I need a jumping off point. Little help?

Hey guys, I am pretty new to all grain. Mostly working with 1 gal until I get a good technique going. I have been malting my own barley and have a few lbs of finished pale malt. I also just got in the mail some whole leaf hops. Centennial, Nugget, Saaz and Cascade. The Centennial and Cascade was recommended to me as a good versatile hop to start off with.

I'm just curious if anyone could look at the above paragraph and give me a recommendation on something I could start with, a jumping off point. I've been lurking around this forum for a while now and I'm a little overwhelmed with the lingo. The beauty of beer making, to me, is the experimentation. But with all the variables involved I have no idea where to start.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

http://howtobrew.com - it's somewhat dated but still a great resource for getting started.

Also, malting your own grain??

Bought a 50lb bag of organic whole barley. Its hard to find resources about it as it seems its not very popular, a lot of work and inconsistent results. I made my first AG beer in December 2011 and it seems as though I'm addicted. I love doing things from scratch but I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. Maybe should have bought some malted grains and started there.

hans_shu_east_gluff said:

Bought a 50lb bag of organic whole barley. Its hard to find resources about it as it seems its not very popular, a lot of work and inconsistent results. I made my first AG beer in December 2011 and it seems as though I'm addicted. I love doing things from scratch but I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. Maybe should have bought some malted grains and started there.

Click to expand...

You still can. The grains you malted yourself will keep for many months if they are dry. You could mix and match them with your own too.

hans_shu_east_gluff said:

Maybe should have bought some malted grains and started there.

Click to expand...

This might be a good plan. Dont stop the home malting, but supplement with some bought grain to keep the brewing process flowing.

You need at least a few things:

A vessel to heat water
A vessel to ferment beer
A grain bag

I would start here, get the biggest pot you can afford, then see how much water you can fit in it with grain (rackers.org has a calculator called "can I mash it?" that will tell you how much volume grain and water will take up).

Now you need some software (online or purchase BeerSmith2) to help you formulate a recipe of a custom size (unless you find one somewhere, maybe here, have to search).

Once you have those basic items it's easy. Heat specified volume of water to specified temp, place grain bag in pot, stir-in grain, verify specified mash-temp achieved (stir down if too high), cover, put blankets on/around, set timer for specified mash time, wait.

Then you'd start adding heat when timer goes off, stirring, until you reach specified mash-out (basically 168-170), then lift the bag and let it drip, squeeze it, etc. Once done with that, crank heat up to get a boil. Upon boil, add hops per specified schedule, start timer for specified boil time.

I keep saying specified because your recipe will have all of this.

Then after boil and adding hops per schedule, you cool, place in fermenter (sanitized, I recommend StarSan) and throw the yeast in, seal up, wait 3 weeks.

Then we can talk about bottling...

Wait, I'm lost...you said you need a starting point, but then you said you made your first all-grain batch in December? Did I waste my time above outlining the process??

If you're overwhelmed, there are a lot of places you can order malted grain from online.

Suggestion: if you've got the $$, get the equipment for a 5-gallon all-grain batch (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Converting_a_cooler_to_a_mash_tun and a 7-gallon kettle, you'll need a gas range or a propane burner to boil that much wort). Since it's about the same amount of time and effort for 5 gallons as it is for 1, you might as well get a better ROI on the time and effort you do spend.

I can boil 6.5g of wort in a turkey fryer on my stove-top, a glass-top electric. YMMV, try boiling smaller volumes and see what you think. Heating elements are teh awsum, though

Haha, you did over do it Tre9er. But I like hearing how other people do it because I was basically having Uncle Google teach me how to brew until I signed up here.
I am still very new but I've done some 1 gal batches from http://brooklynbrewshop.com/. Those kits got me hooked. I should have been more specific when I said I needed a jumping off point. Basically I have about 5lbs of what I think is pale malt, (malted and kilned myself and my science is half asses) and a few different hops to work with.

I'm basically looking for any help regarding my base ingredients. Ratios of malts and hops for a starting point. A recipe for a basic beer that I can work from. I really appreciate the info you guys are providing.

hans_shu_east_gluff said:

Haha, you did over do it Tre9er. But I like hearing how other people do it because I was basically having Uncle Google teach me how to brew until I signed up here.
I am still very new but I've done some 1 gal batches from http://brooklynbrewshop.com/. Those kits got me hooked. I should have been more specific when I said I needed a jumping off point. Basically I have about 5lbs of what I think is pale malt, (malted and kilned myself and my science is half asses) and a few different hops to work with.

I'm basically looking for any help regarding my base ingredients. Ratios of malts and hops for a starting point. A recipe for a basic beer that I can work from. I really appreciate the info you guys are providing.

Click to expand...

Brooklyn Brew Shop is essentially low-volume BIAB (Brew-In-A-Bag) that can be achieved on a stovetop. Frankly I find their kits' instructions, while adequate for making beer, grossly misinformative and the beer they produce sub-par to what you can actually get out of the ingredients they provide using proper techniques and equipment. My brother got one of these kits for his birthday last year, and I had to spend a lot of time re-educating him.

Again I point to http://howtobrew.com for a wealth of information if you're just getting started (some slightly dated, but check back here for information on e.g. Hot Side Aeration, Secondary Fermentation, Autolysis, Yeast Starters, Dry vs. Liquid yeast, etc.). That will just about cover everything you're asking for. Then when you're done, come back here and ask questions.

Also, I realize my question is asking a lot. I don't expect a definitive answer because beer making isn't black and white. I just want to get involved in this community because I really like making beer and no matter what I Google, I end up here.

bernerbrau said:

Brooklyn Brew Shop is essentially low-volume BIAB (Brew-In-A-Bag) that can be achieved on a stovetop. Frankly I find their kits' instructions, while adequate for making beer, grossly misinformative and the beer they produce sub-par to what you can actually get out of the ingredients they provide using proper techniques and equipment. My brother got one of these kits for his birthday last year, and I had to spend a lot of time re-educating him.

Click to expand...

I agree. I got hooked on the method, although the only beer from Brooklyn brew shop I really enjoyed was the Everyday IPA. Looking into it more deeply, I found that I know nothing. TIL BIAB stands for Brew in a bag.

Its hard to give a starting point on home malted barley as the amount of sugars you will get from it depends on how well you malted it. If you wanted to test it in a 1 gal batch you could do 2 lbs. of your malt and .25 oz. of cascade at 60 min., maybe another .25 oz. of cascades at the end of the boil. I put that into beersmith as us 2row and that gave an og of 1.052 and 20 ibu's. You could probably compare that og to what you get with your home malted barley to get an idea of how well it was malted. I would suggest getting something like beersmith if your planning on playing around with recipes. It has a free trial period so theres nothing to lose.

How about a SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop)?

If you want to do another 1 gallon beer, I'd suggest mashing 2-3 pounds of your malt and adding a quarter of an ounce of a hop at the beginning of the boil. Then throw in another quarter of an ounce of the same hop at flameout for aroma.

This enables you to get a really good feel for your malt and your hop. You get to discover how that hop tastes and smells and how potent it is at bittering. You can try different levels of kilning, etc. I suggest doing a batch or two with pre-malted grain too, because you want to get your mashing process consistent so you will be able to compare and adjust your malting process.

Chrisl77 said:

Its hard to give a starting point on home malted barley as the amount of sugars you will get from it depends on how well you malted it. If you wanted to test it in a 1 gal batch you could do 2 lbs. of your malt and .25 oz. of cascade at 60 min., maybe another .25 oz. of cascades at the end of the boil. I put that into beersmith as us 2row and that gave an og of 1.052 and 20 ibu's. You could probably compare that og to what you get with your home malted barley to get an idea of how well it was malted. I would suggest getting something like beersmith if your planning on playing around with recipes. It has a free trial period so theres nothing to lose.

Click to expand...

Sweet. I'm waiting to hear back from the company I bought my barley from to find out what type it is.
I made a batch (1 gal) of beer a week ago with about 1.5 lb of my malt and mystery hop pellets I got (pocketed) from a beer and food pairing I accidentally showed up at with the head brew master from Columbia brewery. I was really excited and impatient and that's why I made it. I realized then that I need to do more research. That beer will probably be awful but I'm too stubborn not to drink it.

Thanks for your advice. I definitely need to be more scientific with my process. I need to stop my trial and error methods. That's why I'm here I suppose.

Sardoman said:

How about a SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop)?

If you want to do another 1 gallon beer, I'd suggest mashing 2-3 pounds of your malt and adding a quarter of an ounce of a hop at the beginning of the boil. Then throw in another quarter of an ounce of the same hop at flameout for aroma.

This enables you to get a really good feel for your malt and your hop. You get to discover how that hop tastes and smells and how potent it is at bittering. You can try different levels of kilning, etc. I suggest doing a batch or two with pre-malted grain too, because you want to get your mashing process consistent so you will be able to compare and adjust your malting process.

Click to expand...

I like this. I thought of a similar method. I wanted to make a beer with the same malt every time (the control). But each batch would have hops added at a different time in the boil so I could see the variations in flavour vs aroma. I got discouraged when I realized the amount of work and the amount of beer I would need to make for this experiment.