New to All Grain

My friend and I had been brewing extract for a while now and we just upgraded to a 10 gallon all grain set. We're debating on whether or not to brew our first all grain batch using a kit or just following a recipe. Our local supply store doesn't always have the ingredients we want (especially hops). We love the pale and IPA style. Any suggestions?

 

Kits are easy. Why not take the opportunity to start playing around with your own recipes? Not to say that formulating your own recipe is hard or anything. This may be a good opportunity to learn about the different malts.

 

Go ahead and do your first AG batch from a kit. That should help you understand the process at first then you can create your own recipes.

 

Do a SMaSH ale:

Boil Time: 90 min.
Mash Profile: 154º for 60 min.

Ingredients
11 lbs. Pilsner
2.0 oz. Cascade [4.2%] - Boil 60 min.
1.0 oz. Cascade [4.2%] - Boil 5 min.
2 pkgs. US-05 Yeast

 

What he said.
SMaSH will help you learn how the base malt tastes by it's self. Plus you get a good idea of what the individual hops taste like too.

Do a few SMaSHes and then you can start building great recipes that will never let you down.

pb

 

I started out the recipe way first, and kits 2nd. Now i'd do the opposite my first couple of "recipes" sucked, but my kits always came out nice. Go with the kits or a good SMaSH recipe from the database here. Search is your friend!

 

The one thing I'd say is that if the LHBS does at least have grain in bulk you might as well start taking advantage of the savings if you're going to be doing 10g all grain. If you like pales and IPA's I'd think something like a sack of 2-row to start and/or MO depending on the styles you like. You can always stock up on hops from an online vendor, which is what a lot of folks do anyway.

 

How do you calculate the amount if grains/hops to use by volume? Is it always the same amount of grains for a 10 gal batch?

You say 11lbs Pilsner. Would it always be 11lbs for 10 gal regardless of the style of grains?

 

It's based on the recipe and the OG. The more grain you use the higher the OG of the beer, same as extract. I typically use somewhere between 18-32 lbs of grain per 10 gallon batch. That recipe above looks like it's for 5 gallon. For 10 gallons you would double all the ingredients in a 5 gallon recipe.