First All Grain Batch

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.

Fatboy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2005
Messages
46
Reaction score
0
Location
St. Louis
Thanks for all of the help in advance.

I'm getting ready to start my first all grain ale and after a fair amount of research, and acknowledgement of limited beer finances (new baby), I need to see if this will work.

1. Boil 3 gallons water and remove from heat
2. Soak grains in bag submerged in the hot water for 1 hour
3. Pour off the grain water, temporarily, into the primary bucket
4. Rinse the grain bag in the original boil pot, in cool or warm water.
5. Remove and discard the grain bag.
6. Return the original grain boil from the primary bucket back to the boil pot.
7. Boil and proceed with normal hop additions, etc.

Thanks _ Paul
 
You were vague with your temperatures which would be a concern I'd have. The temperature of your mash, sparge etc is critical to a successful/efficient all grain process. Perhaps that was already known by you and you didn't feel like typing that much in... But if not; some atypical standard temps would be 152-154 for your mash temp. 168 (not higher than 175) for your sparge/rinse temp.

Anyway, I'd expect another member (Turricaine) from the UK might chime in as he does the mash in the bag thing. He referenced this site http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jim.dunleavy/recipe.htm as a guideline to how he does it. I reviewed it as well as I was curious on this type of process (I use a cooler - single step infusion mash process). This site may help you out.
 
I too just did my first all grain batch though I used infusion mashing (cooler with copper manifold). Desertbrew is right on - make sure you nail your temps. A good digital thermometer ($10) is a great tool. If the grains are too hot they'll be astringent tasting.. too cold and there won't be much if any fermentables. Consider using a hydrometer - I thought I'd do without but the little thing is quite handy and only 4 bucks from my local homebrew shop. Try using qbrew (free) to formulate, modify, and check your receipes - that way you can see if you hit your projected Original Gravity or not - if you're way off then you know immediately that something is wrong and you can take steps to correct it by adding fermentables (malt extract). Make sure you have a way to transfer the wort while hot - you can't pour it or you'll risk aeration (bad). Also have a way to chill it after boiling, I guess an ice bath is ok for a 3 gallon batch. And, as always, sanitize everything with a good no rinse sanitizer (starsan).


If you haven't done much reading yet you definately need to check out Palmer's "how to brew" book. When my homebrew shop threw the book in with the kit I thought "yeah right like I'll read this" well the thing has been a godsend.. I couldn't live without it. It is available in digital format on the internet for FREE.. do a seach for it. I'm sure google will find it or there's a link to it somewhere on these forums.

Good luck
 

Latest posts

Back
Top