Stove top all grain questions

[Davrosh]

I have a few questions that i would greatly appreciate some advice on from some of you more experienced brewers on here. Here goes:
I've been doing kit brews for the past six months (just put my 7th batch down today) and I've been thinking of taking the next step for a while now. Although I have made some decent beers in this time, none have been great, and I've had a few stuck fermentation issues, which I can only put down to the kits (temp has been kept very stable, wort well aerated, yeast rehydrated and pitched at correct temps etc).

The obvious progression is to partial mash, but I was wondering if it would be advisable to go straight to all grain, as I can't imagine it is much more effort than a partial mash.

My main issue is equipment. I'm not about to go out and spend loads on gear - it would defeat the object of why I began brewing in the first place. I was wondering if it would be possible using two pots - I already have a medium 7.5ish litre one, and can pick up a 19 litre pretty cheap. I suppose first question is; is this adequate for a full 19-23 litre batch?

Would it be possible to mash in the 19L pot, using 7L for sparging or would I need a bigger second pot?

Also, is it possible to make up the rest of the wort using cold water if I brew as much as possible with regards to my restrictions, once I have finished the boil?

I have read plenty guides, and obviously they are all slightly different, but this is the method I came up with:

Heat up the required amount of water for the mash on the 19L pot.

mash grains in that pot in a grain bag, insulating with a few camping mats and a few sleeping bags.

Whilst mashing, heat up 7L of water in my other pot to correct temp for sparging.

Lift out after 90mins or so and drain.

Use other water to sparge, by pouring over top of grains in bag, draining into large pot.

Boil and add hop additions.



Am I missing anything major here, or could this work in theory? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[lowtones84]

Pretty similar to what I usually do honestly. With sparging though, there's no reason to pour the water over the grains if you've got the grains in a bag. After draining the first time, just place the bag with grains into your sparge water pot and use a teabag type motion. Let it sit for about ten minutes, you can do the teabag motion a couple more times if you'd like. Then drain the bag again, but I often then rest the bag in another pot to keep collecting runnings, which go into the boil.

Normally you shouldn't have to mash for 90 minutes either, 60 should be fine. That 7L pot is definitely a bit small though. It might be better to do a partial mash using that as your mashing pot just to get the feel of it and see if it's worth it to you to buy a larger pot so that you could go all grain. I can do all grain on my stove top as long as it's a smallish beer with only 9-10 lbs. of grain using a system similar to what you've described. For bigger beers, you can always make up lack of space for grains with extract.

Good luck, and hopefully some others will chime in here.

 

[borden]

I'd seek out a 7.5gal/28+ liter pot. Alumin(i)um ones can be awfully cheap -- got mine for just over US$30 including shipping. That way, I can do a mash in a 19L, and a dunk sparge (with the rest of my water, in order to do a full boil) in the larger pot, which works great as long as my grain bill isn't much more than 11 or 12 pounds.

If you don't want to spring for a slightly larger pot, you could always do smaller batch sizes, too. My first stovetop AG was a 4 gallon (vs. the usual 5), so I could do a full boil in my girlfriend's canning pot.

 

[BradleyBrew]

I have a $20 5 gallon igloo water cooler with a 10 dollar ball valve. I just recirculate my wort back over the grains and then sparge with another 1 or 2 gallons to hit 5ish gallons total. Then I boil on my stove top (yes, my stove boils five gallons easy. Luckily it has a quick boil burner). You can mash up to 12lbs of grain and dont have to worry about temperature fluctuations. All for under $40.

 

[Agent]

I started my all grain with two 18+/- quart canning pots and a cooler. It worked as well as I could hope for.
While technically, you could add makeup water for volume, but you'll likely thin out your wort too much, since the amount of sugars extracted is somewhat correlated to the amount of water used.
You could make half sized batches with your equipment and process easily though.

 

[El_Exorcisto]

You really have two options, one good and one sketchy.

1) Spend $50 on building a cooler mash tun and $30 for a used turkey fryer. You'll have everything you NEED in those two to do whatever you want. A chiller, grain mill, etc will come later.

2) Spend $30 on a used turkey fryer and BIAB. It's way more headache IMO, but it'll get you brewing with grains a lot faster.

Skip partial mash, using extract at all just feels dirty to me. I started doing 3 gallon AG brews, the only extract I have is for making starters.

 

[lowtones84]

1) Spend $50 on building a cooler mash tun and $30 for a used turkey fryer. You'll have everything you NEED in those two to do whatever you want. A chiller, grain mill, etc will come later.

2) Spend $30 on a used turkey fryer and BIAB. It's way more headache IMO, but it'll get you brewing with grains a lot faster.

Not that I'm arguing with your methods whatsoever, but I believe the original poster would like to accomplish all grain on his stove top. Depending on your stove, it can be done, and done well.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/

This is the thread that got me started. Yeah, it's a ton to read through, but most of the info you need is answered in the first few pages. You can accomplish all grain in the same manner, just going a little bigger. If there are any other questions, ask away!

 

[crackhead7]

i would go to all grain and skip partial mash. you can just do 2.5 gal batches to begin with check threads that revvy has posted on small batch brewing. a 2 gallon cooler, $5 veggie steamer and a $.15 grain bag and whalha presto all grain full batch boils and sized right for experimentation.

 

[jaz5833]

Check out this link about brewing 3 gallon all grain batches. In a nut shell it's about concentrating the wort to make it more equipment freindly both in the size of the equipment and efficiency. I am currently using this method to do 4 gallons on my stove top and I believe I could do 5 gallon batches too. I am getting decent efficiency with my Home Depot cooler so I am not increasing the grain bill as indicated in the link.

Brewtopia Easy All-Grain Homebrewing Tips

 

[chickens4life]

I started all grain brewing (5 gallon batches) for a total investment of US 8$. I had been using my stove and a cheap 18 liter / 5 gallon kettle to do partial boil extract batches so I had that kettle and a bottling bucket etc. already.

all i did was buy a vegetable steamer, put that in the bottom of my bottling bucket, and use that with a blanket wrapped around as a mash tun (the vegetable steamer sits above the spigot on the bottling bucket so it required no modification).
I then collected wort in a plastic fermentation bucket. and did a split boil (in the same pot one boil after the other).

It took a very long time to brew this way but it was cheap and worked, I still brew on my stove but have added a 5 gallon cooler mash tun with a manifold made of silicone tubing with slits cut in the under side of it, and an 8 gallon enamel canning pot so that I can do full boils (the pot was $40 new and the mash tun cost about $35 to make).

so for about 70 us dollars (or less if you are patient and find things used) you can do 5 gallon batches all grain, and in my experience even feeble apartment stoves are capable of boiling 6-7 gallons of wort if you are patient, it helps if you can get a pot wide enough to cover two burners though.

regards
-john

 

[El_Exorcisto]

Apologies, I meant use the 6.5 gallon fryer pot on your stove. It's how I brew in the winter since the joy of doing it outside is easy clean up, and a frozen hose is a buzz kill.

 

[Davrosh]

Cheers for all the feedback. I assumed the 7L pot would maybe be a bit small. What if I bought two 19L pots? Would that make the job a bit easier - that way I could use the second pot to batch/dunk sparge?

Ideally I would like to do as big batches as possible, due to the extra time and effort it will inevitably take. For those of you who do 3 or 4 gallon batches; how many 500ml bottles would you realistically get out of that? (should have probably said earlier that I'm English - gallons don't mean that much to me, metric system n'all that...)

Ok, I have another (possibly ridiculous) idea:

2x 19L pots.

Do the mash in one pot, use the other to heat up water for batch sparging, but pour into fermenting bucket and use that to sparge.

Pour all into fermenter then split evenly between both pots and do a split boil using both pots with even amounts in each, and split hop amounts between.

Obviously the main issue will be transferring the wort from fermenter to pots.


Possible???

Cheers again

 

[chickens4life]

that should work as long as you have a relatively even concentration of wort between the two pots (not first runnings in one and second runnings in the other) which your plan to collect wort in a fermentation bucket would solve.

Looks like a good plan to me.

 

[crackhead7]

+1 on mixing good. Anything is possible that's why everyones process vary due to what works for their circumstances

 

[shadows69]

I use to do biab all the time in two 5 gal pots. All I did is split the grain between the two pots, do the 152 or whatever for 60mins, raise the temp to 168 for ten mins, then proceed to boil for 60 mins. I still split my all gain when I use my stovetop. I can't boil more the 5 gallons. Two 5 gallon pots boiling at the sametime with everything split down the middle. I prefer boiling outside using propane where I can do a 10 gal batch but it's winter time so I have to make do indoors.