Beginner Brewers Next step?

[Zrab11]

Alright Guys. Me and my buddy have done 6 extract batches so far. the first was was bad then the last 5 have been good.

We have done an EPA,IPA,Black IPA, GumballHead clone, and Pumpkin Ale

All of the beer has been extract kits. Either Brewers best or from my LHBS. We have used smack pack yeast for all of the kits as well.

All of the beer has been good and i enjoy it. None of it has been mind blowing awesome but all I have been proud to call my own and others have enjoyed them.

I am looking to take the next step into making my beer that much better.

So I am in need of some help from you good people on the forums.

Here is the setup I have right now.

15 Gallon Keg as my brew kettle
Blichmann Floor Burner
50ft. Wort chiller.
2 temp controlled fridges with heating pads which act as fermentation chambers(can hold 2 carboys each)
1 6.5 carboy
3x 5 gallon carboys


So I have good equipment now and room to grow with my kettle.

So here is my question

1. Should my next step be All grain?
-if so what equipment exactly do I need to make that next step. I have read alittle about it and know if includes a mash turn and whatnot.

2. Should I learn how to save yeast and grow it at home?

3. Should I invest in some more items to help make my extract beer better?
- Like a aerator set up? - adding a value and temp gauge to keg(kettle)?
-or something else?

4. Or do something completely different?

I am enjoying this hobby and this is something me and my buddy do once a month or sometimes 2 times a month but usually only 1. And we enjoy it alot but would love to kind of take the next step or do something alittle different than just buying extract kits.

We aren't made of money but would be willing to spend about 200$ if we needed to to get new equipment.

I'm Big on growing and learning by taking small steps and not jumping into the biggest and best thing until I am ready so all grain is the first thought in my mind but really want plp's opinions on if that is really something I should do or if I should spend more time doing this or that or learning this or that.

I look forward to your opinions and help.

Let me know if you need any other info about our brewing process or beer to help you help me.

 

[AZBeerNut]

My opinion: with your price range in mind, your next step should simply be building your own recipes with good quality stuff you can order or find at your local. Come up with a beer you want to try and just Google "XXXX beer extract recipe," and build your own after looking at several variations. I think you'll find building your own recipes will far out-shine the kits - and you need NO new equipment/training!

 

[Captain Damage]

I'm going to agree with AZBeernut here. I don't think you're lacking for equipment; there's no new toy that will make your beers blow your mind. Work on getting your technique and recipes to where you really can make a "mind blowing" beer. While you almost certainly will graduate to all grain eventually, you can make some truly fantastic beers with extract. So I'm going to recommend that you read a lot in general, but specifically your next purchase be Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. It's an exceptionally well written book that really helps you understand your ingredients and how to think about formulating recipes.

One thing to work on is dialing in on a single simple recipe. There's a tendency for beginning brewers to make a lot of "kitchen sink" beers; i.e., beers with lots and lots of ingredients. I see recipes posted here with six or more kinds of malt and four or more kinds of hops. Most of my best beers are made from one or two kinds of malt and one or two kinds of hop.

So make a beer with the lightest extract you can get ("XL" or "Pilsner,"), no more than one type of steeping grain and no more than two kinds of hops. Keep tweaking that until you get it right.

 

[aiptasia]

1. Should my next step be All grain?
-if so what equipment exactly do I need to make that next step. I have read alittle about it and know if includes a mash turn and whatnot.

No. Your next step, based on your equipment, should be specialty grain/partial mash brewing. That, or start investigating BIAB brewing (what I do). You can make some amazing beers by adding a little fresh ground malts in a muslin bag. This would be your logical next step.

2. Should I learn how to save yeast and grow it at home?

Totally up to you. It depends on how serious you are about brewing (weekly, monthly, etc.) and how much you are willing to spend on yeast at your LHBS. If you're cheap and brew a lot, learn to yeast wash and make starters.

3. Should I invest in some more items to help make my extract beer better?
- Like a aerator set up? - adding a value and temp gauge to keg(kettle)?
-or something else?

Invest in knowledge. Buy the aforementioned books and also pick up "How to Brew" by John Palmer. You should definitely be using a thermometer when you brew, especially getting into grain brewing, so that you begin to understand the mashing process and how to hit and maintain a specific temperature for mashing. Again, this is easier starting with specialty grain/partial mash brewing instead of going full bore all grain.

4. Or do something completely different?

Yes. Give up brewing and take up skydiving. :rockin:

PS: There's a fantastic recipe section here at homebrewtalk. Just look at the red links bar at the top of any forum page for the recipes section link. As a new brewer, i'd study the recipes there, brew a few of them verbatim, and then come up with your own twists.

 

[RM-MN]

The one change I made that had the most influence on the quality of my beers was temperature control during fermentation. Get your wort down to the low 60's as quickly as possible and keep it there for the first week. After that you can let it warm up for the remainder of the fermentation period. Don't rush this part either, let it have a couple weeks for the yeast to complete the ferment and the cleanup. Also read this short article.

http://www.brewgeeks.com/the-life-cycle-of-yeast.html

 

[Fennis]

I agree with aiptasia, I think based on your equipment you could go to partial mash or if you want, all-grain brew in a bag. My first few batches were extracts, then I moved onto partial mash where you replace some of your extract (dry or liquid) with a few pounds of base malts (2-row and so on) and then utilize specialty grains to add more character to the beer. Then, to keep your efficiency up since this is a step up, you will add in dry or liquid malt extract to keep your OG on target. I would suggest moving onto this to learn the basic steps of using grains, and you will notice an improvement in the taste of your beer. Get a couple partial mash batches done and then I would suggest going to all-grain brew in a bag. Its what I do now, you get all the benefits of all-grain without having to invest any more money in your setup then you already have. It is an improvement over partial mash, and a significant improvement over extract.

If you really wanted to, you could invest in the whole all-grain setup, but I am very happy with how my beers are coming out doing the brew in a bag method. I am not convinced yet that I have to make the jump to a true all grain setup. The biggest learning curve for me was hitting my expected original gravity. My first couple of BIAB batches were a little low in efficiency and it was because I wasn't heating up about a gallon of water at 170 and slowly pouring it over my grain bag after mashing the grains for an hour. That is very important in getting the most sugars out of the grains that you can. Once I did that, I've always hit my OG and my beers have come out so good. If anything, the biggest investment for brew in a bag with your current setup is some sort of a pulley system so you can pick up the grain bag. It gets really heavy and difficult to hold 10-14 pounds (when dry) of soaked grains in one hand while slowly pouring 170 degree water over the bag.

I think that should be your next step. If you have your mind set on all-grain, then go to brew in a bag and you have almost no investments to make. I would suggest trying out partial mash just to get an idea of what you need to do as its slightly different, and its a slightly longer time investment, but it does take your beer to that next step--from yeah its good, to wow that is amazing beer.

 

[rpe290]

Starters would be good (I recommend at least a gallon jug personally)--you don't need a stirplate, just may have to be bigger and thought out more ahead of time. Keeping your yeast is just a technique, you don't really need much equipment for that other than mason jars or something similar.

All grain does sound like your next step, you have full boil, chiller, and most important fermentation temp already down. I always find yeast management most important.

You will have to decide what kind of all grain you would want to go to. For example, if you would rather use a cooler mashtun than BIAB for example, just get the cooler, false bottom and spigot system and be done with it. You don't necessarily need a 10-15 gallon HLT to start either, a couple of 3-5 gallon pots can handle sparge water and you can batch sparge.

After you buy a couple pre-crushed kits and see if you like it, I would go for high quality bulk grains and a Barley Crusher type mill.

Or you can do kegs...but bottling is really not horrible since you have a friend...but kegs can be an easy $200-300 investmentby the time you get everything set up.

 

[dracus]

#1 I would start looking at yeast starters so you can pitch the right amount of yeast. Easy way to improve beer and not expensive. Pitching the right amount of yeast makes a HUGE difference in terms of taste trust me. Liquid yeast is NOT better than dry fyi. It is exactly the same allthough your "choices" are limited in the dry that's all. IF you're buying liquid american, english or esb yeasts you might as well use the dry yeast same thing as in same strains. Of course, if you're doing a belgium than that's another story.

#2 Skip BIAB, and Partial Mash and just go all the way. You can already do full boils and have a large awesome chiller so all you need is a mash tun that's it to all grain.

Here is the easiest way:

* coleman 72qt extreme cooler
* cooler kit from bargain fittings with stainless braid

The entire thing is less than $75 including the cooler. That's it all you need to start doing all grain. Heat up your mash water in the keggle, while its mashing heat up your sparge water in the keggle and batch sparge into one of your fermentors or a couple orange buckets from home depot. Once the keggle is empty dump/siphon your wort from the fermentor. I use decomissioned fermentors for this purpose.

You also have the option at this point to do a 10 gallon batch and the mash tun above is more than large enough to do a BIG 10g beer as well.

I'd recommend starting with BeerMuncher centential blond in a 10g size all grain. It's awesome, easy and MIND BLOWING plus ready to drink in a short time.

 

[sok454]

FYI Midwest has free shipping for over 150.00 Atleast I think this was the thread....

 

[steveoc]

I would go for high quality bulk grains and a Barley Crusher type mill.

Or you can do kegs...but bottling is really not horrible since you have a friend...but kegs can be an easy $200-300 investmentby the time you get everything set up.

Grain mill and/or kegging gear. Kegs are enormous timesavers.

 

[Zrab11]

So I'm going to recommend that you read a lot in general, but specifically your next purchase be Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. It's an exceptionally well written book that really helps you understand your ingredients and how to think about formulating recipes.

I already have this book. just haven't taken the time to read it. I will get it down from the book shelf and get on it. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[Zrab11]

Do you have any recommendations for a good waterproof thermometer besides a thermapen?

 

[Zrab11]

Invest in knowledge. Buy the aforementioned books and also pick up "How to Brew" by John Palmer. You should definitely be using a thermometer when you brew, especially getting into grain brewing, so that you begin to understand the mashing process and how to hit and maintain a specific temperature for mashing. Again, this is easier starting with specialty grain/partial mash brewing instead of going full bore all grain.

I already Have the Book "How to Brew" but I think I will pick it back up and read some of it again as I only read the first few chapters to get me started on my first few batches.

I have 2 thermometers. They never read the same temp. Only off 2-5 degress.

Do you have any recommendations for a good waterproof thermometer besides a thermapen?

 

[Zrab11]

The one change I made that had the most influence on the quality of my beers was temperature control during fermentation. Get your wort down to the low 60's as quickly as possible and keep it there for the first week. After that you can let it warm up for the remainder of the fermentation period. Don't rush this part either, let it have a couple weeks for the yeast to complete the ferment and the cleanup. Also read this short article.

http://www.brewgeeks.com/the-life-cycle-of-yeast.html

Awesome Article. Thanks so much for the post!

 

[Zrab11]

#2 Skip BIAB, and Partial Mash and just go all the way. You can already do full boils and have a large awesome chiller so all you need is a mash tun that's it to all grain.

Here is the easiest way:

* coleman 72qt extreme cooler
* cooler kit from bargain fittings with stainless braid

The entire thing is less than $75 including the cooler. That's it all you need to start doing all grain. Heat up your mash water in the keggle, while its mashing heat up your sparge water in the keggle and batch sparge into one of your fermentors or a couple orange buckets from home depot. Once the keggle is empty dump/siphon your wort from the fermentor. I use decomissioned fermentors for this purpose.

Thanks for the advice.

Just to clarify.

this is what I need ?

http://www.bargainfittings.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=96

I will need other fittings to fasten it to the cooler correct? or does it come with the fittings?

I am also thinking of buying a ball valve and temp gauge to install to my keg(brewpot).

Is there anything else you would recommend me pick up at this time to add to my keg(brewpot)?

 

[steveoc]

I have 2 thermometers. They never read the same temp. Only off 2-5 degress.

Can you calibrate them? If they are dial thermometers, there is usually a little nut you can turn to adjust the temperature. Immerse the probes in a solution of well stirred ice water and adjust to 32 degrees.

 

[sok454]

Can you calibrate them? If they are dial thermometers, there is usually a little nut you can turn to adjust the temperature. Immerse the probes in a solution of well stirred ice water and adjust to 32 degrees.

Either that or there is a set of buttons to push in order to reset it.

 

[Zrab11]

So just to clarify..

All I need is a cooler to turn into a mash turn to go to all grain correct?

I don't need a second pot for sparge water?

Do I need to add a false bottom to the mash turn or get a second cooler as a lauter tun?

Also are the orange round coolers or the long rectangular coolers better for mash turning?

 

[rpe290]

So just to clarify..

All I need is a cooler to turn into a mash turn to go to all grain correct?

I don't need a second pot for sparge water?

Do I need to add a false bottom to the mash turn or get a second cooler as a lauter tun?

Also are the orange round coolers or the long rectangular coolers better for mash turning?

Maybe this helps:

When I start a 6 gallon batch brew day, I fill up 10 gallons of water in my boil kettle and treat it (campden tablets).

For a semi-normal batch, I will need ~4 gallons of strike water (about 164 degrees). That goes in the mash tun with the grain for an hour.

Now I have 6 gallons of possible lautering water left in the kettle. This needs to be transferred somewhere else before you drain the mashtun the first time (because the first runnings go in the pot!), it also needs to be about 170 degrees when you use it.

I have a couple 5 gallon pots I can heat on the stove, so I store the 6 gallons of lautering water in (2) 3 gallon volumes. I then vorlauf and drain the mashtun (first runnings), & check where I ended up. If it is say, 2 gallons of first runnings, then I know I need to use 5 gallons of the lautering water--put it in the mashtun and stir a LOT, vorlauf and drain again (second runnings)--you will then have 7 gallons of wort.

Now boil like normal...

I use a gallon pail to measure with

 

[Ancient_Hopus]

I'm going to agree with AZBeernut here. I don't think you're lacking for equipment; there's no new toy that will make your beers blow your mind. Work on getting your technique and recipes to where you really can make a "mind blowing" beer. While you almost certainly will graduate to all grain eventually, you can make some truly fantastic beers with extract. So I'm going to recommend that you read a lot in general, but specifically your next purchase be Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. It's an exceptionally well written book that really helps you understand your ingredients and how to think about formulating recipes.

One thing to work on is dialing in on a single simple recipe. There's a tendency for beginning brewers to make a lot of "kitchen sink" beers; i.e., beers with lots and lots of ingredients. I see recipes posted here with six or more kinds of malt and four or more kinds of hops. Most of my best beers are made from one or two kinds of malt and one or two kinds of hop.

So make a beer with the lightest extract you can get ("XL" or "Pilsner,"), no more than one type of steeping grain and no more than two kinds of hops. Keep tweaking that until you get it right.

What are your thoughts on this book?

Brewing Classic Styles

I got turned onto to it; as a great place to start. I will look into picking your book recommend up in a couple of months; currently working through my technique.

 

[Zrab11]

Maybe this helps:

When I start a 6 gallon batch brew day, I fill up 10 gallons of water in my boil kettle and treat it (campden tablets).

For a semi-normal batch, I will need ~4 gallons of strike water (about 164 degrees). That goes in the mash tun with the grain for an hour.

Now I have 6 gallons of possible lautering water left in the kettle. This needs to be transferred somewhere else before you drain the mashtun the first time (because the first runnings go in the pot!), it also needs to be about 170 degrees when you use it.

I have a couple 5 gallon pots I can heat on the stove, so I store the 6 gallons of lautering water in (2) 3 gallon volumes. I then vorlauf and drain the mashtun (first runnings), & check where I ended up. If it is say, 2 gallons of first runnings, then I know I need to use 5 gallons of the lautering water--put it in the mashtun and stir a LOT, vorlauf and drain again (second runnings)--you will then have 7 gallons of wort.

Now boil like normal...

I use a gallon pail to measure with

Makes Sense. thanks so much. I will be on the lookout for 2 5 gallon pots!
Thanks

 

[rpe290]

Makes Sense. thanks so much. I will be on the lookout for 2 5 gallon pots!
Thanks

No! Not what I meant...if you ALREADY have something like that you COULD use it (for instance, if you made a 2.5 gallon mix batch for your first ever, like so many, you may have a big canning pot or something).

If you are going to BUY something, it might as well be 15 gallons in your case if you want to be set up for 10 gal batches.

Like this: http://www.amazon.com/Concord-Quart-Stainless-Steel-Cookware/dp/B0085ZODVO/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=56OS63ZBRPTK&coliid=IL0MO1RK1NXUY

 

[dracus]

To make a mash tun you just need:

1. A cooler

The round ones are popular I started with one of them.

I like my 72 qt Coleman extreme with a ss braid much better. It's easier to mix up, efficiency is higher and I can mash a 10 gallon barley wine if I wanted. I batch sparge and the braid goes from cloudy to clear in less than a quart when draining.

2. You can use a false bottom, a manifold, or stainless steel braid in the bottom.

The easiest way is to use either a false bottom(works best in a round cooler) or a braid (works great in pretty much any cooler).

3. a bulk head to go through the cooler wall.

Just head over to barginfittings, get their cooler kit to match your cooler and a male ss brain. You'll also need a hose barb and a ball valve.

That's pretty much all there is to it.

You can also get the fittings for your kettle and dip tube if you want to.

 

[Jon73]

In reading your initial post, you said you wanted to make your beer that much better. Based on that, I would say make the jump to all-grain, if your budget allows. I bought a pre-converted mash tun from homebrewstuff.com, I only chose them because they were a local company, not because of price, but I think it was around $120. From what I see on your equipment list, you would only then be lacking a pot to boil your strike/sparge water in. Then look into some sort of brewing software (I use Beersmith), and create your own recipes. My beer might not be "mind blowing", but I know I created it all from a scratch recipe.

If you want to make your life easier and are comfortable sticking with extract brewing, keg, keg, keg.