Easy Stovetop All-Grain Brewing (with pics)

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i used to tap off with tapwater, and it's probably fine (in my area) during the winter. but the water i used during the summer (mashing, boiling, topping off, whatever) destroyed a number of my beers. it not only depends on the water, it REALLY depends on the water ;)
 
i used to tap off with tapwater, and it's probably fine (in my area) during the winter. but the water i used during the summer (mashing, boiling, topping off, whatever) destroyed a number of my beers. it not only depends on the water, it REALLY depends on the water ;)

That is way I i kinda said said the chemistry matters most :drunk:<-me.

Don't get me wrong I agree with you. I have been able to smell and taste when the watter people add too much chlorine. Now I'm brewing I hope my senses don't fail me.

I live in the desert and work in the heat. In the heat of summer I can drink three gallons a day. I know my watter very personally.
 
My 172 strike was a little too cold, as I got just about 161 sparge in my latest batch. :(

Afraid of tannins, I was too conservative with the strike temps. Next time I do 175-180F with my mere 7 qt sparge.

the reason for the 170 degree (or less) sparge (175 degree water drops down when you add the grains) is to halt the enzymes and to extract the most sugars possible out of the grains.
 
i go with 190 sometimes when batch sparging without mash out. if you're mashing at 148°F, it'll take quite a bit to get your temp up.

but don't worry too much, in the 160s is fine. i change methods and equipment all the time. combine that with varying ambient temperatures and i often don't reach my 168°F mash-out or my 170°F sparge. i still get great conversion and it still makes for some damn fine beer.
:mug:
 
I got to say do not be afraid of tannins form mash-out. I've been decocting a Belgain Golden Strong today (because I'm snowed out of work by 3 inches of snow) I've been boiling parts of my mash all freaking day. My starting gravity sample teased very good. It had ZERO tannins in it. It tastes really good. :D

Be worried of the pH of the mash getting too high.
 
Be worried of the pH of the mash getting too high.

I've been wondering about this...this is brought up a lot but I don't ever see checking and adjusting pH included in AG procedures.

Do most AG brewers just assume the pH will take care of itself?

Is adjusting pH a trouble-shooting step if your efficiency is low or your OG is low?

Does anyone know if water softeners will affect pH (I have one)?
 
I figure most don't worry about their watter until they have a problem. I thought I could pull 10 gallons from 15 pound of grain but ended up with to much tannin flavor in the last runnings. I'm still learning.
I don't think you want to use watter from a watter softener because of the salt.
 
Can this process be done using a 5 gal pot and a 3 gallon pot?

Mash in 5 gal with 3.5 gal of strike water. The yield should be 2.5 gal?

Sparge in 3 gal pot with 2.5 gal of water. There's only .5 gal head room here. Will it overflow? I think so because it absorbed at least 1 gal of water from mash.

Mix worts arbitrarily using any means and boil separately.

I would lose about 10% to evaporation.

Combine in 5 gal fermenting vessel and pitch. Not sure if I should top off now or not? Would it depend on SG reading?

I searched but could find any topic on this but someone had to have tried this before :)

Thanks.
 
Can this process be done using a 5 gal pot and a 3 gallon pot?

Mash in 5 gal with 3.5 gal of strike water. The yield should be 2.5 gal?

Sparge in 3 gal pot with 2.5 gal of water. There's only .5 gal head room here. Will it overflow? I think so because it absorbed at least 1 gal of water from mash.

Mix worts arbitrarily using any means and boil separately.

I would lose about 10% to evaporation.

Combine in 5 gal fermenting vessel and pitch. Not sure if I should top off now or not? Would it depend on SG reading?

I searched but could find any topic on this but someone had to have tried this before :)

Thanks.

sure, you may have to use less water for your sparge and in doing so you will suffer efficiency. if you used 2 gallons of water in your sparge i would wager your efficiency would be about 55-60%, depending on your method. remember to stir the sparge and let it sit for 10 minutes before draining the bag.

i personally would invest in a 7.5+ gallon kettle so you can get better efficiency and won't have to boil in two pots ;)

i also would recommend trying this as a partial mash with your current system. basically do what i stated above and use less grains, then use a couple pounds of extract. this always works great for my dunkelweizen recipe.
:mug:
 
So I just bottled my first AG batch yesterday. I used deathbrewer's method of stovetop tea bag, and wow would it have been a lot easier if I had a larger pot!

Anyway, I bottled it yesterday and drank the last 8 oz from the priming bucket. I don't think it tasted too great. This was after being in the primary for two weeks. So is it common/uncommon for beers to taste a lot different after being bottle conditioned? I hope so because I really don't want 48 bottles of beer to taste like the bit I tried yesterday...
 
I did a lot of removing the lid and stirring on my first AG stovetop attempt, I guess that explains why I had such a hard time maintaining proper temp.

I found on my first partial-mash attempt that while the temp in the mash pot did not drop down that much, it definitely varied inside the pot, as much as 5-6 degrees. The thermometer would show 152, I would stir and then it would show 158 or so. But on average it stayed in the proper range.
 
don't stir too much. get it to heat, give it a good stir, drop your thermometer in and leave it a few minutes to regulate. then come back and check temp, stir some more, drop your thermometer, give it a few minutes and regulate.

if you don't let it sit, you will get a range of temps. it's also impossible to read while you are adding water or heat. it takes practice, but i don't usually have too many problems any more.
 
when i do a partial boil with a partial mash using this method, i just shoot a little high on my IBUs to account for the loss of utilization. i assume 70% efficiency, because it's always close to that.

How do you measure the post-boil volume? I don't have a sight tube on my kettle, so the way I've been doing it is seeing how much extra water I have to add to the carboy after racking the wort in there. It's kind of a pain though, so I'm looking for a better option..
 
my smaller pot is marked, but for my 20 gallon pot, i use a notched plastic rod. just fill up the pot one gallon at a time, stick the rod in the pot and make a deep notch for each gallon. works great for determining volume.
 
Goddamn your genius is wasted on homebrewing. :mug:

my smaller pot is marked, but for my 20 gallon pot, i use a notched plastic rod. just fill up the pot one gallon at a time, stick the rod in the pot and make a deep notch for each gallon. works great for determining volume.
 
The only thing i would suggest besides a propane burner is splitting between two pots. I use an electric stove at home.


That's what I've been doing and it works great... However, you must take into consideration that your evaporation rate will be doubled when using two pots.

Using two 5 Gal. Pots, I lost a little over 2 gallons to evaporation over a 60 minutes boil. That's quite a lot, but splitting the boil over two pots is the only way for me to do a full-boil on my stove.
 
you can always add extract to reach your target gravity. if you're going to add it now (after it's already been fermenting) it won't hurt anything. just make sure everything is sanitized, boil and cool, and dump it in.

if it tasted good, i wouldn't worry about it. 1.040 is a decent sized beer.

I ended up just using a pound of brown sugar because I am hard headed and there was not enough DME around to make up the gravity. Just opened my first one of these last night and it came out pretty good (if still a little green.) I was a bit concerned given the efficiency issue and the temps but all worked out well so I can add myself to the list of successful users of your system. I will probably move to a cooler mash tun pretty quick but this was an excellent way to try all-grain for no big investment. So thanks to you for the process and Biermuncher for the SWMBO Slayer recipe!
 
boiling down more = more runoff = greater efficiency ;)

Sorry for the off-topic noob question - but you opened the door :) Why then do not brewers just boil longer? Is is that the wort gets too caramelized? Or too much runoff releases unwanted tannins?

Thanks.
 
a small amount of caramelization can occur, but always less with all-grain than extract.

too much runoff can release tannins, yes, but you'd have to use a LOT of water. i've never had a problem with tannins in a single batch, but you can definitely taste tannins if you do a third run to make an additional beer.

in this tutorial, i use a relatively small amount of water, do a partial boil and suffer efficiency for it (as low as 60%)

yesterday, i accidentally used too much water in my premium bitter, getting great efficiency (77%) and effectively turning it into an ESB because of the higher gravity. i had to boil for almost two hours to get it down to 5 gallons.

i used my hops for 90 minutes, which helped add a bit of additional bitterness.

the main reasons most people don't use so much water is:

1) risk of extracting tannins
2) time....brew days take long enough. unless you're doing it on purpose, why add an additional hour on to your brew day?

keep those questions coming ;)
:mug:
 
I just made an Irish Red with this technique. Other than the usual things that have gone wrong with my partial mashes (wort all over stove, broken hydrometer, SWMBO making me scrub floors afterwards...) everything went great. Someday I'll finish my single tier setup, but until then it's good to know I'm not dependent on extracts. Thanks.
 
i'm making an irish red today myself! did three batches this weekend, all with this method. last batch, i got 77% efficiency.

the wort on the stove was a problem with me for a while (if you look at the picture you can see some stains that are now clean) but i rarely have a spill anymore. practice makes perfect...i still make more mistakes with my tiered cooler setup :cross:
:mug:
 
I brewed my first batch of beer in December 08 using an extract kit. But it came with a little surprise I was not expecting - a one time use grain sock and 8oz of Crystal. This really piqued my interest.

I brewed my third batch of beer ever on Saturday - a Partial Mash steam style beer. I followed the instructions in your post for easy stove top partial mashing.

Now that I have read this, I can't see why I won't be going all-grain on my stovetop as soon as funds allow.

Thanks DeathBrewer
 
Did the stovetop AG thang on Sunday. here's my solution for an insulated mash tun.

JHB_Mash.JPG


Put the pot on the counter and wrap it in towels and blankets. The only tough bit is holding the grain bag while it drains.

JHB_Draining_Grains.JPG


Thanks Shamwow, I mean DeathBrewer! Srsly!
 
SRSLY~!

right on...when i use my 10G cooler, i wrap it in two blankets with bungee chords and put a big pillow on top. really helps maintain temp along with the coolers insulation.
 
75% efficiency! I just brewed my first all grain (Ed's Haus Pale Ale) using this method, my new cabela's brewpot and my new (used) wort chiller! My IBU's were low, but I can deal with that. This only took me about 4.5 hours start to finish even though Im brewing on a crappy electric stove, next time Ill be starting my sparge water earlier though.

Thanks DeathBrewer.
 
We use the BIAB method down under but most of the guys have a hook and tackle in the ceiling and hoist the bag up in the air, slip a bucket under it and leave it drain a few minutes. Tip the collected liquid back into the brew.
 
Check out this link to an Aussie forum, BIAB and cube no chill methods are common.

AussieHomeBrewer.com - Ineo

No chill involves draining the brew into a 15 or 20 liter cube container, squeezing the air out and sealing it for later use. This method has been used hundreds of times.

Another note, we have been discussing the idea of no chill in the pot but there seems to be the impression that it may lead to unwanted bitterness.

Electric Urn. Biab. Nochill. Nocube - AussieHomeBrewer.com

I have not done a BIAB yet as i need to get a bag made up but i have an electric urn which is perfect for this style of brewing. I have read that some do a mini sparge, but i think the consensus is that you must accept that the method is a little less efficient than normal AG but in many ways just more simple.
 
the first link didn't work...maybe you have to be logged in? i'll definitely check that out later. i need to take off now. gotta go keg some beer in preparation for a visit from me pappy :)
 
Thanks for the great tutorial.

I've been reading about grinding my grain with a coffee grinder (only hitting the button once or so though), and everyone on this board seem to say it's a terrible idea, mostly because it will kill the husk and lead to stuck sparges. But, if I was using this tea bag technique for sparging, would that even matter? I mean I know I might get more dust into the beer and have to give it more time to settle/accept a little cloudyness, but if i'm using this technique, won't a finer grind give me better efficiency?
 
possibly...shredded is not good, but if they are only LIGHTLY shredded...hmm. i say go for it (if you already have the coffee grinder) and let us know how it works out
:mug:

my LHBS is a hop and a skip away and provides an awesome crush, so i haven't concerned myself with a home crusher yet.

(now...envision death hopping and skipping :D)
 
Only have two extract kits under my belt at the moment but this seems like the next logical step to AG. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. After I try your partial mash brewing method of course.
 
Thanks for the great tutorial.

I've been reading about grinding my grain with a coffee grinder (only hitting the button once or so though), and everyone on this board seem to say it's a terrible idea, mostly because it will kill the husk and lead to stuck sparges. But, if I was using this tea bag technique for sparging, would that even matter? I mean I know I might get more dust into the beer and have to give it more time to settle/accept a little cloudyness, but if i'm using this technique, won't a finer grind give me better efficiency?

A big obstacle here is that it will take you 1/2 hour per pound to crush.
 
For anyone thinking about trying this method out I have two attempts under my belt. First hit 78% efficiency and the second hit 75%. DB is the man!
 
I'm ordering 4 batches worth of grains for the next few weeks, hoping to use this method. My batches will be small 2.5G Oatmeal Stout, 1.5G Hefe, Double Bock, and Saison. I assume this will work at these scales? And would using a small 2 gallon rectangular cooler and a grain bag be OK for the mash?

I'm calculating about 1.5 gallons of mash water for my 5lb Double Bock, then 1 gallon sparge and then boil down?
 
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