How to Brew..all grain in Canberra

by General musings and more complex discussions

No this inot the John Palmer book but I reccomend it.

This is a shortcut method (you will need a personal walkthrough and what better way than by joining Canberra Brewers)

Yes you can buy an all in one device for mashing and boiling and these vary in price from $500 up but do you want to make that investment?

A good option is to buy a Digiboil https://mashematics.net/wp/shop/#!/DigiBoil/p/722599662 and a grain bag https://mashematics.net/wp/shop/#!/Large-Grain-or-BIAB-bag-suitable-as-giant-boiler-hop-filter/p/824767088 .

You will probably use about 5kg of grain, predominately malted barley and this should be freshly milled, ideally just before you brew or at most the day before, the reasons are complex but a good analogy is do you like your coffee ground just before making or pre ground and kept in an non vacuum packed plastic bag.

Heat about 20 litres of water to 70C in the Digiboil, toss your freshly milled/cracked grain into yyour grain bag and immerse in the water, you should strap or otherwise the bag so it sits above the bottom, just is enough. Set the temp to your requied mash temp, 66C is a good compromise and from time to time, say every 10 to 15 minutes pour a few litres of the mash liquid out and pour back throught the top.

After 60 minutes all of you should have conversion, that is a sugary liquid, the grain have absorbed 5 litres so yo will have about 15 litres, ther are still sugars in the grain so you will need to sparge, that is wash them out so lift the bag up and run hot water  75C slowly through to rinse until you have about 24 litres in the boiler. Discard the grain.

Boil for 60 minutes adding hops as per recipe cool as rapidly as possible, an immersion chiller if fine some people use a hot cube method, I personally do not agree but thats up to you..

Check your specific gravity with a Hydrometer https://mashematics.net/wp/shop/#!/Hydrometer/p/824973519 and write it down

Add your cooled sugary hopped liquid (wort) to a fermentor https://mashematics.net/wp/shop/#!/Traditional-Pail-Fermentor/p/824767838 with your selected yeast and ferment for an ale around 18 to 20C ideally controlled. It should be finished in a week, again use your trusty Hydrometer.

This method is not the most efficient in terms of starting gravity so expect your gravity and therfore your ABV to be maybe 10% down or just use less volume.

Package, thats a whole different story.

Drink

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Basic Brewing

by Making Beer

Over the last 30 years homebrewers have used many methods to create beer at home. The old homebrew was the kit and kilo, that is a prehopped can of goo and a kilo of some sort of sugar, whether it be table (sucrose), maltose or dextrose. This is still a popular method but is limited to the kit, certainly you can add extra hops, use a better yeast but the limitations are still there.

The “gold standard” really has been all grain. By using all grain of a single or multiple types that you freshly crack yourself, mash (soak) at a temperature or temperatures to create precisely the malt profile you want you create your own wort. But this can be expensive and certainly not something you want to do on your stovetop.

A method that has always been popular in USA is a hybrid extract/specialty grain method. For this all you need is a large pot something like this is ideal as it keeps you out of the kitchen https://mashematics.net/wp/shop/#!/DigiBoil/p/722599662

You then steep specialty grains in a grain bag for 30 minutes, add malt extract bring to the boil and add hops according to schedule. You may choose to do a full boil which will add efficiency to the hop bitterness extraction but if you do this you will need a way to quickly cool the wort (immersion chiller, counterflow chiller or plate chiller). You may choose to cube in which case you will have the equal of the Fresh Wort kits sold by some retailers but at a lower price though I personally think that fast cooling greatly improves your beer.

Alternatively you you use a smaller boil volume and simply add cold (icy cold) water to volume. This will still create cold break and is unlikely to create any sanitary problems so long as you promptly pitch yeast. You can buy an OK 15 litre pot from IKEA for $45

Here are some suggestions: https://mashematics.net/wp/shop/#!/Beer-Ingredient-collections-Basic-Brewing/c/41814070