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All grain brewing


Justin

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I've been brewing for 6 or 7 years,  using the BIAB method. It was the smallest financial outlay move up from kit brewing. The results have been good enough for me not to move on to 3 vessel brewing.

Have you done any beer brewing before? If not it is worth trying a few kits to get the basics under your belt before moving on. If you have, what are you looking to do?

Let me know if I can offer any advice or assistance,  I know others on here also  have some experience and would be willing to help.

There is nothing better than a couple of home brewed beers whilst pretending to be busy keeping an eye on the bbq or smoker!

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I think I will get a electric stainless steel mash and a electric fermenter. There are different options just a question of set up. And not too much of a footprint. I do not want tubs tubes propane etc everywhere.

I gave not dine all grain before but I used to do wine in demijohns.  I have some mobey comung my way so i think i have made my mind up. It will be a excellent learning curve. 

The mash set up will include a cooling coil either immersion or outer set up. Not fussed. Either way the whole thing needs to fit in the house as No leccy or water in garage and no space for man cave...

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Reading up on BIAB. So you use a cloth mesh to lift out the grains before the boil. I guess you add hops pre in and post boil so you have done sort of mesh container to put those in.  And how do you cool after boil and what do you use to ferment. Do you do it all in the one pot ie once boil finished and cooled you chuck in yeast and seal?

Have you got a photo of your set up?

 

Thanks mate.

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1 hour ago, Adman said:

I've been brewing for 6 or 7 years,  using the BIAB method. It was the smallest financial outlay move up from kit brewing. The results have been good enough for me not to move on to 3 vessel brewing.

Have you done any beer brewing before? If not it is worth trying a few kits to get the basics under your belt before moving on. If you have, what are you looking to do?

Let me know if I can offer any advice or assistance,  I know others on here also  have some experience and would be willing to help.

There is nothing better than a couple of home brewed beers whilst pretending to be busy keeping an eye on the bbq or smoker!

My boiler is electric, my mash and sparging was done in a converted cool box with draining system. I had an automated sparging arm. I use to add the hops in a hop bag not too dissimilar to the grain bag but smaller with a pull chord. The intitial fermentation post boil was  in a fermentation bucket with secondary fermentation either in bottles or in pressure barrel. I only did 5 gallon batches however.use to have three pressure barrels so always had a brew ready for drinking as well as the Weissbier in bottles. Use to bring ingredients in from Germany for the Weiss bier.

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I use a 40 lt Buffalo boiler from Nisbetts to initially mash in and then boil, once the grain bag has been removed. After the boil I use an immersion cooler in the boiler.

When it has cooled I transfer into a plastic fermenting bucket and add the yeast. After fermentation is complete I keg my beer but bottles, whilst taking longer, take up less space.

As long as you can get your ventilation sorted out during the boil stage (there is a lot of steam and condensation) this set up can easily fit into even the most compact of kitchens.

The actual amount of surface area need for mashing and boiling is the footprint of the boiler, around 18" square.

You will need somewhere warm for the fermenter in order for the yeast to work its magic, temperature at this stage can make a huge difference to the quality of your beer.

My set up is very basic and not at all automated, but if you are looking for more bells and whistles look at systems like the Grainfather and Braumeister.

Check out youtube for a more visual explanation of these systems, there are a lot of different set ups, pick one that appeals most.

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I have been looking and researching. I like the idea of electric fermenter with a jacket so temp control on that phase is simpler to manage. 

 

I hear what you are saying on boil and steam. Yes of course. Easy enough to do the mash outside. If was using propane instead of electric it would have to be outside anyway. 

Thanks guys. Hopefully I will have a couple crates to bring to the tailgate a.

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9 minutes ago, Justin said:

For sparging I can use the the sous vide wand to heat in the sousvide container and just use a jug from there or a little pump to a sparging arm.   Easy enough..

 

Right just a matter of money now. 

Sounds good to me, it really is a brilliant hobby. I just have other priorities at the moment and with travelling with work it makes it difficult. I used to love mixing the different grains to create recipes for personal taste. There is a book by David Line “ Brewing beers like those you buy” which has replica beers for main stream ales such as old perculier, Hobgoblin etc but there is probably newer up to date books available,now. One of the best things I did was go to a micro brewery in St Johns NF, ( I was doing a bit of work there at the time) I bought the master brewer a beer after his shift and we sat and I picked his brain for about 2 hours. Every micro brewery and large brewery I have been to have always been so open about techniques and are so happy to pass knowledge on.

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It's an interesting hobby,  I started with kit brews way back....maybe 30 years ago....Muntons did some good kits that were drinkable.  https://www.muntonshomebrew.com/

Like a load of guys I did the same route, kit, BIAB, the 3 pots,  even bought a Braumeister  https://www.speidels-braumeister.de/en/home.html now that was the dogs do-dars. At 1 time I had 9 cornies, C0s, and an old tall fridge made into a Kegerator.

Sold the Braumeister about 4/5 years back, along with 6 of the cornies, still have the boiler, mash tun, 2 fermentation fridges, and bits & bobs. 

Now I have a large garage with elec, running water, I may dust it all off and have a go, nothing would be better than a glass of craft beer along with a rack of ribs on a nice summers day.

My favourite brews are the Trappist brews, love them, but they are another step up the ladder, with double yeasts,  and all the works. One beer that a friend & I did get very close too was a French beer called Pelforth..https://souriredessaveurs.com/en/1595-beer-pelforth-brown-french-65-25-cl.html

Just a few old photos from my past....

A brew in the Braumeister

20170320-104802.jpg

Yeast starter on the stir plate

20151001-122331.jpg

Inside the outhouse brewery..

20160127-103737-1.jpg

 

Ice.

 

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Icefever said:

It's an interesting hobby,  I started with kit brews way back....maybe 30 years ago....Muntons did some good kits that were drinkable.  https://www.muntonshomebrew.com/

Like a load of guys I did the same route, kit, BIAB, the 3 pots,  even bought a Braumeister  https://www.speidels-braumeister.de/en/home.html now that was the dogs do-dars. At 1 time I had 9 cornies, C0s, and an old tall fridge made into a Kegerator.

Sold the Braumeister about 4/5 years back, along with 6 of the cornies, still have the boiler, mash tun, 2 fermentation fridges, and bits & bobs. 

Now I have a large garage with elec, running water, I may dust it all off and have a go, nothing would be better than a glass of craft beer along with a rack of ribs on a nice summers day.

My favourite brews are the Trappist brews, love them, but they are another step up the ladder, with double yeasts,  and all the works. One beer that a friend & I did get very close too was a French beer called Pelforth..https://souriredessaveurs.com/en/1595-beer-pelforth-brown-french-65-25-cl.html

Just a few old photos from my past....

A brew in the Braumeister

20170320-104802.jpg

Yeast starter on the stir plate

20151001-122331.jpg

Inside the outhouse brewery..

20160127-103737-1.jpg

 

Ice.

 

 

 

 

A true master. Yes, double yeasts - when I first started with the Weiss Bier there was nothing more heart breaking than going to your first bottle after conditioning, to open it and for most of the bottle to evacuate under its own accord within a second!!!!

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Beer bombs....that's a memory from the past...if I bottled I would stack them in a 25lt bucket with a cover on,  then if one did go off all the mess was in one place. Easier to clean up later,  most of my brews went into a cornie keg way safer.

Ice.

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