How to homebrew in the kitchen?

[lechatfemme]

Hi,

I'd like to do an all grain IPA in my kitchen. I don't have any fancy equipment, but i do have a few large pots and a basic homebrew kit. I'm not sure of the best way to do the mashing and sparging, etc. without buying more stuff. Any ideas? Can it be done?

Thanks!

 

[ChandlerBang]

Check this out. DeathBrewer also has one on easy all grain brewing.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/

 

[brewmarshall]

I use the same style equipment and I have tried to brew AG using the BIAB technique. I use a dinky 5g pot and a 2g pot to mash and combine to boil. I get about 70% efficiency but the size constraints keep me from a true ipa gravity- without a little extract. (since adding h2o to reach 5 gallon volume brings down the OG)

I am saving for a 10g pot- things will be MUCH easier! I can definitely sympathize with the need to brew on a budget. Good luck,

 

[edmanster]

i use 2 5gal pots and a cooler mash tun... i collect my runnings(6 gallons) in my ale pales and mix it good and split the wort and all my additions between into 2 boils.. i only do 1 boil at a time and by only boiling 3 to 3.5 gallons(sometimes i add a little water for evaperation) i get a strong boil on my stove top. i usually boil for 90min(dms reasons) and try to keep an eye on my SG. i combine the two boils and proceed with my process. i use the 2nd 5gal pot just for help heating up all my strike and sparge water... splitting the boil adds about an extra 2 hours to the brew day but i work with what i got.. no complaints so far and i get good reviews...

sorry i just seen that you want to do an ipa... you might need to boost your grain bill to get the SG you want... you might need another collection bucket for more runnings and i do 2 4gal boils not watered down for my high gvavity brews.. i also do parti-gyle and get 3 batches off 1 grain bill..

 

[camus]

Brew in a bag is probably your best bet if you do not want anymore equipment.

I use a 9 gallon pot and a converted 5 gallon igloo mash tun, fortunately for me my range can boil 7 gallons of wort.

 

[lechatfemme]

What are the drawbacks to a brewing in a bag? Do you just heat it the whole thing once (ie no sparge), remove the bag, and then add the hops?

Thanks!

 

[RM-MN]

The drawback that I have seen is the limit on how much volume you can mash and boil on the kitchen stove. I've done 4 batches with my single 5 gallon kettle and 3 gallons of beer into the fermenter seems to be the limit for me unless I should add top off water. I've tried it full volume with no sparge and reduced volume with sparge and saw no noticeable difference in efficiency.

Once you remove the bag and have squeezed all the liquid from it, you have your sweet wort (taste it, it will be sweet) and you proceed to boil it with the hops to get your bitterness/taste/aroma just as you would if it were produced by mixing in malt extract.

One thing that you have going for you with brew in a bag is the ability to use grains that have been crushed or ground quite fine. You have such a large filter area and large volume of water that a stuck sparge isn't your worry. The finer the crush, the quicker the conversion of the starch to sugar.

When you go all grain, you do have to be able to heat your water to a very specific temperature (make sure your thermometer is accurate in the range of 140 to 160 degrees, a few degrees off makes a huge difference in the beer) and keep it at that temperature until conversion is complete. It's a little easier than with the conventional mash tun because you have such a large volume of water to cool. The last batch I did, I wrapped the kettle in a thick bath towel and covered the lid with a couple kitchen towels and held the temperature within 1 degree for the whole hour.

 

[Jsmith82]

I use 2 4gal pots, just did my first partial mash, I didn't have a cooler so once I hit my temp I QUICKLY pulled the pot of the stove, stirred in my grains, threw in the thermometer, slapped on the lid and wrapped it in some beach towels to help insulate. Not going to lie, my BH efficiency was off a tad and I missed the OG mark by .005 which isn't all that bad, this after I added water to the ferment bucket to bring the beer up to 5 gallons (which was planned)

I completely followed the topic chandlerbang linked above and aside from my efficiency being off, the brew day went completely perfect and I feel totally confident it's going to be a great beer, I second you should read through it.

I've tried it full volume with no sparge and reduced volume with sparge and saw no noticeable difference in efficiency.

Once you remove the bag and have squeezed all the liquid from it, you have your sweet wort (taste it, it will be sweet)

RM-MN, I was told not to squeeze the grain bag after sparging. Just curious from your quote above if you do and if so, does it help or produce off flavors of any type? Maybe this is why my BHE was off on my first mash (I didn't squeeze the bag after "tea bagging" the sparge water and sparging)..

 

[o4_srt]

I'm going to go against the grain on this one.

I found all grain to be MUCH easier using a cooler mlt instead of biab. With biab, I was having difficulty maintaining mash temps, even when mashing in the oven.

With my cooler mlt, I average about 1 degree of heat loss per hour.

 

[cadarnell]

I made a cooler mash tun, but since then I found out I CAN squeeze the bag brewing BIAB styale .. so I tried that and my eff. was just about the same with the bag ... so I think I'm selling the mash tun pretty soon ... the bag is just such a breeze .. I pretty much do the system on here know as deathbrewers stove top all grain .. the beer taste great !!!

 

[dougdecinces]

I do BiaB. I can make all grain 5 gallon batches of small beers, but find it difficult to do any more than 3-3.5 gallon batches of higher gravity beers. I have a six gallon stock pot. I don't sparge. I have tried both, and I only gain about 4-6% efficiency with a sparge. When it comes down to it--heating a second pot up to strike temperature, letting the grain drain thoroughly over the mash pot, sparging it for 10 minutes, and letting it drain again--is not worth the slight increase in efficiency. Plus I have zero risk of extracting tannins from my mash this way. Also with no sparge, you are able to keep very high mash ratios. For me this means two things:

1) I get a fairly high efficiency for no sparge, given the circumstances.
2) Once I hit my strike temperature, I can turn the heat to low and put the lid on my pot and walk away. After 60 minutes, my water temperature never changes more than 2-3 degrees in either direction. High thermal mass is a very good thing.

I say save yourself the extra half hour of work, it will cost you a couple bucks more per batch, but that's not a big deal at all to me.

 

[cadarnell]

I do BiaB. I can make all grain 5 gallon batches of small beers, but find it difficult to do any more than 3-3.5 gallon batches of higher gravity beers. I have a six gallon stock pot. I don't sparge. I have tried both, and I only gain about 4-6% efficiency with a sparge. When it comes down to it--heating a second pot up to strike temperature, letting the grain drain thoroughly over the mash pot, sparging it for 10 minutes, and letting it drain again--is not worth the slight increase in efficiency. Plus I have zero risk of extracting tannins from my mash this way. Also with no sparge, you are able to keep very high mash ratios. For me this means two things:

1) I get a fairly high efficiency for no sparge, given the circumstances.
2) Once I hit my strike temperature, I can turn the heat to low and put the lid on my pot and walk away. After 60 minutes, my water temperature never changes more than 2-3 degrees in either direction. High thermal mass is a very good thing.

I say save yourself the extra half hour of work, it will cost you a couple bucks more per batch, but that's not a big deal at all to me.

interesting .. I only have a 6 gallon pot but I find I just have trouble doing full volume for a beer with 9 or so lbs. of grain ... maybe I'll give it another shot .. do you top off at all to get a 5 gallon batch done ??

 

[RM-MN]

I use 2 4gal pots, just did my first partial mash, I didn't have a cooler so once I hit my temp I QUICKLY pulled the pot of the stove, stirred in my grains, threw in the thermometer, slapped on the lid and wrapped it in some beach towels to help insulate. Not going to lie, my BH efficiency was off a tad and I missed the OG mark by .005 which isn't all that bad, this after I added water to the ferment bucket to bring the beer up to 5 gallons (which was planned)

I completely followed the topic chandlerbang linked above and aside from my efficiency being off, the brew day went completely perfect and I feel totally confident it's going to be a great beer, I second you should read through it.





RM-MN, I was told not to squeeze the grain bag after sparging. Just curious from your quote above if you do and if so, does it help or produce off flavors of any type? Maybe this is why my BHE was off on my first mash (I didn't squeeze the bag after "tea bagging" the sparge water and sparging)..

I didn't notice any difference in the flavor from squeezing the bag but my homebrew tastes better than the commercial beer so maybe I just don't notice.

 

[dougdecinces]

interesting .. I only have a 6 gallon pot but I find I just have trouble doing full volume for a beer with 9 or so lbs. of grain ... maybe I'll give it another shot .. do you top off at all to get a 5 gallon batch done ??

I will if I'm doing five gallon batches. Though honestly, I have only done one this way. My two other five gallon BiaB recipes have been partial grain.

But I see no reason why you can't use up to 10-12 lbs of grain in a six gallon pot and top it off with about a gallon of water at cooling. With that volume, your mash ratio would still be high and the gravity would be low enough to where hop utilization is still good. But to be honest if you have any machinations of doing five gallon batches of anything higher than, say, 1.050 OG you are either going to have to buy a bigger pot (and then you would have to worry about if your stove is strong enough to handle it) or do partial grain batches.