First all-grain recipe, suggestions?

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.

jz989

Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2010
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Location
Frankenmuth
I'm currently looking to make the jump from extract brewing to all-grain brewing. My buddy, who has all the equipment, has offered to help and teach me the basics of all-grain brewing since I've never seen it done before. I'd like to start with an easy drinking warm weather wheat beer so I found this clone recipe for Three Floyds' Gumballhead: http://www.brew365.com/beer_three_floyds_gumballhead.php

Since this is my first all-grain batch, does anyone have any suggestions to make this recipe easier, foolproof, etc? Or even a recipe that there is no way I can screw it up while still benefiting from learning the fundamentals of all-grain brewing?

Thank you!
Tom
 
THis is about the easiest all grain brew you can make. If you want fool proof, do a stout and add an extra few pounds of grain to compensate if you mess up teh conversion and get poor effeciency.
 
That recipe looks like a good one.

If you didn't know/realize, wheat malt has no husk on it. The amount of wheat in a recipe will impact your ability to sparge the grains (rinse the sugars off) since the grain (barley) husks are what keep the grainbed loose enough for the water to flow through. When the percentage of wheat gets too high, brewers will add in rice hulls to provide more 'husk' material to facilitate sparging. The percentage of wheat varies by brewer. You'll get people that add rice hulls to a recipe with wheat every time and others that do it only when the wheat is 50% of the grain bill and higher. I take the middle road and use rice hulls when I have more than 40% wheat in my recipe. Rule of thumb is 10% of the grain bill weight in rice hulls will work.
 
Awesome, thanks for taking a look at this recipe!

@Arneba28, I've got an oatmeal stout in one of my kegs right now that I brewed from an extract kit. It didn't turn out the way that I had hoped, but I think it was my final "nudge" to move from the kits to brewing all-grain. So next fall I'll definitely give it another shot, but I'm hoping to have enough experience to brew a nice stout or porter without a kit!

@ThePearsonFam, great tip and I am definitely adding it to my notebook! The rice hulls are pretty cheap too, so they won't add too much to my final cost. Thanks!
 
Frankenmuth! There was a great Bavarian type restaurant there in the 90's and I ate like a champ! I need to get back there some time.

Anyway. My first all grain was a simple stout. From there I dove in making more complex and delicious beers. It is like riding a bike, take of the training wheels and the next thing you know, your riding a Harley!
 
My first AG was a Hefe... Was all over the place on mash temps. Was trying to make corrections that didn't need to be made. Fermented too cold. Crazy issues all over the place. You know what happened??? I made a great beer, despite my efforts to dork it up.

Good Luck!!!
 
Back
Top