How to brew your own beer - The All Grain method

New beer in the FV

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Was going to be a Black Sheep clone with higher ABV but soon realised i'd not got 1/2 the right hops... (or enough crystal malt!). Still fermenting.
 
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seabiscuit said:
Ooh, pictures of your new boiler please The_Blue.
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Sorry! Just remembered this!

Right, it can't get more basic. Saying that it's loads better than my boiler. :)
Boils 25 litres with room for froth at the beginning.

No lip around the top like my old boiler, net bag caught on that.

It started life as an ebay animal feed bucket.
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2 holes were drilled into it, one front, one back. Sizes i'd have to check but the element came with a size on the sticker, it's a b&q hole saw set size..

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Tap and tank connector from ebay. Came pre drilled with a length of 15mm right through.

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Kettle style element. Make sure your lead is minimum 1.5mm cos mine gets warm even at that. (2.4kw)

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Inside shot.

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***** hop filter using plumbing left overs. Those push fit joints have done about 30 boils - well tested. SS wire mesh filter again from ebay, just an A$ sized sheet folded and the edges folded. hammered the edges to make a crease. Again works a treat!.

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The elephants nose. soon learned the syphon effect worked better with longer and narrower at the end so the flexy tap pipe can to hand. flush with 2 litres of boiling wort to sterilize.

Whole thing cost about £50

Bucket ~ £20
Tap ~ £15
Filter ~ £5
element ~ £16
wilco value net curtain ~ £4

Brew efficiency had shot up from 65-70% to 85%. I think because i can start with 20+ litres water + grain over the 15litres before. Also started rinsing (sparging) the grain after mash in hot tap water, not 80c water like before. The lower temp should bring out more sugar. (MASH - More alcohol, lower temperature:)).
 
seabiscuit said:
Looking good The Blue. We still need to get a hop stopper, we're using hop bags at the moment which I know people say don't give as much flavor.
BTW. there's still time for you to sign up to this...
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18425124
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I gave up on bags, just didn't get the bitterness.

And buying beer?? huh? :confused:

as for the hop filter, use the hop bags in reverse see item 230830957066 on the bay.

Same guy i got the tap off.
 
Just note though from their main page they are on holiday until the 20th, so orders won't ship till after that. (I didn't notice this myself untill after I'd orderd some yeast).
 
Sorry I missed this when you first posted it.
They're great. An all stainless setup, nice. Did you build it all yourself?
But a Bass clone for your first all grain? It's nice enough, but isn't it a little boring? What yeast are you using? How's it turned out?
 
Does look good metbandit, I agree with seabiscuit though - you could have made something interesting but if you enjoy it that's what matters I suppose!

IIRC, seabiscuit, he bought it all from ebay for a stupidly cheap price :o. Jammy sod ;).
 
Me and Mrs_Seabiscuit need to get another sack of grain. We've almost used up our current one, and there's not enough to do a full 5 gallong brew in it. Will order another sack, but should we do a small experimental brew with what grain we have do you think? Say a 1 gallon pumpkin or chilli beer?
Cooked up a chocolate porter last night. We used cocoa powder for the chocolate, but it left oily drops at the top of the wort. I'm worried this will have a huge impact on if there will be any head at all on the beer. We'll find out in a few weeks I guess.
 
Brewed an Ed Worts haus pale ale off that homebrewtalk. Had no vienna so used munich and forgot it was the german darker kind. But its a well tasty pint.

Is anybody here using the Crisp pale malt? Good stuff and a great price.
 
Bought a sack of it that arrived yesterday, but not used (or opened) it yet. It smells good through the sack though.
We've used Bairds and and Fawcetts and this is our third sack. Have read on Jims that some people have issues with extraction efficiency with the Bairds, but that it might be down t the way they crush it for sale. We don't brew for efficiency, we just want to end up with a tasty pint, so if the abv is down slightly that doesn't hugely worry me.
I found the Fawcetts had a more pronounced nutty/grainyness when it was being drunk than the Bairds, but that might just be a placebo effect as it was more expensive ;)
Will be using the last 2kg of Fawcetts along with some Crisp MO tonight to do a London Pride based recipe, and will be doing a couple of brews using it at the weekend.
 
Well we brewed with some of the Crisps Marris Otter last night. Seemed fine, maybe a little floury, but as we brew in a bag we don't have to worry about stuck sparges. Will be doing another brew or two with just the Crisps MO at the weekend so will say more then. And let you know about the taste once they've brewed.
Oh, and the Malt Miller where we ordered it from put other items we ordered in the sack of grain too (in a bag), but it confused me to start with thinking other items hadn't turned up.
 
He put my stuff in with the grain too. And the bag had no liner. The delivery driver dropped it down on my front door step and got a face full of the flour lol.

It is a bit floury. But my efficiency has went up a bit batch sparging. I got a stuck sparge on my first brew and then it was fine on the next. The same happened on my last bag. The taste is dead on though. Good stuff.
 
Did a brew last night that used just the Crisps malt as the base malt (used some crystal and torrified wheat too) and it's certainly more floury than either the Bairds or Fawcetts. This means it's much easier for it to form doughballs while doughing in, but other than that it seemed just fine. Looking forward to a few weeks time to try it.
Hops were magnum and cascade for bittering, and cascade for flavour/aroma. Tempted to dry hop with cascade too, but not sure yet.
 
seabiscuit said:
Did a brew last night that used just the Crisps malt as the base malt (used some crystal and torrified wheat too) and it's certainly more floury than either the Bairds or Fawcetts. This means it's much easier for it to form doughballs while doughing in, but other than that it seemed just fine. Looking forward to a few weeks time to try it.
Hops were magnum and cascade for bittering, and cascade for flavour/aroma. Tempted to dry hop with cascade too, but not sure yet.
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DO IT! Though simcoe > cascade. ;)
 
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