Friday, December 24, 2010

All Grain Brewing

This is something every home brewer should get into!
I brewed 7 extract batches and after that I wanted to do more, in depth brewing with unlimited control over every aspect of my beer. It does involve a small investment but it pays off quick and is well worth of every cent in quality, possibilities, and satisfaction.
In this article I'll share my adventures of all grain brewing and where I'm at now.

First All Grain Setup.

  1.  Just start - At first I watched countless videos and read countless articles and books about it. Even though it did build important fundamentals it also made it seem like a more daunting task. So my best  advice is go for it and after a few batches you'll figure things out by trial and error. This article will hopefully relieve you of some of those Gilligan mistakes.
  2. Develop a Basic Brew plan - try to avoid doing what i did and start brewing without some brew plan. By now you should know most of the steps to brewing, so make sure you have every part down. The basics are obvious such as mash tun, and large brew kettle, but consider things like the lautering tun and how your make shift or hopefully a more professional sparge arm will work.


How I started All Grain.... Very unprofessional.

My grain mill very sketchy setup.


Quick test










Horrible First AG setup














A Pumpkin batch for Thanksgiving.

My newest Brew Sculpture

  •  I wanted to be able to brew inside without worrying about any dangerous gases from a burner so I went electric. 
  • I purchased a sparge arm, an electric heater, and induction pot and somehow put all the parts together on a very sturdy metal frame rack from Sams club.  Those are the exact ones linked above that I have in case you were wondering what type I decided on.
  • For my water supply I hooked a carbon filter up under my sink and get the water from there. It is very good tasting!



                                                                  

                                                                                                                             
 It looked sick when the Barley Crusher was on top the mash tun but I forgot to take a picture of that. Ill probably add one from another brew sometime soon. Apparently, an online interior design degree would be useful even when creating a brew sculpture.



Thats the old pot. Which I still had to bring outside to a burner, thats why the electric heater isn't in place.





The Brewery

The brainstorming brew desk

The Brew Tree



Theres more Coming so check back soon!

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