. At this point, you would just go ahead and boil as you normally would. Because it was a fun brew day, and because I documented it, I'll share the final brew process for this particular recipe.

I added my hops in for a full 60 minute boil.

20. While the boil is happening I took the opportunity to clean up my kitchen a bit, and to clean some bottles. I also prepared the rest of my ingredients.

BelgianWitSpices.jpg


21. It was around this time that a friend of mine (closest thing I have to a SWMBO) came over and she had brought me a gift. So I gave her a homebrew, asked her to smile pretty and hold up her gift for me. What a nice gift, eh?

CathleenBrewSign.jpg


22. After the 60 minute boil, I added all of the spices to my hop bag at flameout, and threw the kettle in to my ice bath. It took about 45 minutes to cool down to pitching temperatures. I aerated the wort by pouring it back and forth between the bucket and kettle, then pitched the yeast and put the bucket in to my fermentation chiller. The next morning, it was bubbling away like a school girl (I know the simile doesn't make sense, but I like it).

Now for the recipe:

Grains
2 lbs 2 Row
2.25 lbs Flaked Wheat
.5 lbs White Wheat

Hops
.5 oz Saaz Pellet Hops (60 Minutes)

Yeast
Wyeast Belgian Witbier 3944 (1.33 liter starter)

Spices/Additional Flavors
1/4 ounce of freshly crushed (pulverized) coriander – flameout
.5 Tbsp of crushed Grains of Paradise – flameout
.1 oz freshly crushed Star Anise – flameout

2.35 ounces fresh naval orange zest (2 large oranges) – flameout
0.85 ounces fresh lemon zest (2 lemons) - flameout
3 chamomile tea bags – flameout

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion Mash - 155F for 60 Minutes

Gravity
Calculated Original Gravity - 1.048
Measured Original Gravity - 1.046

I have not calculated the efficiency of this method yet, but I will post back when I do. But it is worth noting that I did come relatively close to the expected Original Gravity. I'm sure there are things I can do to increase my efficiency, but not too bad for my first AG, especially using an experimental method.

Here is my ordered grain bill from Austin Home Brew. Note that there is enough grain in here for a 5 gallon batch. Like I said at the beginning, I just cut my recipe in half, and did two separate brews of 2.5 gallon batches.

GrainBill2.jpg


And because I still have one more picture available to post in this thread, I'd figure I'd show you all my Brewspace.

BrewSpace1.jpg


I'll make sure to post back pictures of the final product when it's done, plus an evaluation as to how well it came out.

Let me know if you guys have any questions or comments. And if you can think of ways to increase efficiency with this method, let me know!

Thanks, and Happy Brewing! :mug:
 
Wow, I'd like an all-grain brewer to try the finish product and compare. lol I guess that would be hard to do with the kind of beer you made. Still, I wonder how efficient this is. Seems like it would work well.
 
I basically do the same exact thing, doing 2.5-3 gallon batches. I got 74.1% efficiency for my last brew.
 
Where did you get that sign??? I want one

I think she said she got it at HomeGoods, which if you didn't know, is like a Marshall's or TJ Max for Home Furnishings, very cool store.

As far as my efficiency, I'm calculating 72% efficiency. I can't see any reason why this method would produce any higher or lower quality of wort than using more advanced equipment (assuming 72% efficiency).

EDIT: I asked her this weekend, she got it at Target. What doesn't that store have?
 
This is exactly what I was looking for!

I desperately wanted to try my hand at all-grain, but I dont have the room or money for any additional equipment. I will be trying this on my very next brew.

One question - If I were to buy an all-grain kit for AHS, that is intended for a final 5g, how can I calculate appropriate measurement for a partial boil? My small electric stove can't handle much, so I was hoping to somehow do a 2g all-grain partial boil and top it off.

Thanks in advance, and thanks for an awesome tutorial!
 
This is exactly what I was looking for!

I desperately wanted to try my hand at all-grain, but I dont have the room or money for any additional equipment. I will be trying this on my very next brew.

One question - If I were to buy an all-grain kit for AHS, that is intended for a final 5g, how can I calculate appropriate measurement for a partial boil? My small electric stove can't handle much, so I was hoping to somehow do a 2g all-grain partial boil and top it off.

Thanks in advance, and thanks for an awesome tutorial!

I'm glad I could help.

Your plan is exactly what I started off trying to do with this method. I wanted to take DeathBrewer's method (which uses a 6.5 gallon kettle for a full boil) and make a partial boil in my 5 gallon set up.

Thinking along your lines, I sent him a PM for advice, and he responded honestly (and in my research since, quite truthfully) that you really can't get the efficiency you want out of AG using partial boils, especially partial boils as small as 2 gallons. That advise is what drove the decision to do 2.5 gallon batches, and I got very respectable efficiency because of it.

If you have an electric stove, I would suggest you invest a little money in getting a turkey fryer kit Bayou Classic 3066A 30-Quart Outdoor Turkey Fryer Kit. I have a nice natural gas stove with Power Boil settings, so this is a little beyond my needs right now, but I may have to consider it when I get all of my AG equipment.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for the quick reply.

I figured I might be limited to 2.5g batches. If thats the case, then, assuming a recipe calls for a 5g boil, all that I need to do use half the ingredients, correct?

The electric stove works alright for 2-3 g, but anything more than that and I am waiting for a long time. I'll have to invest in that turkey fryer soon...
 
As far as the recipe goes, yes, all you have to do is cut the ingredients in half. However, your mash process will change slightly when compared to the originally posted 5 gallon process (assuming that is provided to you in the recipe).

Make sure you calculate the strike water and sparge water temperature for yourself. This is because your water to grist ratio is going to change. For example, the strike water temperature for the "full" mash was 10 degrees hotter than my 2.5 gallon mash. Refer again to the formula I posted in Step 3.

Let me know if you have anymore questions.
 
that you really can't get the efficiency you want out of AG using partial boils, especially partial boils as small as 2 gallons. That advise is what drove the decision to do 2.5 gallon batches, and I got very respectable efficiency because of it.

Hmm, I think this thread has been getting the issue of partial boil confused with brewhouse efficiency. They are not related. Partial vs full boil only affects hop utilization (and a couple other minor effects). Your efficiency is determined by how successful your mash is, and is set in stone before you even start the boil.

I think what DeathBrewer was getting at is that you can't get good efficiency using a 5 gallon pot if your goal is a 5 gallon batch of medium to high gravity wort without using any extract. The issue is that the volume of water needed to mash a lot of grains would be bigger than your 5g pot. But you could do a 5 gallon partial boil AG stove-top batch if your goal was a relatively low gravity beer.

Basically there's a maximum amount of grain+water you can fit in a 5g pot and if you try to squeeze in more grain by lowering your water to grain ratio, you'll get worse efficiency. But that just means you need to figure out what your max grain mashing capacity is (for me it has been about 6 lbs with 2.0 qt/lb water ratio in my 5g pot) and then decide how you want to use that wort... your options are: A) medium gravity AG 2.5g batch, B) low gravity AG 5g batch, C) medium or high gravity partial mash 5g batch.

I've chosen (C) on all my stove-top mashes so far, since I don't have a 3g carboy and am not sure I want to do anything smaller than a 5g batch. And I don't like low gravity beers (so I haven't tried (B)).
 
Hmm, I think this thread has been getting the issue of partial boil confused with brewhouse efficiency. They are not related. Partial vs full boil only affects hop utilization (and a couple other minor effects). Your efficiency is determined by how successful your mash is, and is set in stone before you even start the boil.

I think what DeathBrewer was getting at is that you can't get good efficiency using a 5 gallon pot if your goal is a 5 gallon batch of medium to high gravity wort without using any extract. The issue is that the volume of water needed to mash a lot of grains would be bigger than your 5g pot. But you could do a 5 gallon partial boil AG stove-top batch if your goal was a relatively low gravity beer.

Basically there's a maximum amount of grain+water you can fit in a 5g pot and if you try to squeeze in more grain by lowering your water to grain ratio, you'll get worse efficiency. But that just means you need to figure out what your max grain mashing capacity is (for me it has been about 6 lbs with 2.0 qt/lb water ratio in my 5g pot) and then decide how you want to use that wort... your options are: A) medium gravity AG 2.5g batch, B) low gravity AG 5g batch, C) medium or high gravity partial mash 5g batch.

I've chosen (C) on all my stove-top mashes so far, since I don't have a 3g carboy and am not sure I want to do anything smaller than a 5g batch. And I don't like low gravity beers (so I haven't tried (B)).

That's pretty much exactly what I was trying to get at, you just did a much better job of explaining it. :D

When I was setting this up, I originally intended to use all of my grains for a 5 gallon batch, with a water to grist ratio of 1.25 qt/lb and do a 1 gallon batch sparge and fit it into my 5 gallon. After the research I did, I found that I would end up with lower efficiency than I wanted, and I ordered my grains assuming 75% efficiency (ambitious, I know). So it wasn't worth it for me.

So, I suppose, it is possible (especially with lower grav beers) to accomplish this. Thanks for the clarification.
 
Looks great! The one thing I'd say (perhaps) is that on step #14, I'm not sure if you really need to pour the sparge water slowly over your grains, stirring while you go.. Unless you're worried about splashing water out of the pot, it seems like you could just pour it all in at once, stir for a little while, let sit 10 minutes, then remove the grain bag and drain.

Not a big thing, but might save a little bit of time. And it might be one less thing for people starting out with this method to get worried about!
 
Nice work documenting what you did! Definitely should be a help to other newer extract guys looking to try all grain.

Also good job on not destroying your kitchen as I used to do while doing AG in my apartment!
 
Agusus + DRoyLenz, thanks for the clarification - I understand the process a lot better now.

Putting in an order for my first all grain - should be an interesting brew day coming up.
 
Nice work documenting what you did! Definitely should be a help to other newer extract guys looking to try all grain.

Also good job on not destroying your kitchen as I used to do while doing AG in my apartment!

Who said I didn't destroy my kitchen? That picture was actually taken BEFORE I started brewing, it was a complete mess afterwards. Hell, it's STILL a complete mess (one of the advantages AND disadvantages to not having to answer to a SWMBO).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for showing me the most obvious way to venture into AG. Somehow it never occurred to me to just make a smaller batch.
My experience with cooking has proven that doubling or halving a recipe is not an even ratio. For some reason you cannot simply double the ingredients and get the same result as the base recipe. Does this phenomenon apply to AG or can I simply take the recipe of my choice and cut it in half?
 
You can just cut any given recipe in half. You're going to have to make sure you recalculate the values of your strike and sparge water temperatures, because those will change with the less grain you have.
 
My experience with cooking has proven that doubling or halving a recipe is not an even ratio. For some reason you cannot simply double the ingredients and get the same result as the base recipe. Does this phenomenon apply to AG or can I simply take the recipe of my choice and cut it in half?

I've also done a fair amount of cooking and I have never experienced this 'phenomenon' when scaling recipes. What sort of things do you cook? ;)

Anyhow, I've been thinking about doing something like this for some time but it just seemed easier to wait till I had the money to buy AG equipment rather than doing it this way. This thread has proven me wrong and I will definitely be giving this a shot!
 
I've also done a fair amount of cooking and I have never experienced this 'phenomenon' when scaling recipes. What sort of things do you cook? ;)

Anyhow, I've been thinking about doing something like this for some time but it just seemed easier to wait till I had the money to buy AG equipment rather than doing it this way. This thread has proven me wrong and I will definitely be giving this a shot!

You really should, it got me so stoked about brewing AG that I'm already working on my next recipe.

I learned A TON too... and it only adds an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours to the brew time...
 
Thanks for the quick reply.

I figured I might be limited to 2.5g batches. If thats the case, then, assuming a recipe calls for a 5g boil, all that I need to do use half the ingredients, correct?

The electric stove works alright for 2-3 g, but anything more than that and I am waiting for a long time. I'll have to invest in that turkey fryer soon...

Sorry to be a little :off: but if your electric stove will fit a canning element you could try that to improve your boil. I purchased one for my stove off ebay for 22.58 shipped. I also only have a 20qt kettle but I was able to get that to boil about an inch from the top without too much trouble when I installed it. The one I purchased is a 2600 watt element http://cgi.ebay.com/MP26KA-Electric...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad43a073e
 
Sorry to be a little :off: but if your electric stove will fit a canning element you could try that to improve your boil. I purchased one for my stove off ebay for 22.58 shipped. I also only have a 20qt kettle but I was able to get that to boil about an inch from the top without too much trouble when I installed it. The one I purchased is a 2600 watt element http://cgi.ebay.com/MP26KA-Electric...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad43a073e

Unfortunately my stove is the kind that is completely flat - not sure what it's proper name is, but the heating elements are under the flat surface.. otherwise this idea would be great!
 
Unfortunately my stove is the kind that is completely flat - not sure what it's proper name is, but the heating elements are under the flat surface.. otherwise this idea would be great!

That's too bad. I have heard of a lot of people having problems with the flat/glass top electric stoves. Seems a pain if you don't have perfectly flat bottomed pots too.
 
Any news on this? Been waiting on some results! :)

It's been about 12 days in Primary, and by recommendation, I'm putting it into bottles today (usually I wait 3 weeks, but something to do with the nature of the Belgian Wit style, it's best to accelerate your fermentation schedule, or at least as I've been told.) I'll be checking the FG today (haven't opened up fermenter yet) and I'll post back with my results.

Not sure if I posted this yet, but I calculated 72% efficiency, not too bad for my first AG brew, especially on an experimental method :D.
 
Update:

Bottled this beer Monday night. I took my first SG reading since chilling the wort after the boil. It didn't ferment out as much as I would've hoped, with an FG of 1.018. I think there might be something wrong with the method of which I'm creating yeast starters, I haven't had very much luck with them.

As far as other things you may be interested in, the beer smelled DELICIOUS. Very strong citrus aroma from the orange/lemon zest, but by no means was it overpowering. The taste was a little lighter than I would've expected, but it's going to prove to be a VERY refreshing beer. Keep in mind that this tasting is done after 14 days after pitching, so it should still be pretty green. I'm very excited to see how this one turns out.
 
Exciting. I've been really following this one, can't wait to hear how it drinks. According to the OG and FG, what Abv are you looking at?
 
Using 1.046 and 1.018 as my respective gravities, that yields an ABV of 3.68%.

I don't even know if this is possible, but I'm hoping some additional fermentation is kick-started to lower that FG down a little bit (hopefully without over-carbing and/or creating bottle bombs).
 
I don't even know if this is possible, but I'm hoping some additional fermentation is kick-started to lower that FG down a little bit (hopefully without over-carbing and/or creating bottle bombs).

It could also be that your mash temps dropped enough that you got unfermentable sugars instead of fermentable sugars.
 
For those of you who are interested, I just got finished with a high grav Imperial Porter (1.084) using this method, and I got 75% efficiency. I did two 2.5 gallon batches (as depicted above). Total grain bill of 16 lbs (8 lbs each batch). My mash temp was 153 for one hour. I did a grist to water ratio of 1.25 qts/lb (10 quarts strike water) and 1.5 gallon, 15 minute batch sparge.

This just goes to show you that you can produce some very good results using very simple equipment and procedures.

I tried a new method with this brew, that proved very effective. Instead of wrapping my kettle in a towel and adding hot water to it to maintain the temperature, I preheated my oven to 170F (I would've done 155F if my oven went that low) and put the kettle in there while I mashed. I only took it out a couple of times to stir. I did not lose or gain a single degree using this method. I'll make an edit to my notes above to capture this change.
 
Missed this thread until now... nicely done.

I have been using this method for quite awhile to do experimental batches since it is pretty much set-and-forget -- I can get a batch brewed during the day while doing other stuff. It works great, and the efficiency is very stable at around 75-80%. I use a 3 gallon pot for 2.5 gallons and add foam control drops to prevent boilovers. It's a tight squeeze but it can be done.

YMMV but I found with experimentation my oven will hold the mash at 149*F if set to 170*F, 175*F will hold at 152*F, and 180*F will hold at 155*F. 200*F for 15 minutes does a quick mash-out. :)
 
Back
Top