Thinking about making the jump to all grain - several questions

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Auspice

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I've been considering jumping to all grain brewing but not sure if I'll be able to with my current set up(or with some reasonable upgrades; gotta keep the SWMBO happy!). I found a cheap 10 gallon rubbermaid cooler to convert into a MLT but I wasn't sure if I would be able to do all grain brewing on my little electric stovetop in my kitchen.

If I heat the MLT with steam like I've seen in the DIY forum, would I need another vessel or would my brewpot and the MLT be sufficient?

Also, if I don't have a wort chiller, would it be feasible to chill the wort in a mini fridge?

Thanks so much, this forum has been very helpful in getting me started down the path of brewing!
 
The most important upgrades for moving from extract to AG are the MLT, kettle, burner and chiller. You look set for the MLT, not sure about your kettle. The chiller and burner are pretty big musts, though. I doubt you would be able to do it on an electric range. The chiller is fairly important, too, although you could go without it if you are careful. Have you tried partial mashes yet? You could do that with what you have now to test it out a little until you can ramp up to AG
 
The two brews I've made so far were partial mashes and I'm dying to do all grain. I do have an extra propane tank in my garage and I've heard burners are pretty cheap($30ish sound about right?).

It just seems like a ton of gear to pick up plus I'm not sure if I'm confident enough to brew outdoors.

Since I've got the MLT covered, all I need is a bigger brewpot, a burner, and a way to chill the wort, right?
 
Auspice said:
The two brews I've made so far were partial mashes and I'm dying to do all grain. I do have an extra propane tank in my garage and I've heard burners are pretty cheap($30ish sound about right?).
Click to expand...

I picked my jet burner up from acehardwareoutlet.com for $39.99 with free shipping. It has 165,000 BTU's and does a good job.
 
You're on the right track. However, simply heating the mash with steam and transferring the results to the boil kettle will result in very poor efficiency. You need a means by which to sparge. Another kettle similar in size to the mash tun will work well. Heat another 5-7 gallons of water in that kettle (which is known as the hot liquor tank, or HLT) to the desired sparge temp (often around 170-180° F). Drain the mash tun to the boil kettle, then add the sparge water from the HLT to the mash, and stir. Vorlauf until the runnings are clear. Drain the mash tun a second time until you achieve your desired boil volume.

You'll find mixed opinions when it comes to chilling the wort. Traditionally, the wort is chilled quickly with an immersion or counterflow chiller. Recently, some homebrewers have had success with an extended (90 minute+) boil followed by chilling as you mention.

If the terms I used are unclear, read How to Brew - By John Palmer.
 
My last batch I did an all grain partial boil on my electric kitchen stove with no chiller. It's possible, but it didn't work well. Basically, I started boiling the wort and as the water boiled off I added water from the sparge. I think it took about 8 hours before I could fit all the wort in the brew pot. Keep in mind that every time I topped up, I had to wait for the water to start boiling again. The nice thing is that with an 8 hour boil DMS isn't an issue anymore.

A more practical alternative, would be just to get a second brew pot and split the boil between the two. This saves you the cost of the burner and you can keep your operation inside. You may still have to boil it longer then normal to boil off excess water, as electric stoves may not put out the BTUs of a propane burner. Also, an ice bath is an alternative to a chiller. Two smaller brew pots make this a more practical then one large one. One of the reasons for cooling the wart quickly is to reduce DMS. You can compensate for this by boiling longer.

Just some ideas. I'm trying to make do on limited equipment as well.
 
Alright, I reread the mash section in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing since I previously had skimmed through it since I never thought I'd want to or be able to handle all grain brewing and I've got a few questions.

First of all, this is the way I understand the process of step mashing: I'd put let's say 6 lbs of grains into my HLT with 1.5 gallons of water at 130F for 30 minutes. Then I'd raise the temp to 150-158F by adding 3 quarts of 200F water to the HLT and hold for another 30 minutes. Then I sparge with 3 gallons of 170F water and put that into the brew kettle along with another 5 1/2 quarts to make a full 5 gallon batch. Does that all sound correct?

Would it be possible to simply top off the fermenter with the 5 1/2 quarts? If I'm doing a larger grain bill than that would it be possible to split the wort into two brewpots like brian_g suggests? Am I causing myself more work by trying to keep my operation indoors instead of just getting a turkey burner and doing it outside?

The book suggests using the HLT as a hopback and pouring the wort from the kettle back into that and attaching a chiller to the spigot and draining the wort into my fermenter. I'm immediately thinking of a counterflow chiller(?) that has a smaller copper hose inside a garden hose or something to chill the wort, would that be correct?

Thanks again, I almost feel overwhelmed with so many potential options here. It's incredibly exciting!

P.S. I'm looking into getting a small fridge to put my primary in so I can use bottom fermenting yeasts to make some true lagers; what extra equipment if any will I need to keep it at a suitable temperature?
 
Auspice said:
Alright, I reread the mash section in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing since I previously had skimmed through it since I never thought I'd want to or be able to handle all grain brewing and I've got a few questions.

First of all, this is the way I understand the process of step mashing: I'd put let's say 6 lbs of grains into my HLT with 1.5 gallons of water at 130F for 30 minutes. Then I'd raise the temp to 150-158F by adding 3 quarts of 200F water to the HLT and hold for another 30 minutes. Then I sparge with 3 gallons of 170F water and put that into the brew kettle along with another 5 1/2 quarts to make a full 5 gallon batch. Does that all sound correct?

Would it be possible to simply top off the fermenter with the 5 1/2 quarts? If I'm doing a larger grain bill than that would it be possible to split the wort into two brewpots like brian_g suggests? Am I causing myself more work by trying to keep my operation indoors instead of just getting a turkey burner and doing it outside?

The book suggests using the HLT as a hopback and pouring the wort from the kettle back into that and attaching a chiller to the spigot and draining the wort into my fermenter. I'm immediately thinking of a counterflow chiller(?) that has a smaller copper hose inside a garden hose or something to chill the wort, would that be correct?

Thanks again, I almost feel overwhelmed with so many potential options here. It's incredibly exciting!

P.S. I'm looking into getting a small fridge to put my primary in so I can use bottom fermenting yeasts to make some true lagers; what extra equipment if any will I need to keep it at a suitable temperature?
Click to expand...


First, keep it simple. Mash at one temperature. Mash the grains at 153F for 60-90min. Then sparge with 170F water. Don't add plain water to your brew pot. Keep adding sparge water until you reach your final volume. I think a lot of people end up with 6-7 gals. in their brew pot after the sparge. You then have to boil off some of the extra water. This takes a little longer on a stove top because it's hard to get a vigorous boil. I think if you split the boil between two pots you should be able to boil the water off faster then with one.

I've only done one all grain batch, but my limited experience was that the biggest problem with doing it on a stove top was boiling off the extra water. The nice part about indoor brewing is that it makes your house smell nice.
 
I'd agree that you're making it harder than it has to be. Please read my all grain primer, especially the process description labeled "one pot/one burner". Certainly you can split the boil between two pots on your electric stove but a 8-10 gallon pot on a turkey fryer outside will make life easy and keep kitchens clean.
 
Bobby_M said:
I'd agree that you're making it harder than it has to be. Please read my all grain primer, especially the process description labeled "one pot/one burner". Certainly you can split the boil between two pots on your electric stove but a 8-10 gallon pot on a turkey fryer outside will make life easy and keep kitchens clean.
Click to expand...

I can't say I disagree. Doing AG in my kitchen was a lot of work and a mess, although I think I can refine my process and make things at least a little smoother. For me it's about resources. Every piece of equipment seems to require additional equipment. If I get the turkey fryer, then I need to get a propane tank. Now my boil pot is too big for an ice bath in the kitchen sink, so I need to buy a wort chiller. If it gets too cold for winter brewing, I'll have to buy a house with a garage. So figuring the total cost:

Turkey Fryer + propane tank + wort chiller + new house = too much money

And all this started because I realized that 9lbs of grain is about half the price of the equivalent amount of malt extract.

Anyway, if the OP can move his setup outside, more power to him. If has similar limitations as me, there are alternatives.
 
OP, you can be ready to go AG for less than $100 if you want to move outside. I actually do my mash and sparge indoors on the stove, then I move outside for the boil (saves a bit of $ as I use less propane).

Get a turkey fryer w/ aluminum stock pot. Bayou Classic 30qt Outdoor Turkey Fryer crab boil camp - eBay (item 270415764216 end time Jul-25-09 19:10:09 PDT)

Get 25 - 50 feet of copper tubing and spend a few bucks on fittings so that it will attach to your hose.
Get that cheap cooler that you saw. With that, you're ready

Sounds like you need to sell it a bit to your wife: Turkey fryer - "honey, we'll also use it for crab boils, you'll love it"
Cooler "We'll take it to the beach"
Immersion chiller "ahhhhh" not sure about that one.
 
One thing that hit me this weekend while I was brewing on my apartment stove (not allowed to have propane in my town) was that my 9 Gal pot will cover the front and back burner pretty well. Once I figured this out, I had enough BTU's to get a fairly vigorous boil going. Too bad I hadn't thought of that 3 brews ago!!
 
brian_g said:
I've only done one all grain batch, but my limited experience was that the biggest problem with doing it on a stove top was boiling off the extra water. The nice part about indoor brewing is that it makes your house smell nice.
Click to expand...

You should be collecting the amount of wort you want given your boil off rate, not collecting 7 gallons just for the sake of collecting 7 gallons. If your stove only boils off .5 gallons in an hour just collect 5.5 gallons or whatever you want to go into the fermenter and make up for the loss of efficiency with extra grain.

If you are boiling for hours and hours trying to get to your desired volume, there is no way to figure your hop additions. All of your late addittions just turned into bittering additions.
 
+1 on the bayou turkey fryer. As for a wort chiller, I made one for $40 bucks. 20 feet of 3/8 inch copper coil, 1 cheap 15 foot garden hose, two hose clamps and some electricians tape.

Fashion the copper coil into the desired shape for the inside of your brewpot. Cut the garden hose in the middle. Wrap each end of the copper coil with electrical tape in order to make a seal (like a washer that will fit between the copper and the garden hose). Place the cut ends of the garden hose over each end of the coil and use hose clamps to tighten over the electrical tape seal. Now you have a wort chiller with 7 feet of length on each end. Without the tape, i was getting some bad leakage. Added the tape and not a drop of leakage.
 
Thanks for all the input; sounds like I'll do my step mash indoors like suggested then move outside for the boil. As for the wort chiller; it seems easy enough to make. How about cleaning, if I'm just running hot wort through it is it going to get any deposits built up or anything in it?
 
Auspice, with the wort chiller (immersion chiller) you are actually running cold water through it, not wort.
So what you'll do is hook the IC up to your hose, or faucet or whatever, and run cool water through it.
The process is (typically), at the last 15 minutes of your boil, put your IC into your boiling wort to disinfect. hook up your in-hose and your out-hose. turn off your boil, turn on your hose. The cool water from the hose pumps through the IC and will cool down your wort.

Some go one step further. After you have cooled down the wort for a while with the hose which should get you down to about 100F in short order, then hook the in-hose onto an aquarium pump which is sitting in a cooler full of ice water.

The pump, pumps ice cold water through the IC which will get you down to pitching temps very quickly.
 
double_e5 said:
You should be collecting the amount of wort you want given your boil off rate, not collecting 7 gallons just for the sake of collecting 7 gallons. If your stove only boils off .5 gallons in an hour just collect 5.5 gallons or whatever you want to go into the fermenter and make up for the loss of efficiency with extra grain.

If you are boiling for hours and hours trying to get to your desired volume, there is no way to figure your hop additions. All of your late addittions just turned into bittering additions.
Click to expand...

Here's what I did. I boiled it until all the wort fit in my 5 gal brew pot, then I added hops and started the timer. Your right, you can't add the hops and then decide to boil it down to your desired volume.
 
phatuna said:
Auspice, with the wort chiller (immersion chiller) you are actually running cold water through it, not wort.
So what you'll do is hook the IC up to your hose, or faucet or whatever, and run cool water through it.
The process is (typically), at the last 15 minutes of your boil, put your IC into your boiling wort to disinfect. hook up your in-hose and your out-hose. turn off your boil, turn on your hose. The cool water from the hose pumps through the IC and will cool down your wort.

Some go one step further. After you have cooled down the wort for a while with the hose which should get you down to about 100F in short order, then hook the in-hose onto an aquarium pump which is sitting in a cooler full of ice water.

The pump, pumps ice cold water through the IC which will get you down to pitching temps very quickly.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of another kind of chiller then; a counterflow chiller? I read you could pour the wort into the HLT after the boil is done and attach a chiller to the spout and it would chill the wort as it pours into the fermenter.
 
I've heard of a counterflow chiller but can't help ya there. You could probably google it or someone will likely step in here with some more knowledge.

Kindest!
 

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