All Grain Brewing PDF Print E-mail

The basic equipment requirements are as follows: A 7-9.5 kettle, mash tun (a vessel at least as big as the intended final volume with a false bottom or something that allows the sweet wort out), and finally a hot liquor tank (vessel that can hold hot water to sparge with). Other pieces of equipment that aren't required, but help, include a pH meter, sparge arm/ring, stand to hold the vessels, pump (if not gravity from vessel to vessel), mash paddle, mill, a good thermometer, and Promash software. Although not equipment, water modifiers such as calcium sulphate (gypsum), calcium chloride, lactic acid, etc. are helpful for adjusting water pH.

Find or formulate a recipe. Recipe formulation is vital and the brewer should have a clear understanding what each ingredient does for the beer. A great book on recipe formulation is Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles. This book is a must-read for everyone who plans on doing all-grain brewing.

The grain portion of your recipe is called the grain bill. Base malts will comprise the majority of the grain bill while specialty malts will help to define the flavor and style. Specialty malts should account for no more than 35% of the total grain bill. Once you have weighed out your grains, they must be cracked. This is best done in a roller mill (most homebrew shops will crack your grain free of charge). Cracking the grain is necessary for the starch conversion and enzyme activation, just as specialty grains are cracked for steeping to get at the flavor and sugar inside. Wheat and specialty grains such as crystal, chocolate, munich malt, etc. should also be cracked. This cracked grain is called the grist. The grist is what you will add into your mash tun.

Mashing is the process of breaking down starch into fermentable and non-fermentable sugars through temperature controlled steeping in water. Rather than just dissolving the existing sugar from the barley kernel as in steeping, you must actually develop the proper conditions for enzymes to break down starch into sugar. To do this, temperature is critical as is the proper time allowed for the conversion to take place.

You need to know the total pounds of malt that will be used so you can figure out how much water will be needed in the Mashtun. The recommended amount is 1.0 quarts per pound of malt. When doing this calculation don't forget about the "dead space" you have under the false bottom and add that water to the needed amount.

It's a good idea to filter your water if you are using water from a municipal source with a carbon activated filter to remove chlorine or chloramines. Carbon filtering also has the advantage of removing any bad flavor that is organic in nature. Fill your Mashtun with the amount of calculated mash water.

You can all-grain brew without doing any pH adjustment but it's best to lower the water pH to improve efficiency and flavor. You want a 5.2-5.5 pH after the grains have been mixed in. Since it is very difficult to alter the pH after you mix (dough) the grains in change the water pH before you add the grains. Dark grains are more acidic so recipes with dark grains usually do not require that the pH of the mash water be lowered as much. For more info on pH try An Analysis of Brewing Techniques by George Fix.

The temperature of the mash is affects the flavor of the final beer. Holding a mash temperature between 148°F and 158°F for 60 minutes is sufficient in activating the enzymes that are in the barley. These are the enzymes that turn the starches into sugars. Low-end temperatures (148-152°F) produce an overall dryer beer, while a high mash temperature (154-158°F) produces a beer with a full body and more malt sweetness. The middle range of 151-154°F is a great compromise for most beers and makes a beer with a lighter body and less malt sweetness. When adding the grain to the water, not water to grain to avoid the formation of dough balls, plan for temperature drops of 9-15 degrees due to the fact that the grain is sitting at room temperature.

Add the grain slowly continuing to stir for a few minutes after the grain has been added to make sure that the entire mash is a consistent temperature and that all dough balls have been eliminated. Letting the mash sit for 60 minutes at 148-160° generally results in full enzymatic conversion of the starches to sugars. Make sure that the lid is placed on the mash to retain heat. Consider insulating the vessel if you are brewing outside in really cold temperatures but the large thermal mass of the mash should hold its temperature. If the temperature doesn't hold just add hot water or cold water to move it a few degrees but do not add flame under the vessel because it is easy to scorch the grains causing off flavors.

Recirculate the wort by removing some from the spigot below the false bottom and add it back to the top of the grain bed. Do this until the runoff is nearly free of visible debris, then start the sparge.

The Sparge rinses out the sugars from the mash. Use 1/2 gallon of water for every pound of grain used in the mash. This is a simplified calculation that will allow you to be sure you have more sparge water than you actually will need. There is a chart in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition (Harperresource Book)which gives pound to water ratios that is very helpful.Adjust the pH of the water to 5.5-6.5. By acidifying the sparge water you help to insure that the tannins from the husk don't get absorbed into solution during the sparging process, and carried into the boil kettle. Temperature also plays a key roll in sparging. Keep the temperature as close to 170°F without going over. At this temperature you will dissolve the sugars without leaching tannins from the grain husk. As always, it is better to filter the water.

To begin the sparging process open the Hot Liquor tank valve and allow the water to flow onto the grain bed. A simple hose will work for this process however a stationary sparge arm is a time saving addition. Connect a piece of tubing onto ball valve on the mashtun and allow it to run into the boil kettle. Open the valve on the bottom of the Mashtun allowing the hot sparge water to flow through the mash. Try to get the same flow of water coming into the mashtun as wort flowing out of the mashtun and into the boil kettle. Keep at least a two-inch layer of water on top of the grain bed to keep incoming sparge water from channeling through the grain. The sparge should take 45-60 minutes to insure that there is plenty of time for the sugars to go into solution .

Sparge until you have collected 1-2 gallons of wort over the final amount you want which is dependent upon the batch size and boil off rates. A good boil-off amount is 10% of the starting volume. You want the additional gallons because you will be leaving some liquid behind in the break and hop matter.

Add hops and any other ingredients as the recipe calls for. It is generally a good idea to add Irish moss or Whirlfloc with 20 minutes left in the boil to aid in hot break separation.