If there is a brewery anywhere close, go there and see if they will sell you the malt you need.
Are all grain KITS worth it?
- Thread starter Falney
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doing better then me, i started thinking i knew what was going on, but got lost? last i heard was this...
but back to the original question, i like being able to get creative with my brews...smell the wind so to speak.
I have a 5 us gallon kettle so I'd have to spare with biab. Which isn't really a problem. I am tempted to look into fitting a ss ball valve on the kettle but I'm a little scared of messing it up and having to buy a new one.Ok, now i am caught up.
If you already have a bag, and your batches are under 5 gal, consider a round drink cooler, or even a rectangle job you may have handy and do MIAB.
Only other hardware needed/preferred is a SS ball valve replacing the spigot. No false bottom, no bazooka tube needed.
I did not see the volume of your kettle, so was unsure if it would hold all of your water+grains for a single infusion mash. The cooler, even a 5 gal-ish size could help, especially with temperature maintenance on a budget
jerrylotto
Well-Known Member
Get good thermometers, a pH meter, accurate scales, and a refractometer. What you don't know will bite you.
From what I know of wine making, I hydrometer is more important than a refractometer. I could be wrong though as I'm only really experienced in wine making.
jambop
Well-Known Member
I am not a huge spender on my brewing but I still have managed probably about 1000€ or more on equipment and I think this is the crux of the matter... once you are in for that amount kits do not make sense are if you buy bulk quantities of ingredients the cost plummets compared to kits. On the other hand if all you have bought is a decent sized budget kettle and are doing BIAB kits make total sense from a cost point of view but the down side is you are stuck with whatever they put in the kit. Probably a better way would be in all you have done is buy the BIAB gear why not just buy what malt you need ready crushed and make your own recipes? In summary from my way of thinking what you do regarding ingredients come down to how much you have already ponied up.
*emphasis mine*
I totally agree. My vision was enuf equipment, as minimal as possible, to do all AG basically 3 batches in, and those first extract batches were what the LBS had on hand where we could brew immediately.
I had the very basics for AG:
An electric kettle (my choice was an Anvil Foundry 6.5, cost more but had options I wanted like 120V/240V)
BIAB bag, cooler (I batch sparge).
I had already decided to move directly to kegging, skipping bottling-only completely. This was the decision that cost the most in the desire for a chest freezer and 3-5 corny kegs. Had an old freezer, so a $28 Inkbird was all that was necessary. Kegs were in the $35-50 range used in a bulk purchase.
On the other hand, it made my fermentation situation simpler as I keg ferment all of my batches. So I saved money on the fermenter side, added flexibility for pressure fermentation, fairly easy cleaning by going a keg route from the beginning.
Including misc hoses and what-not, I too had sunk about USD$1052/1000€ by this point, which greatly affected my decision making on grain/hop sourcing for recipes.
I was gonna have all of this stuff whether I continued purchasing pre-milled AG kits or not, so for me it made the $79 (on special) I paid for a Cereal Killer 2-roller mill and some green Menards 5-gal buckets + Gamma Seal lids (maybe $40 in total) a good investment.
It allowed me to buy 2-row and pilsner malt in bulk from the LBS (a sack can generally get split between 2 5gal buckets). Specialty grains you can order online or from the LBS and stash in dollar tree containers.
Now you can build your own recipes, just need to have the appropriate hops on hand. The flexibility is nice.
I personally haven't gone the bulk hops route (yet). That would necessitate a vac sealer. Same logic as with grains tho. You still need freezer space to store them long term.
Ask yourself: What's your threshold?
I probably don't have the storage space for an extra 2x 5 gallon buckets of grain unfortunately. I store my equipment in buckets that I stack inside them selves.
I can probably store specialty grains and just buy 30lbs of pilsner grain at a time. Once I start my own experiments I will probably use mostly pilsner as I want to make fruit beers
Given the cost of glass in the UK. Corni kegs actually make a lot of sense cost wise as well as space if you buy second hand. Glass for 5 a gallon batch works out about $50 while a second hand, reconditioned keg with all new seals is about $70 converted from gbp to usd.
As long as you have a space where temps are OK for the types of fermentation you wanna pursue, acquiring a dedicated fermentation chamber can be put off till later. Ale fermentation works great with a corny and a blow-off bucket!
Then it's just a tossup on whether it's more convenient for you to order pre-milled grains (even the Pilsner) and just order more frequently, or invest the $79-99/£63-79 for a basic 2-roller mill and be able to hold your grains between brews (un-milled keeps longer).
Then it's just a tossup on whether it's more convenient for you to order pre-milled grains (even the Pilsner) and just order more frequently, or invest the $79-99/£63-79 for a basic 2-roller mill and be able to hold your grains between brews (un-milled keeps longer).
I'm too cheap to spend $100 on a mill, I'm "building one on the cheap" read "I'm spending $200 in labour, $40 in 3d printer filament and $20 in threaded rod and misc hardware/bearings" because I'm a hobbiest engineer and by gosh I'm going to earn that title in the most wasteful way imaginable.
As for somewhere for fermentation. I have a space that is a constant 64-70f year round.
When you’re not working from a kit, there’s a whole process to go through, coming up with a recipe and buying ingredients. This Is tremendously educational and can be part of the fun. My advice is to avoid the financial calculation—it’s probably not going to make or break you, one way or another—and decide whether it is worth it to you to invest that extra time. My vote would be to skip the kits, research recipes, modify them to suit you, post them on these forums for comment, and generally have a good time doing it. But it’s totally reasonable to go the other way.
Generally speaking, nearly every malt you will find will be well modified, and generally speaking this is a very good thing, because well-modified malts are what you want.
The only scenario where you want an under-modified malt is when you’re trying to brew in a historical fashion. This (along with multiple rests, decoction, and the like) will give you results that in some sense are more authentic. Whether the results taste better, on the other hand, is open to debate.
I had the same. About 2 years ago I got a fermentation chamber (chest freezer) and it was a game changer for me. Even if all you brew is a narrow range of ales with simple yeasts like US-05 and S-04, dedicated fermentation temperature control opens a new path to consistency and quality over just fermenting in a cool area. It might not be the first area you need to address, but at some point I would recommend looking closer at fermentation temperature control.
If you’re not already bought in on glass carboys as some of us are, they make plastic carboy fermenters here called Fermonster which is one type or Better Bottle which is another type. Not sure of availability in the UK. What I do know is available in the UK are the plastic pressure barrels specifically made for beer that are expensive for us here. Those kind of pressure barrels we see here are normally sold for spraying pesticides or similar and we don’t so much see them here for beer without ordering special.
jerrylotto
Well-Known Member
I prefer using a refractometer for OG and a hydrometer for FG - I don't bother with correction factors and it is usually pretty accurate. Since the OP was asking about all grain brewing, I recommended the refractometer for mash pre and post-boil gravity measurement.
jerrylotto
Well-Known Member
I usually buy base (pilsner, maris otter, 2-row) grains in 50# or 25 kg (aka 55#) sacks. Rubbermaid tubs are great for storing it, they stack better than 5 gallon buckets.
I have one of those barrels. They cost around $45 with a standard cap or about $60 with a cap that has a bsp thread to allow fittings for inserting gas.
They are a little bit of a saving over cornelius kegs but plastic allows oxygen to pass through from what I understand. So they are OK for short term storage or a secondary before bottling.
Don't take this the wrong way, but if I can buy something cheaper than making it, I'm buying. Spending $260 on a DIY mil vs buying one for $100 doesn't seem justifiable to me. I'm speaking for myself here, but I'd rather spend that extra $160 on things that have already been mentioned by the others like temp control and/or fermenters.
