An apprasal of doing AG without large equipment

My problem with doing all grain is something that I'm sure many have. No very large pot at the moment..... living in an apartment... on the second floor no less. Wanting to do it in my kitchen... on my stove... I had inicially set out to do PM thinking that AG was just not what I was going to be doing for a while. I found this site sockmonkeysandbeer:

http://www3.telus.net/sockmonkeysandbeer/beer/HowIBrew/howIbrew.html

He describes a method of doing AG in two smaller pots instead of one large one that you typically can't do on a smaller home stove in an indoors setting and this is what I attempted to do for my first try at AG. I had a lot of different problems that made things challenging, however in the end I was able to follow the general process of this method. Being the process was not what was challenging but the normal first time AG stuff was the challenges.

Outside of the recipe challenge that I had (used 5 lbs of wheat that gave stuck mashes) and the low temp hose that came undone between the false bottom and the connections to the outside assembly. One other problem is that I came up far shorter in a 5 gal quantity then wanted. I have no markings on the pots to show me where 2 1/2 - 3 galons are so it was realy hard for me to judge if I had enough.

Another challenge I had was I did not pre-calculate the amount of sparge water needed. I just filled my HWT as much as it went and attempted to judge from what I collected in the pots if I had enough. I think this problem would be solved next time I do this if I mark the pots to show where the amounts are. I also have Promash now, which will help with this greatly.

Another problem I had which will be resolved is I did not have a wort chiller. I thought well since I'm working with smaller batches, the ice water in the sink will work fine. I think it could... however when working with two at the same time there is A LOT OF THINS HAPPENING. A wort chiller will at least take that part out of the equation and my focus will come back on what they need to be on.

Don't know.... I've had a few weeks to mull over what happened as well as all the great input I got from you guys on the thread I posted.

Has anyone else used this method?

Honestly, that sounds like a huge hassle to me. I'm about to try my fist AG batch in a few days, so we'll see how that goes on the hassle scale, but...

If I were in your position (which is kind of a funny thing to say to God, now that I think about it), I'd probably stick with partial mash. You really can do almost any beer that way.

Sounds like you've thought it out. Go for it, I say.

The biggest problem I had with my first AG a few days ago was preparing enough fly-sparge water at 80 degrees C, but that was because I underestimated how much time the lauter would take, so it was sitting there for a while cooling down. Think this part out carefully and you should be alright. I guess doing a batch 'sparge' would get around that.

Although I'm a big AG fan, I think I agree with cweston here. Assess the reality of your situation and then go for the appropriate brew style. If I couldn't brew outside I definitely wouldn't be doing AG (UNLESS...I could rig up an electric brewery...).

mysterio said:

Sounds like you've thought it out. Go for it, I say.

The biggest problem I had with my first AG a few days ago was preparing enough fly-sparge water at 80 degrees C, but that was because I underestimated how much time the lauter would take, so it was sitting there for a while cooling down. Think this part out carefully and you should be alright. I guess doing a batch 'sparge' would get around that.

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I'd love a pump... but MAN are the expensive. That was one thing I saw at National Homebrew day that was cool... most of the people were using pumps.

Baron von BeeGee said:

Although I'm a big AG fan, I think I agree with cweston here. Assess the reality of your situation and then go for the appropriate brew style. If I couldn't brew outside I definitely wouldn't be doing AG (UNLESS...I could rig up an electric brewery...).

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Do you live in a house... or ie... not have to walk up stairs to get to your apartment? Was actually thinking if my primary fermentor was not a carboy it would not be all that bad. Being if I used a bucket with a handle on it you know....

GOD said:

Do you live in a house... or ie... not have to walk up stairs to get to your apartment? Was actually thinking if my primary fermentor was not a carboy it would not be all that bad. Being if I used a bucket with a handle on it you know....

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Yep, I live in a house and brew in my garage. If you can brew outside then it might be worth it. But also think about hauling all your equipment out to brew, and then hauling it all back in. I hate just straightening up the garage afterwards.

Baron von BeeGee said:

Yep, I live in a house and brew in my garage. If you can brew outside then it might be worth it. But also think about hauling all your equipment out to brew, and then hauling it all back in. I hate just straightening up the garage afterwards.

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That was another thing I saw last weekend.. some people had to rent a small Uhaul to get thier stuff to the event. I can see how it would be an incredible pain.

GOD said:

That was another thing I saw last weekend.. some people had to rent a small Uhaul to get thier stuff to the event. I can see how it would be an incredible pain.

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My setup is small enough I could probably get it in my car or wife's VUE and get it around, but that'd be a pain. I pretty much store everything in the garage and only move the fermentors inside the house when they've got something in them. My challenge this summer is to somehow get the garage organized so my equipment is not just laying about all over the place.

Baron von BeeGee said:

My setup is small enough I could probably get it in my car or wife's VUE and get it around, but that'd be a pain. I pretty much store everything in the garage and only move the fermentors inside the house when they've got something in them. My challenge this summer is to somehow get the garage organized so my equipment is not just laying about all over the place.

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That is finally what I did. I used to have all of my equiopment scattered about the garage, and during brewday I was always running from there, through the kitchen, and out to the back where I brewed. It was a pain in the arse.

Now I have everything in the garage and I brew on the stand right outside it. Everything is less than 10 feet away. It is really nice.

I'm happy with that set-up for now until we move and I actually have a dedicated shed for a brewery, but I definitely feel the pain of the apartment dwellers because I was always running around and never had dedicated space for brewing.

Some of these folks with not just garages, but actual brewsheds have got my mind running. SWMBO would not be opposed at all to a shed in the back, especially if it opened up the garage some (for more of her crap, I guess). Since we found out we're having a girl, I'm thinking at some point I'm going to need a Man Camp in the backyard for brewing and smoking cigars.

i did my first all-grain with 3 stock pots on the electirc stove.
i have 2 of the 15 litre size and 1 of the 10.
heated mash water in one and sparge water in the other two.
drained from mash turn into one and then batch sparged into the other two.
ended up with 2 sauce pans to catch the last of the sparge and added to the stock pots as they boiled down.
hard part was to manage 3 near boilovers at once.
bought a turkey fryer set up 2 weeks ago and get to try it this weekend!
should be much simpler

Dude said:

I'm happy with that set-up for now until we move and I actually have a dedicated shed for a brewery,

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Yep, this breweing shed is what I'm looking forward too. Preferably tiled so you can clean-up with a hose.

Kai

Do any of you use the microwave to heat your mash and sparge water? With the price of propane jumping now, the electric microwave is cheaper and faster than heating all the water at once on a burner (and then keeping it hot). I tried it this past weekend and it worked well even with a fly sparge. 3 qt room temp water in the microwave for 12 min got to 180F. I then did my wort boil with gas like normal....

GOD said:

My problem with doing all grain is something that I'm sure many have. No very large pot at the moment..... living in an apartment... on the second floor no less. Wanting to do it in my kitchen... on my stove... I had inicially set out to do PM thinking that AG was just not what I was going to be doing for a while. I found this site sockmonkeysandbeer:

http://www3.telus.net/sockmonkeysandbeer/beer/HowIBrew/howIbrew.html

He describes a method of doing AG in two smaller pots instead of one large one that you typically can't do on a smaller home stove in an indoors setting and this is what I attempted to do for my first try at AG. I had a lot of different problems that made things challenging, however in the end I was able to follow the general process of this method. Being the process was not what was challenging but the normal first time AG stuff was the challenges.

Outside of the recipe challenge that I had (used 5 lbs of wheat that gave stuck mashes) and the low temp hose that came undone between the false bottom and the connections to the outside assembly. One other problem is that I came up far shorter in a 5 gal quantity then wanted. I have no markings on the pots to show me where 2 1/2 - 3 galons are so it was realy hard for me to judge if I had enough.

Another challenge I had was I did not pre-calculate the amount of sparge water needed. I just filled my HWT as much as it went and attempted to judge from what I collected in the pots if I had enough. I think this problem would be solved next time I do this if I mark the pots to show where the amounts are. I also have Promash now, which will help with this greatly.

Another problem I had which will be resolved is I did not have a wort chiller. I thought well since I'm working with smaller batches, the ice water in the sink will work fine. I think it could... however when working with two at the same time there is A LOT OF THINS HAPPENING. A wort chiller will at least take that part out of the equation and my focus will come back on what they need to be on.

Don't know.... I've had a few weeks to mull over what happened as well as all the great input I got from you guys on the thread I posted.

Has anyone else used this method?

Click to expand...

Maybe you could boil down to a thicker (more consentrated) wort in one pot and use the second for additional sterile water to bring it up to the needed volume. The extra water could be cooling while your mashing/sparging etc. so you wouldn't need to cool two pots.

Now I'm starting to think crazy thoughts... like if I had a primary bucket that it would not be too bad to bring it up the steps to my apartment..... got a gift cert for Home Depot and was looking at the turkey fryers..... thinking...

Kaiser said:

Yep, this breweing shed is what I'm looking forward too. Preferably tiled so you can clean-up with a hose.

Kai

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A brewshed is nice just make sure when and if you run electric that you have enough outlets. When I built mine I wasn't planning on brewing in it so I don't have as many outlets as I would like, but I do have enough space in my breaker box to add, it's just harder after everything is in it. Also run water if possible, I have to run a 100' hose out to mine and then tee off that ( what a pain in the arss)....But it's real nice to be able to go up there, put on some good music, brew and drink with nobody around to bother you about the smell or mess. SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I own a B3 1550 and love it. However, I've worked up a small pilot brewing system that makes 2.25 gallon batches. It's basically a 3 gallon gatorade cooler. I used a hack saw to cut off the push button spigot. I then siliconed a 3/8 copper tube thru the bulkhead .....then I just added a stainless braided hose. I use a cheap $1 plastic valve to open the flow from the mashtun. I use my 5 gallon $35 wal mart stainless kettle from my extract days.

I ferment in the little 3 gallon glass carboys. I primary for 10 to 14 days....crash chill the beer....hit it with polyclar.....pull it out to warm up for bottling.....then bottle. No secondary...

There were many reasons I wanted to do this.

1. 8 hour brew days are ok in the winter when it is cool outside......but would suck in the hot summer months.

2. I wanted to create a bunch of styles without having to spend a lot of money on ingredients. There are some styles I wanted....but did not want to make 5-10 gallons. I get about a case of finished beer. They typical grain bill for the pilot system is only 4-5.5 lbs. of grain.

3. I wanted to create an all grain system that could utilize the equipment I used during my extract days. The primary motive was to create an all grain brewing system that an extract brewer could use to try out all grain. I hoped that I could get the preboil volume to come up to a boil on my smooth top electric stove....but that was a no go. Consequently, I did have to spend $30 on a turkey fryer setup from wal mart. I use the aluminum pot for my HLT.

4. Small batches do not require starters....this is nice.

5. Cleaning up is way easy since all the equipment is small.

6. Strike water comes to temp real fast.

7. The boil comes up fast.

8. Chilling the wort is fast.

9. Brew day is about 4 to 4.5 hours from start to finish.

10. Bottling a case is simple.


One of the biggest things you have to account for with small batches is that your measurements need to be accurate. ie.....hop quantities need to be accurate.....also water volumes need to be accurate.

When shooting for 2.25 gallons in the fermentor.....I have to start with 3.25 gallons preboil.

So far....the little pilot brewery has worked like a charm ......and I've been very pleased with the beer it's made. The beers are just as great as what I've made on my 1550.

I am contemplating AG as well, but don't have the nifty platforms and such and only one burner to do all of this with. I have tried AG before without much luck, cause I was not very experienced. I feel I could do it now, it is just the room to do it with. I have a HLT, and a 15 gallon mash tun and a 15 gallon kettle, but I have no pumps, so I have to use gravity; which is my challenge. Any ideas?