Here's how I started AG brewing....
All your normal extract brewing utensils plus:
1.) A 3 gallon SS stock pot. ALSO served for me as the mash tun and sparge kettle. If you have a 5 gallon igloo cooler to use as the mash tun great
2.) Grain bag. Cuz' the grains gotta go somewhere.
3.) 1 or 2 of the 2 gallon fermenter buckets. Easy with 2 but I did it with 1.
4.) Chiller. Not sure if you have one or not. This chills the wort after the boil. Immersion chillers are what I have used and what I will mention.
Here's how I did it...
First, the short list:
1. Prep grains and water
2. Mash (basically using hot water soak the grains)
3. Sparge (washing the grains of the sugars using hotter water)
4. Boil (pretty much the same as in extract brewing)
5. Cool
6. Ferment
and so on and so forth
And now...the long list...
Start your water, get to strike temp. Get your grain bill ready while you wait. SLOWLY (so not to kick up too much dust, just because the SWMBO might not like that flying around...experience point...) dump the grains into the grain bag. When water is at strike temp (usually about 14 or so degrees farenheit warmer than the mash temp) settle the grain bag into the kettle (DON'T FORGET TO TURN BURNER DOWN A LITTLE!) stir the grains around a little to break up any possible clumps of grains and to make sure all the grains are wet. Mash (meaning, leave it the heck alone
). Do, however, monitor the temp often (I'm obsessive, I check it every minute or less) and make any corrective adjustments as necessary. If you are losing a lot of heat just put the cover on the pot. Let sit (or mash) for the specified time (probably between 45 to 60 minutes). When done with the mash take your kitchen strainer (it is sanitized, right?) and set it into the 2 gallon fermenter bucket. Lift the grain bag out of the pot and into the strainer. Pour the wort into the bucket (it helps to have someone to lift the strainer so you can sneak the wort into the bucket without having to run the wort over the grains...there's a lot of sugar in that stuff but there are a lot of opinions about mashing so I'm sure someone will have something to say about that.) Fill kettle back with sparge water (this would be the essential time to have a second kettle of similar or slightly smaller size to have water boiled already at this point) and start to heat. We want the sparge water to hit just about 170 degrees farenheit. No hotter though because if you hit your grains with hotter than 170 degree water you start to leach tannins and...well, bad things for most beers. Once you hit 170 remove from heat and SLOWLY, without disturbing the grains, run the sparge water over the grains. There are various methods of doing this, but for this small of an operation you will have to find the best for you. You could set the fermenter bucket in the sink (no water in the sink, of course) and set the sparge kettle on something a little taller then siphon the EXTREMELY HOT water through a hose with a pinch-stop to keep the flow slow....anyway get that water on the grains to release those sugars! :rockin: When the grains dripping has slowed down pour the wort to the boil kettle (same kettle that you've been using
) and start your boil. The boil is pretty much the same as extract brewing. Hops may or may not be new to you. Basically, throw em in and start the count down when the boiling starts. Watch that it doesn't boil over. When your boiling has finished stir the wort around until everything is in a big whirlpool. Get your immersion chiller ready (unless you're using a different type of chiller) and start chilling. Monitor the temp in about 10 minutes or so. Or sooner if you like it don't matter. When you hit around 65 - 68 degrees farenheit pitch your dry yeast and ferment your easily brewed all grain beer. Congrats on going AG!!! I hope this wasn't confusing and that it helped. This is how I still do my small batches and I'm completely fine with the results. You may need to use a little extra grain just because this isn't the best sparge method but it gets the job done. What's really nice is if I do a lager in a small batch I can throw it in the fridge and the wife is completely fine with it. Now if only I can convince her of that kegerator....
I'm not saying in anyway that this is the way you should go or the way that is going to make you great beer. It's the way I've used because I don't want to buy a HERMS setup and spend money. This works for me
Have fun!
