Moving to all grain question

[bmelanco]

I'm planning my first all grain and have read pleanty on how to do it. I have not however found an explanaiton of why mashing and sparging/partial sparging is actually required. What I mean is, why can't I just boil, hitting all my temperature stops, strain, chill and ferment?

 

[Brooklyn-Brewtality]

you need to mash and sparge to extract all of the sugars from the grains.

you do not want to boil the grains as you will extract tannins which cause off-flavors.

 

[Bobby_M]

Hate to pimp my all grain primer to a 1st time poster but it will answer all your questions. In short, you're talking about a no sparge and it leaves a lot of sugar behind.

 

[bmelanco]

Gottcha Berserker, I misstated my point a bit - why can't I heat my grains in the pot, hitting all my temperature stops (basically mashing), then remove them, sparge a little right to the pot then boil as normal?

 

[bmelanco]

Thanks Bobby M - I saw (and will read) the primer. So all I'm missing out on is a percentage of the sugars? In the short term I can deal with that, I'll make one or two one gallon batches from sparging the leftovers.

 

[Bobby_M]

"sparge a little" is the problem. I get the feeling you're thinking of just holding a grain bag over the kettle and pouring a little water through. It won't get much of the sugar out.

This will give you the idea: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/ but then that's only a partial mash where you need to add some extract at the end.

If you're going for 5 gallon all grain batches, you'll need a vessel to mash at least 10 pounds of grain with 3.5 gallons of water. You'll need to sparge with about 4 gallons of water to get a total preboil of 6.5 gallons which you'll boil down to 5.25 gallons.

 

[bmelanco]

Bobby M - Thanks, that is basically what I had in mind. Thanks Deathbrewer!