TheHardWay
Member
Having brewed only from malt can kits in the past, I got a bit bored with it. Honestly if it's too easy, I'm more likely to get distracted, with sour results.
Recently I discovered all-grain brewing, and it blew my mind.
I had to do it right away, whether I had the right things on hand or not. And it turned out so damn good, I'm addicted.
If you can tell me WHY this worked so well, and what was happening along the way, I'd love to hear it
.
ingredients
5kg Wheat (I got this from the local stock feed shop for cheap-as-chips, or what we more often call "bugger-all"),
15g Willamette hops, and 15g Centennial hops
500g raw sugar,
packet of Safale WB-06 yeast
.
malting stage
whack all the wheat in a big bucket of luke-warm water overnight.
spread the wheat on a camping trestle table out on the back patio, about 1-2cm deep. *going with a more shallow layer meant I wouldn't have to turn the grains 2-3 times a day like everyone else thought that I should. Pfft.
cover it with a wet beach towel, and walk away for 3 days.
take a peak occasionally. yep, looks nice. If towel looks dry, wet it again with the garden hose.
*NOTES ABOUT WHAT I DID NOT DO
I did not turn the wheat, at all. It did mean that the grain at the bottom sprouted slightly more, but no worries. The ones on top had rootlets about as long as the grains, and the ones at the bottom about 2-3 times that length and slightly interwoven with each other.
I did not dry the grains. Not in the sun, and not in the oven. Not at all. I'm impatient, and moving onto the mashing stage right away anyway, so why dry it out and then have to rehydrate it?! sheesh.
I did not remove the rootlets. Online sources said those would be bitter. Yep, beer is meant to be bitter, so I left them on.
.
roasting stage
preheat oven to setting '2'. This is a german style oven, made in Italy, apparently, so I think this means about 200 degrees celcius.
spread all the grains on pizza trays. I didn't have enough, so did this in about 5 lots.
roast for about 20 minutes, or until looking 'almost' burnt on the bottom. Basically the same as cooking pancakes.
this means it was roasted unevenly. This was easy, and quick, and meant that it was kind of like doing what online sources said to do in terms of using some lightly roasted (the bits on top) and some more darkly roasted (the bottom ones). I achieved it all at once.
.
mashing time
put all the lovely smelling roasted grain (rootlets and all) into big old stock put (mine is about 19L), and top up with water to about an inch from the top (I used inches there just to confuse you).
Heat to 67 celcius for 50 minutes,
add the hops (in a mesh bag), and raise temp to 76 celcius for another 50 minutes.
Drain out a bunch of the wort into another pot and put aside. Refill the first pot with hot water from the tap and raise temp back up to 76 celcius for 10 minutes.
Drain second batch of wort into the other pot with the first lot.
.
brew this baby
put a few trays of ice blocks into your brewing barrel, then add all the wort.
wait overnight, or just keep adding ice blocks until you can get the temp below 27 celcius.
Add the yeast, and put in temp controlled fridge at 21 celcius for a week.
Bottle with 7g sugar per bottle, and wait impatiently for another week.
Voila! and it's really delicious. Dumb luck maybe, but I've done this 3 times now, and it's bloody marvelous every time.
Recently I discovered all-grain brewing, and it blew my mind.
I had to do it right away, whether I had the right things on hand or not. And it turned out so damn good, I'm addicted.
If you can tell me WHY this worked so well, and what was happening along the way, I'd love to hear it
.
ingredients
5kg Wheat (I got this from the local stock feed shop for cheap-as-chips, or what we more often call "bugger-all"),
15g Willamette hops, and 15g Centennial hops
500g raw sugar,
packet of Safale WB-06 yeast
.
malting stage
whack all the wheat in a big bucket of luke-warm water overnight.
spread the wheat on a camping trestle table out on the back patio, about 1-2cm deep. *going with a more shallow layer meant I wouldn't have to turn the grains 2-3 times a day like everyone else thought that I should. Pfft.
cover it with a wet beach towel, and walk away for 3 days.
take a peak occasionally. yep, looks nice. If towel looks dry, wet it again with the garden hose.
*NOTES ABOUT WHAT I DID NOT DO
I did not turn the wheat, at all. It did mean that the grain at the bottom sprouted slightly more, but no worries. The ones on top had rootlets about as long as the grains, and the ones at the bottom about 2-3 times that length and slightly interwoven with each other.
I did not dry the grains. Not in the sun, and not in the oven. Not at all. I'm impatient, and moving onto the mashing stage right away anyway, so why dry it out and then have to rehydrate it?! sheesh.
I did not remove the rootlets. Online sources said those would be bitter. Yep, beer is meant to be bitter, so I left them on.
.
roasting stage
preheat oven to setting '2'. This is a german style oven, made in Italy, apparently, so I think this means about 200 degrees celcius.
spread all the grains on pizza trays. I didn't have enough, so did this in about 5 lots.
roast for about 20 minutes, or until looking 'almost' burnt on the bottom. Basically the same as cooking pancakes.
this means it was roasted unevenly. This was easy, and quick, and meant that it was kind of like doing what online sources said to do in terms of using some lightly roasted (the bits on top) and some more darkly roasted (the bottom ones). I achieved it all at once.
.
mashing time
put all the lovely smelling roasted grain (rootlets and all) into big old stock put (mine is about 19L), and top up with water to about an inch from the top (I used inches there just to confuse you).
Heat to 67 celcius for 50 minutes,
add the hops (in a mesh bag), and raise temp to 76 celcius for another 50 minutes.
Drain out a bunch of the wort into another pot and put aside. Refill the first pot with hot water from the tap and raise temp back up to 76 celcius for 10 minutes.
Drain second batch of wort into the other pot with the first lot.
.
brew this baby
put a few trays of ice blocks into your brewing barrel, then add all the wort.
wait overnight, or just keep adding ice blocks until you can get the temp below 27 celcius.
Add the yeast, and put in temp controlled fridge at 21 celcius for a week.
Bottle with 7g sugar per bottle, and wait impatiently for another week.
Voila! and it's really delicious. Dumb luck maybe, but I've done this 3 times now, and it's bloody marvelous every time.
