Just a quick survey to see how many folks brew all-grain here. Tell about when you started brewing all-grain, if it was a difficult transition to make, and any advice for extract brewers who are thinking about trying an all-grain batch.

I brew all grain. I've never actually done extract brewing. I started making wine and mead several years back, and decided to try my hand at beer making. Truth be told, all grain brewing is much more exciting and far more satisfying than either wine or mead making. Despite my original misgivings, all grain is really not difficult to do.

If I were to give any advice to the extract brewer who is on the fence about going into all grain, it would be to jump right in and do it. If you're doing extract brewing already, the only investment would be making a mash tun and making/buying a grain mill. All grain brewing gets you one step closer to making a beer that is truly yours, and brings 'homemade' to a whole new level.

Cheers
Dave

I started out with "kit" beers in 1999 and went into all grain in 2003.

All grain does not "take a lot more effort" but lets me the brewer make my own wort and that's what's satisfying about it. I can tweak my recipe's in ways that premade extract's make it hard to do. Don't get me wrong, I've made excellent extract beers and even placed in 2003 in the National Homebrewer competition in the American Pale Ale with a kit beer and it was in the top 12 pale ales in the nation!

I currently use the BrewTree system (out of business now) and it's self contained and makes brewing double batches simple. I mash out one and start to boil then re-fill the mash tun with the 2nd batch and it's ready to sparge once the first one's done boiling. That way I get 20 gallons of wort in about 6 total hours of brewing!

I'm mostly all grain though I have gotten back into brewing up extract and specialty grain batches from time to time.

All grain is less expensive in terms of the raw materials but it takes pretty much all day to brew up a batch.

Stihler wrote:..........but it takes pretty much all day to brew up a batch.

Really?

My first time brewing took me 3 1/2 hours from beginning to end, with milling the grain and cleanup included. I spent more time planning that batch than I did brewing it. I didnt find that it took a WHOLE lot longer than making mead (which I liken to extract brewing). Mead would usually take me about 1 1/2 hours with boil time for a metheglyn.

I guess "Your Mileage May Vary"!

Cheers
Dave

i brew all grain most of the time. once in a while i want to try a new style so i will buy a kit to see if i like it, then if i do, i will try to match it with my own recipe. it really doesn't matter if i brew 5 or 10 gal. batches, it still takes me 6 hrs. from heating up the water to cleaning and pitching the yeast.
gary

I said it takes pretty much all day to do an all grain batch and I stand by that.

It generally takes me 5-6 hours to brew a 10 gallon batch of all grain beer which I consider to be "pretty much all day".

At any rate, I generally take the day off to brew all grain but I can brew an extract and specialty grain batch when I get home at night. Hence the renewed appeal of this quick and dirty brewing method.

Let's look at time approximate times for an all grain batch using my system:

Measuring out and grinding grain: ~1/2 hour

Set up: ~1/2 hour or so

Heating water to strike temperature: ~1/2 hour (may be closer to ~20 minutes)

Mashing: ~1 hour (considerably longer if decoction mashing)

Sparging: ~1 hour (assuming things go right)

Boiling: ~1 hour

Cooling wort and pitching yeast: ~1/2 hour

Clean up: ~1 hour

I can cut a few corners by measuring and grinding the grain the night before and perhaps moving some of the equipment then but, for the most part, I can't really cut more than about 45 minutes off of my time.

Of course as you said "Your Mileage My Vary."

- Scott

i want to try!







-J

Thats a nice time frame Stihler! And to be totally honest with you, I brew with my brother, so there's bound to be some time saved due to that. With your timeline, I can see where our processes differ.

Setup takes me about 30 minutes with grain milling and all. It only takes me about 10 minutes to set up all my gear (it almost all packs down into my mash tun, and my brew kettle stays set up), and the other 20 minutes is devoted strictly to milling the grain. I dont include preparing my brewing water in this.

Heating the water to strike temp takes me much less time. Perhaps 15 minutes, or at the upper end, as you said, maybe 20 minutes.

Mashing takes about an hour. I do not do decoction mashing.

Sparging. Perhaps Im not doing this right, because it takes me only about 15 minutes to sparge! I heat my sparge water while mashing, and the whole sparge is a very quick process for me! Maybe this is the reason my efficiency is not where I want it to be! I guess I need to read up some more on this process!

Boil time - 1 hour.

Cooling wort and pitching yeast - about 30 minutes. While my wort chiller is running, I am cleaning up everything except for the boil kettle. I then pour the wort into my carboy and clean the boil kettle and funnel, and any stray parts that got past my initial cleaning. Remember, there are two people doing this, so cleanup goes much faster!

I dont guess I have a very stress free process, as I am always preparing for the next step in my free moments. Also, my efficiency is a good 10% from where I want it to be, which is likely due to what you might perceive as 'cut corners', but which I consider to be my learning curve.

I like your timeline much better! Any perspective all grainers out there should definitely use it as the basis for their AG brewing. And as always, "Your mileage may vary"!




Cheers
Dave

I want to give it a shot someday as well.....
I have used Mr. Beer and liked what I got, I also make wines from kits....
Also would like to make a wine from a recipe when I get a few more under my belt so to speak

My first batch was a malt extract and then from that point on I was an all grainer.

1 AG under my belt but won't look back.
Jack

The nice thing about all grain is that there are predictable breaks in which you can get other things done. While the grain is mashing you can clean and sanitize your fermenters, funnel etc. or make a mad dash to the homebrew store to pick up some item you forget to get when you were there just a few days ago (e.g. Irish Moss). Of course, the same could apply to the sparge though I'm not sure about leaving the house for extended during this time especially since we have a rather curious cat who likes to get into trouble.

...it takes me only about 15 minutes to sparge!

A sparge of only 15 minutes sounds awfully quick.

For my sparge I have a sort of strange three tiered system.

The sparge water holding tank is on top of the refrigerator. The mash tune is on the stove/counter space and the brew kettle is on the floor.

At present, my sparge tank it is not large enough to hold all of the water used during lautering so I must refill it from time to time.

Note that in general the amount of sparge water is about equal to the size of your batch. For a 10 gallon batch, for example, I start with 15 gallons of water of which about 5 gallons are used for the mash. The remaining 10 gallons are used during sparging.

For the sake of convenience I fill my kettle with all of the water that will be needed before brewing. I suppose I could use only what is needed for the mash and then only what is needed for the sparge which probably would save form propane and heating time but I find it just more convenient to fill my converted keg but initially and go from there.

In my little brewing schedule I forgot to include the time it takes to heat up the sparge water. Since a third less water is used and it is not heated to boiling but rather about 168 F this probably only takes about 10 minutes or so.

This cooler has a value to which a piece of tubing is attached. I open the tubing and allow ~168 F water slowly to enter mash tun.

I have two cheap aluminum foil pizza pans which I have made hundreds holes with a push pin. The water exiting the sparge tank flows on to the pizza tins and enters the mash. The reason for foil pizza pans is to minimize the disturbance to the grain bed.

The mash tun valve is opened to an allowed to flow through a piece of tubing into a small pot. This collected wort is recycled back into the mash tun until the runnings are relatively clear. Once this is the case the wort is allowed to flow into the brew kettle. At this point you wish to avoid splashing as much as possible to prevent the uptake of air resulting in hotside oxidation.

Once an inch or so of sparge water covers the grain bed of the mash tun the flow of this water should be adjusted to more or less match the flow of wort entering the brew kettle. This is to prevent the mash from becoming "air locked" which can impede the flow from the mash tun. One should also try to maintain the inch of water covering the grain for as long as possible.

This is how I sparge which tends to take about an hour.

While the kettle is boiling (assuming it can be trusted to NOT boil over) or while I'm cooling the wort with my immersion wort cooler I dump the spent grain in the garden area.

While my wort chiller is running, I am cleaning up...

I too use the time during which the wort is cooling to do some cleaning up. Cooling the wort uses quite a bit of water so I try to use as much of the water exiting the wort chiller as possible to clean the mash tun, cinder blocks, deck etc. However, I tend to make a bit of a mess in the kitchen so the final clean up must wait until the yeast have been pitched and the fermenters removed to their designed spot in the back room or spare refrigerator. Then the floor needs to be cleaned etc.

- Scott

Hey Scott,

Thanks for the info on your sparge method. Without a doubt, I can tell that my efficiency is suffering due to my sparge technique. I dont have the amount of equipment that you do, but I believe I can simulate to some extent what you are doing. I'll give it a shot on my next batch and see if it helps. My efficiency is hovering right around the 60% range right now. I'd like to be able to get that up to around 70 or 75%.

I appreciate the in depth information!

Cheers
Dave

ALL GRAIN!! did 4 extracts then bought 1 50# sack of grain/couple pounds of hops/specialty grains & started building.