Starting with All-Grain Brewing?

Sleepy

We're in the middle of buying a house that has two sheds in the back garden and I've convinced Mrs Sleepy to let me have the block-built one as my brewery. From reading here most people seem to start with kit/extract brewing before taking the step up to all-grain.

I'm wondering how difficult it is to brew "properly" from the outset? In terms of experience, I've successfully brewed turbo cider a few times and did a fair few runs of the old peach schnappes and wine kits when I was in college. I'd be fairly good on water chemistry from keeping a coral reef tank too.

Are there good "all-in-one" kits for setting up an all-grain home brew kit or would I be better of buying bits and pieces here and there, bodging what can be bodged etc.? I don't have a huge budget but would rather buy once than buy cheap and twice...

In terms of kit I'd already have I'd have a couple of 5l demi-johns, a hand bottle capper, a siphoning wand, bungs, air-lock, refractometer (from the fishkeeping) and a few other bits and pieces. I'd rather step-up from the 5l brews to something in the region of 25-50l as the work involved in brewing seems a bit high for a return of 9 pints unless I'm managing to brew something exceptional which I'm guessing won't be possible until I've gotten some experience under my belt.

Style wise, I'd be looking to be able to brew everything from stouts to pale ales and everything in between.

Lovely Bloke

In my opinion if you've done turbo cider then you've completed the "apprenticeship" that kits provide.

You know the basics of sanitation etc

From your list there, you are missing a mash tun and a large Fermentation Vessel and something to boil in.

The actual style of beer produced depends on your grain bill, hop additions and yeast , so there is no specialist equipment needed to make stouts rather than ales etc. Unles you want to do a lager, but for starting out that's not a good idea really and many, many experienced home brewers never do lagers, simply because you need a lagering fridge to keep the temperature down.

Anyway. Yes. I'd recommend moving either to full all grain, or Brew In A Bag.

Your biggest outlay will be the mash tun and something to boil in, given you'll be brewing in a shed, does it have electricity or gas connected?

BeerNut

I think, if you're happy to invest, that a mashtun would be better than brew-in-a-bag. I understand you get better efficiency that way and though I've never used either, it seems less awkward.

Carawaystick

A Mashtun is a step in complexity up from BiaB,
A Bag is cheap to get going all grain, and then get a tun when you've a mash or 2 done.

get a big Boiler, a big fermentation vessel, and a big bottling bucket

loyatemu

Efficiency from BIAB is fine, I get 75% without much effort. Not sure about doing high-gravity beers, mash tun might be better/easier for those.

lordstilton

Ten of us were brewing for a barrel project.. All different setups.. The guy with the biab setup had the highest efficiency on the day.. 85%... A mash tun is no more complex just takes up more space..if you are going a three vessel system get the biggest mash tun you can afford..You'll be thankful you did when mashing a 1.095 imperial stout

dashcamdanny

I started all grain brewing with a 15 euro 1 gallon kit from these guys. http://www.truebatchbrew.com/menu/

Its all done with your kitchen pots and pans. With great easy to follow instructions.

I used a 5l water bottle from Tesco with an airlock fitted to cap. Perfect for fermenting in.

I had a syphon tube, Hydrometer, and bottles from kit brews.

Its perfect for dipping your toe into allgrain.

Sleepy

I'm hoping to get electricity into the shed and will be replacing the kitchen in the house so might be able to re-purpose the hob from the existing kitchen (and some of the units) to use for brewing. If not, I have some camping gas stoves but I'm guessing that would be a mightily expensive way to brew!

So I need:

A Mash Tun
A Boiler
A Large Fermentation Vessel
And a Bottling Bucket - I presume this is for racking off the fermented beer prior to bottling?

Would I not need some cooling equipment to chill the wort prior to fermentation?

Any suggestions of a good kit that would have all of the above to let me brew 25-30l or so at a time? Or am I better off scavenging on Adverts and the like? I have a few months before I'll be able to get started so no real rush...

dashcamdanny

It is expensive to get started. But with a bottle of craft beer costing 3 euro you are saving 100 euro per batch after you buy grain.

If you can get you hands on a couple of kegs and have the tools, you can make a big boil kettle and HLT.
In fact all you really need is one as the boil kettle can double up as a HLT. Loads on build projects in other forums.

There is a thermos cooler box on adverts at the moment for 12euro.
You would need to but a stainless bulkhead kit and tap for it, and a bazooka filter.

I mash at 89% (mash) efficiency with a similar setup and a big blanket to keep it warm.

An immersion chiller is going to set you back at least 60.

TBH , this kit here would be great.. If you are happy to pay. http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/all-grain-starter-pack-for-5-gallon-batches-p-1096.html

Sleepy

Tempting, it's currently in the weekly specials section for €260!

Won't be ready for it for a while though.

Lovely Bloke

loyatemu wrote: »

Efficiency from BIAB is fine, I get 75% without much effort. Not sure about doing high-gravity beers, mash tun might be better/easier for those.

I hit my numbers doing BIAB on a ~9% DIPA on Saturday - 8.5kg of grain.

Hit 1.090

sozbox

I started from scratch with an All Grain set up from http://themottlybrew.ie/product/nature-bru/

No bother at all, hoping to get some more equipment if I ever move out of the place I'm in, too small.

UnknownSpecies

BIAB is a great way to go if you are stuck for space or just want to dive in without as much equipment commitment as 3 vessel brewing.

You can ask for the grains to be ground extremely finely because the bag eliminates the risk of a stuck mash. This will allow you to brew with very high efficiency.

On top of that, I think if BIAB is done right, the beers produced are indistinguishable from beer brewed in 3 vessel systems.

macnug

If your budget is tight get yourself a large stock pot and do some 10lt extract beers while your accumulating your gear, you'll probably use it when your doing all grain anyway. Most people don't get straight into all grain simply because it can be expensive to get into and they don't know if there even going to like the hobby. I had a neighbour that got straight into it and his first couple of beers were a bit of a disaster.

Personally I use DME for most of my beers because I don't always have the time for all grain (5+ hours) and most of the time I can't taste the difference. Kits and LME on the other hand I get the homebrew twang but everyone is different.