All grain beers become addictive and are sure to turn you into a beer geek… the satisfaction of doing everything from scratch will make you feel like the beer you brewed is truly YOUR creation…
… and contrary to popular belief, all grain is not difficult to brew…
I do recommend you get some basics down and it will be on your best interest to learn how to brew using extract first so you can get a handle on fermenting beers…
Once you understand the overall process of brewing, then all-grain simply becomes a matter of tweaking the sugar profile of your brew by converting the starches from barley into sugar instead of buying dry or liquid malt extract…
Step 1. Mashing in
There are two terms commonly used in brewing, mashing and steeping… both of them mean you will soak grains at a temperature of approximately 154 °F…
The difference?
The term ‘mashing’ is used when there is conversion of starches into sugar within the malted barley… steeping is just to extract sugars from specialty malts, which have already gone through a process that converted its starches into sugars…
When mashing in, you need to add hot water (strike water) to your grains in a mash tun (a pot, cooler, etc.)… the temperature of the water is usually about 10 degrees higher than your expected temperature to make up for heat losses…
This temperature is held for at least 30 minutes, but usually 60 minutes is the norm…
As long as you are within 10 degrees of 150, you will convert starches into sugar…
Step 2. Adjust your water
As soon as you mash in, you will make any water adjustments as necessary. Pale beers are usually brewed with soft water and you should start with really soft water for these beer styles. Dark beers like porters and stouts are usually brewed with hard water and you can start with soft water and add carbonates and calcium salts to harden up the water…
This topic can be complex, but you just have to look at what salts lower or raise hardness and adjust your water depending on the color of beer.
Another thing you will look for is chloride and sulfate levels. If you are brewing malty beers, you want to focus on the chloride content of water… if you are brewing a hoppy beer, then sulfate will be your best friend…
Step 3. Sparge and Lauter
Don’t be scared by terms, lauter simply means to drain or separate grains from the liquid. Sparging is just rinsing off the grains…
If you took the time to brew extract and used specialty grains, then you steeped grains and then rinsed off the grains prior to removing the grains… Sparging is the same concept only on a large scale…
Your mash tun should have a false bottom, which is more or less a strainer that keeps the grain in the bucket and allows all the liquid to be drained…
The key here is to make sure that you are only draining clear wort (sugar water)… when you first start draining, you will see a cloudy wort, which is starches and proteins mixed in with the wort… this cloudy wort should be returned to the top of the mash and recirculated until you see nothing but clear wort coming out of the mash…
When this happens, you then begin collecting all the wort you need (about 6-7 gallons for a 5 gallon batch)…
… as you are draining the wort, you can either begin adding water to the mash (fly sparging) or wait until you’ve completely drained the entire mash and then add more water (batch sparge) or just brew with whatever you collect from the mash without adding any extra water (no sparge)…
Step 4 and beyond. Boil
What you have done to this point is essentially infused your water with sugar from barley…. this is the equivalent of adding dry malt extract or liquid malt extract to water since malt extract is nothing more than sugar extracted from barley…
The steps from here on out are the same for all grain as they are for extract brewing, you boil, add hops, cool wort, add yeast, ferment, bottle, drink!
