Best book or reading for all grain virgin

I've been extract brewing for a while now and want to make the jump to all grain, so I'm looking for some reading that is geared for someone that needs to learn the vocabulary and the different types of sparging. A all grain for dummies kinda thing. Any recommendations?

 

Everyone's going to tell you to get Palmer's book. It's good but you can get all you need from his web site. I actually recommend Drew Beechum's book. It's got enough to get you started and a ton of really interesting recipes. I find I refer to Palmers book but I actually read Beechum's and brew his recipes.

 

I might get jumped on here but I'll tell you this... When I made that leap, I looked at all the stuff and steps to do AG and decided to go the BIAB route rather than traditional. Watch some youtube videos on BIAB. If interested, check out some posts here on the topic. A great source is BIABrewer.info . I learned a lot from those guys. They use a beer recipe program called the BIABacus which I find 10x better and easier than Beersmith.
I have never done any AG other than BIAB so can't tell you anything about comparisons, but I really like the simple approach and I make great beer with less equipment.

 

What is the name of Beechum's book? And thanks for the info

 

With AG, getting the water salts right is more crucial. Read up all you can on the topic (covered in the Palmer book), and download the free Bru 'N Water spreadsheet for calculating water additions.

 

Hehe I live in Asheville NC beer city USA for a reason most of the home brewers here brew with tap water and add nothing. Our tap water is so good you guys buy it in the store under the brand name of Mountain Valley Spring water the trucks fill up at a place in west Asheville. Our tap water has no chlorine added either. I asked at a demo our home brew store was putting on if anything had to be done to the water and the reply was not if I was on the city water system. I guess this would be why there are so many breweries here and Sierra Nevada and New Belgian are opening breweries here.

 

I love to read all I can, maybe too much.. But, I think the most helpful thing is to watch someone else's brew day and ask questions. See if there is a club or local home brew shop or someone on hbt nearby that you could watch. Very helpful indeed.

 

It's called The Everything Homebrew Book. $12.99 on Amazon

 

I have both Beechum's and Palmer's books. Beechum's has a more simplistic approach that is well suited for someone just jumping into the game and I can second that recommendation. If you feel you want more technical material, pick up Palmer's later.

 

howtobrew.com

read that to get started then comb this site and you tube. I would caution you not to read to much because once you start doing it you are going to fine tune everything and start doing what works for you. Figure out the basics, go get the equipment, and just start brewing.

Brew...drink...tweak....brew again... drink more.... tweak more.... etc

 

Thanks for the info guys, I've put those on the Christmas wish list. I've been to one of the demos put on by the LHBS and plan on attending more, biggest thing I need to learn is the vocabulary and such so I understand the different processes of mashing and sparging when someone starts telling me something I'll actually understand what they are saying.

Thanks again guys

 

For a really simplified explanation of batch sparging (which IMO is a great way to start with all grain), check out Denny's site-

http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

 

My first attempt at AG was doing BIAB and I found it to be such a convoluted pain in the butt I ditched it and just went full-on All Grain.

 

I just made the switch a month and a half ago. I used the _Joy of Homebrewing_ book and howtobrew.com as well as just asking questions and searching the Internet. You nailed it on the head - the vocab to me was really the biggest challenge - because hey, in its very most watered-down simplest form, AG beer making is just steeping grains, draining/rinsing them, boiling with ingredients, then fermenting.

You may want to walk the process through on a simple piece of paper with an easy pale ale recipe to follow the vocab. It makes it easier with a visual, at least to me.

In the end though, I just dove headfirst in. I built a water cooler mash tun and sparge water tank (which I think is the hot liquor tank but I'm still learning the vocab, lol... at any rate it lets me fly sparge very easily), bought a 15 gallon brew pot and outdoor burner, and I was off to the races. What has helped is to work out on a piece of paper what the process looks like and then just start doing it. I jacked things up in my first go round but it was still easily resolved by a few weeks in the bottle (or so far... hasn't finished conditioning yet).

If you fly sparge like I do (which is uber-easy, I think easier than batch IMO), expect it to take a while. My 10 gallon MLT for a 5 gallon batch takes about 1.25 - 1.5 hours to sparge. This was the step that took a lot longer than I expected.

Good luck - this stuff is a blast, so don't get mired down or frustrated when the inevitable mistake shows up. Sometimes mistakes give the beer better character

 

To illustrate the fly sparge, this is basically what I do except my colander won't fit in my cooler:



EDIT: Wow that guy fly sparges MUCH faster than I do. I actually shoot for 6 gallon batches so that I can end up with 5.5 gallons or so in the fermentor. I shoot for about 12 - 15 minutes a gallon with the fly sparge. That video has the water looking like it is going faster than what I would do.

Instead of a colander, I just get a piece of tinfoil, stab it up with the tip of a sharp knife to make a bunch of holes, and lay it on top of the grain bed. The sparge hose then goes on top of that. I then keep 2 - 3 inches of water on top of the tinfoil/grainbed. You don't need a sparge arm for your MLT at home, seems like a big waste of money to me unless you just like watching swirly things go around spraying water.

It is very easy and sounds much more difficult when you read about it. The visual makes you go, "Oh, that's all it is?" The heavy vocab and fine details give us hobbyists some fun stuff to say and be specific about - but it does mask how easy AG is. It really is THAT easy.

That video is basically like my setup except I have two coolers (not a bucket and cooler). Having a cooler MLT also finally gives me a home for all the beer stickers I've collected over the years... it's all tatted up with beer companies now

 

You might want to go over this posting, which explains a lot of the terminology and gives an overview of the processes.

 

Ok that other thread was very helpful! Thank you

So that leads me to thinking about the equipment I was going to setup, currently I have a full size keg that I will have the top cut out of this evening and I have a stainless 7 gal pot that I've been using as my brew pot for extract brewing, I was going to purchase a 10 gal cooler for my Mash Tun. So with the items listed above which one would you use as a brew pot and which one for heating up the water for sparging. Am I right this would be called a HLT hot liquor tank?

 

Assuming that what you have is a typical half-barrel keg (which would be 15.5 gallons), I would recommend using the keg as the brew kettle (a 'keggle'), and the 7 gallon boiler as the HLT. This would give you ample capacity for boiling the wort in. If you were boiling down a ten gallon batch (or a truly dense five gallons - some Scotch wee heavy, anyone?), this would give you a maximum of 14 gallons brewing water (7 gallons for the mash and another 7 for sparge), which assuming around 2.5 gallons grain absorption, would leave 11.5 gallons for boiling.

What kind of tier or brew-sculpture setup are you putting together, and what burners are you using? Just curious. With something this size, you really want a three-tier gravity fed system, if you can arrange it. There are some commercial ones, like the Blichmann modular system or the ones at BrewStands.com, but those get pretty expensive.

 

I just hung out here and a few youtube vids... and it all made sense.I put together a ghetto set-up consisting of a 10 gal cooler and kettle. Kept my first batch simple. Making beer

 

I just do 5 gal batches right now because of fermentor limitations and kegging limitations. But will look at increasing at some point in the future so I won't as of now be using all the capacity of the equipment. I have a friend that works for a nascar team who offered to build me one of the systems with all the pumps etc but my space is limited so at first I won't have anything permanent and evaluate needs verses space, then make a decision. Right now I have some stands that will handle the weight and will set them up as needed on brew days to make tiers. This part I did think through after watching the demo at the LHBS

 

I know it's kinda off from the sparging topic, but a book called Tasting Beer is a surprisingly good one. If you already have a good grasp on the basics of brewing, this book really can clarify a lot of things. The book is mostly about how different factors-whether by brewer or act of god- will affect the flavor of finished beer. Lots of good terminology, but mostly focused on flavors.

 

at first i did a few non biab and mashed in my cooler and i didnt really like it so i did a couple biab from kettle and thought this sucks .. i then used my cooler and got a bag to fit the cooler from wilserbrewer BIAB bags. no need to volruf . when your mash is complete you get collect your first running and then you fly sparge.. the bags work great. check his product out fast shipping and highly recommended