Is this basically the correct way to brew all grain?

[OregonNative]

Hopefully this is basically right.. please feel free too make any corrections or tips. I'm trying to get a basic idea from what I have been reading.

1. Take your grains and get them ready.
2. Heat water up to 150-170 F for mash tun (cooler converted)
3. Stir grains until temperature reaches optimum temperature.
4. Seal up the mash tun for 1 hour.
5. After mash tun has steeped the grains for one hour, pour the liquid into a large pot to boil for one hour (or whatever recipe calls)
6. Add hops to the boil (for one hour) + add finishing hops (end of boil)
7. Cool wort
8. Pitch yeast
9. Let ferment
10. Pour early beer into bucket (after primary fermentation is finished) with priming sugar and then bottle it.

I hope this is close, and I hope I don't look like a *******. Thanks for looking guys! I'm trying my hardest to make the conversion from extract to all grain.

Cheers all!

Pat

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Pretty much, although I wouldn't just pour the liquid into the kettle, you really want to drain it from the bottom with some kind of filter to keep the grains out of your kettle.

 

[bob1852]

you forgot about sparging in your lauter tun after you mash

(God I love the vocabulary of this hobby -- the other day a buddy of mine were talking about beer making at work and a co-worker was listening and asked what language we were speaking)

 

[yeqmaster]

More or less... here is a link to John Palmer's instructions on it... These instructions are great because it is step by step with little explanation of the chemistry behind it... If you want to know what you are actually doing, read the chapters before it as well.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter18.html

Be sure to get your strike temp right... I would recommend using a brew calc for this... maybe purchase Beer Tools or Promash before you start? Hope this helps.

 

[BierMuncher]

Hopefully this is basically right.. please feel free too make any corrections or tips. I'm trying to get a basic idea from what I have been reading.

1. Take your grains and get them ready.
(If by ready you mean measured and crushed…then yes.

2. Heat water up to 150-170 F for mash tun (cooler converted)
Heat your water up to whatever temp is required to bring your mash to around 154 degrees. I’d allow for about a 15-18 degree drop in temp on a five gallon batch of beer.

3. Stir grains until temperature reaches optimum temperature.
Stirring grains will not change the temp….just normalize it. Stirring grains is important for mixing grains up and breaking up dry dough balls.

4. Seal up the mash tun for 1 hour.
Yes…

5. After mash tun has steeped the grains for one hour, pour the liquid into a large pot to boil for one hour (or whatever recipe calls)
Don’t pour. Strain. Use a manifold or other screening device with your cooler’s spigot to strain the wort into the kettle. First though, you want to recirculated several quarts slowly to clear the wort of grains and other particles.

You also nee to sparge (rinse) your grains. Once the wort is drained. Add 185 degree water and stir again, and repeat the draining until you have about 6.5 gallons of wort.

6. Add hops to the boil (for one hour) + add finishing hops (end of boil)
Yes…according to recipe.

7. Cool wort
Yes…as fast as you can.

8. Pitch yeast
Yes.

9. Let ferment
For at least two weeks.

10. Pour early beer into bucket (after primary fermentation is finished) with priming sugar and then bottle it.
Yes…gently…

 

[ohiobrewtus]

That's a fairly accurate high level overview of the process, yes. Just don't forget to sparge.

 

[OregonNative]

Hey Guys,
Thanks a ton for the replies!

Leprechaun, thanks for the info bro, I'll be sure to filter the grains out.

AZ, thanks for the reminder man! Thats an important step. Haha I love our secret brewers language too!

Yeq, Thanks for the link man, I'll do some reading here in a few minutes.

Bier, Thank you very much bro for running though that for me. Its very helpful. I still have a couple questions, I'll ask that below.

Ohio, Thanks man, its good to hear I'm not completely wrong here. I'll be sure to sparge.

Couple more questions,
Is it necessary to sparge a full 6.5 gallons even for just a 5 gallon batch? I was planning to make the "O Flannagain Standard Stout" and the recipe that O Flannagain put up for us is a 5 gallon batch.

Also, do we sparge the grains to fill up the gap to get the full 5 gallons, instead of adding water after we put the wort in the carboy? I know water gets evaporated thats why I'm curious.

Thanks guys you're all a huge help!

Pat

 

[Rick500]

You'll lose some volume of liquid to evaporation during the boil, so you'll need to start with more than 5 gallons to end up with 5 gallons.

 

[Philip1993]

Start the boil with 6.5, boil to 5.5, siphon 5 into the fermenter.

Of course, the actual volumes depend a little on the length of your boil length, etc

 

[MX1]

New guy here, but here is my take on your 2 new questions

Is it necessary to sparge a full 6.5 gallons even for just a 5 gallon batch?
Also, do we sparge the grains to fill up the gap to get the full 5 gallons,

this should answer both questions I hope.
Sparge as much as your boil kettle will hold leaving a bit of head room. The reason you want to collect more wort than the size of your batch is for evaporation loss. I can only boil between 3.5 and 4 gallons, so thats what I start with. Then top off to make my five gallons


Someone with more exp will help me out if I am wrong.

Tim

 

[OregonNative]

Hey guys,
Thanks for the feedback!

Rick, thanks man. I figured it was due to some loss, but I was not sure. I have a couple more questions about all grain brewing, which I'll post below.

PL, sounds excellent bro. I'll be sure to keep in mind the evaporation of the recipe.

Tim, thanks my friend! I'll be sure to add as much as I can but still leave some head room so it doesn't boil over.

Now to a few more questions..
Do we take the wort + sparge liquid and only use that in the fermentor? The last recipe I did asked me to boil 2-2.5 gallons of water (for the wort), then asked me to pour the 2 gallons of cooled wort into the carboy then I was supposed to fill up the gap (fill to 5 gallons) with plain water.

So basically my question is, should I not be adding plain water to the carboy? Just the wort & sparge water?

Thanks guys!
Pat

 

[hammacks]

You should be able to get plenty of wort from the mash and sparge to make up the entire wort. (No you don't need to add water). But, that is assuming you can boil the entire volume (~6.5 gallons). I only collect around 5.5 gallons and end up adding about a gallon after boil because I'm limited to my weak ass apartment stovetop. I actually get great efficiency, go figure.

 

[Philip1993]

PL, sounds excellent bro. I'll be sure to keep in mind the evaporation of the recipe.

Get beersmith or search here. There are several calc that will tell you how evaporation to figure in for a given boil time..


Tim, thanks my friend! I'll be sure to add as much as I can but still leave some head room so it doesn't boil over.

Do we take the wort + sparge liquid and only use that in the fermentor? The last recipe I did asked me to boil 2-2.5 gallons of water (for the wort), then asked me to pour the 2 gallons of cooled wort into the carboy then I was supposed to fill up the gap (fill to 5 gallons) with plain water.

Mash runnings and "sparge liquid" (both are wort, just different gravities) go into the boil kettle.

 

[Bobby_M]

Right, the mash runnings and sparge runnings make up the total wort. You typically need to collect 1.5 gallons over your desired finished batch size if you plan to boil for 60 minutes. Read my all grain primer, I think it will help.

 

[MX1]

Yeah!!! What Bobby said!

Tim

 

[eschatz]

This is a good thread to help people with first all grainings. Is there already one that details the process(other than Palmer)?

 

[MX1]

This is really not just for first time AG but, for new AG and Partial Mashers alike. I have 2 brews under my belt, 1 extract, 1 PM, this thread is helping me out tremdously.

Also, anyone that has not gone to Bobby's site really should. I know that I will be using a lot of information from his postings the next time I brew, which might be an all grain, the hard way.

Tim

 

[DUCCCC]

For a simple breakdown of AG, with a pretty good set of pictures and descriptions:
This guy has a good webpage about his Pilsner.