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First attempt at all grain brew


Welsh Dan

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Hi all, after a bit of advice...

I'm jumping in at the deep end and would like to try an all grain brew after doing a few extract brews in the past.

On a whim I recently bought a 10L fast ferment conical fermenter and all the ingredients needed but realised my big kitchen pot only holds 6 litres of water (7 at a push but awfully close to the top).

I guess my question is, is there anyway I can get a bigger brew given my limited boil quantity or do I just stick to the 6 litre capacity for a 1st smaller brew and in the meantime buy a bigger pot?

And also any recipes would be good for some future brews, am going to keep the first one simple. I like pale ales and have bought a few hops to try out - saaz, admiral, cascade, mosaic, citra. I also have some crystal malt, cara malt, pale ale malt, some biscuit malt and some red x.

Thanks in advance!

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I do all grain on grainfather. @Icefever who I think knows alot more about BIAB. Or are you kit brewing. Look at homebrewforum uk. It has loads of help on all things brewing. I am on there too. Loads of recipes too. I also brew alot of the recipes on maltmiller too

Edited by Justin
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On 4/24/2020 at 11:33 AM, Welsh Dan said:

guess my question is, is there anyway I can get a bigger brew given my limited boil quantity or do I just stick to the 6 litre capacity for a 1st smaller brew and in the meantime buy a bigger pot?

Hi Dan.  Use a 2nd pot mate to boil, split the wort into 2 lots. You only have 10 ltrs..or less depending on how well the yeast drops out...you say you use a kitchen pot?, by that do you boil on the kitchen stove??

What about buying a boiler instead of another larger pot??  

I built a 3 vessel system years back with all pumps & valves...almost a microbrewery. Not done any brews for over a year now due to moving home. Stick with it, it's well worth the effort.

Ice.

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Thanks for getting back to me all. Yes I am using pot on the kitchen stove. 
Cracked on yesterday and did it, this was the gist of my process: I steeped 1kg of grain (cara crystal malt) in a Muslin bag for an hour in 6l of water then removed to Another pot where I batch sparged with another 2l of water letting them soak for a bit (1l each time which almost covered them). I added this sparge water back to the boiling pot which gave me a little over  7l I reckon in the boil. Followed a basic recipe and added some hops during boil and at flame out. Cooled the wort in sink with ice down to room temp. Strained this into fastferment and then added yeast.

All appeared well but hydrometer reading was only 1.02... I’m thinking the Muslin bag limited the movement of grains too much and reduced sugar release hence the low reading. I guess a proper brew bag will be a good investment and yes I would like to buy a proper boil pot but just bought a Kamado smoker from Aldi (praying it arrives in one piece) so another splurge on another hobby may not go down well!😬😂 I’ve seen a tutorial on making one so might price up the bits and see...

Been in the fermenter for a little over 12 hours now and no signs of life.... 

Based on the hydro reading is going to be a weak ale, around 2.5% I think, is there a way I could increase this? Steep some more malt and add it in? I put plenty of hops in so not too worried about that...

Any other comments or suggestions welcomed!

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7 minutes ago, Welsh Dan said:

I would like to buy a proper boil pot

 

7 minutes ago, Welsh Dan said:

I’ve seen a tutorial on making one so might price up the bits and see..

I made my first one, using 2 elements from cheap Tesco kettles...work well..wired up so I could use 1 or both at the same time. Like most hobbies it takes time to get good, it's a steep learning curve...one of these days when I got more time I'll start a brew.

Ice.

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/26/2020 at 8:26 AM, Welsh Dan said:

Thanks for getting back to me all. Yes I am using pot on the kitchen stove. 
Cracked on yesterday and did it, this was the gist of my process: I steeped 1kg of grain (cara crystal malt) in a Muslin bag for an hour in 6l of water then removed to Another pot where I batch sparged with another 2l of water letting them soak for a bit (1l each time which almost covered them). I added this sparge water back to the boiling pot which gave me a little over  7l I reckon in the boil. Followed a basic recipe and added some hops during boil and at flame out. Cooled the wort in sink with ice down to room temp. Strained this into fastferment and then added yeast.

All appeared well but hydrometer reading was only 1.02... I’m thinking the Muslin bag limited the movement of grains too much and reduced sugar release hence the low reading. I guess a proper brew bag will be a good investment and yes I would like to buy a proper boil pot but just bought a Kamado smoker from Aldi (praying it arrives in one piece) so another splurge on another hobby may not go down well!😬😂 I’ve seen a tutorial on making one so might price up the bits and see...

Been in the fermenter for a little over 12 hours now and no signs of life.... 

Based on the hydro reading is going to be a weak ale, around 2.5% I think, is there a way I could increase this? Steep some more malt and add it in? I put plenty of hops in so not too worried about that...

Any other comments or suggestions welcomed!

When steeping what temp did you do the steep at, temp is a key factor to get fermentables from the grain.   How hot was you sparge water? Also what is temp of the  fermenter?  you say room temp but it should be 18 to 20 degs can not dip below that, depending on yeast.

Also crystal malt is fine but is max 10% of the grist that you steep so you should consider not using 100 % but use it at 10% of the whole and then use pale malt  maybe for the other 90%. Note fermenter can take 2 days or more to start fermenting as depends on the temp and yeast?

Here and now , whilst not idle is you can raise the  sg by getting some spray alt and boiling it up with some water, let it cool and stir into the fermenter and add some yeast nutrient couple of teaspoons will do.  Will affect the flavour for better or worse of course but it will be beer,

You should have used 6.2 litres of mash water and then sparge with another 6.6 litres to get all the fermentables out consider using a calculator on the net next time to calculate mash water and sparge water  to weight of grain

If you mashed at 65c  then you mash water should have been 83.5c

1.020 if you get it down to 1.010 will get you about 1.3% abv. Quaffing beer!

Fastferment, I have same, good equipment

 

Edited by Justin
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