I've Gone All Grain

I've decided that it's time to move to all-grain. I've decided to do this for two reasons. First, I got really tired of the "extract twang" that can come with brewing extract batches. It doesn't necessarily occur in every extract batch (I've read that the best way to avoid it is to use the freshest LME possibe, or switch to DME) and have certainly made extract batches without it, such as the Houblimonstre Tripel IPA, but the best way to avoid "extract twang" is to remove extract altogether. Second, I've been intrigued by all-grain for a long time and have been reading as much as I can on the subject. With some encouragement from my buddy Nathan, I decided it was time to move into all-grain.

I've already done a post on my mash tun and I will do another on the IPA recipe I decided to use as my first all-grain. This post is really just to document the first effort and highlight all of the equipment that I used.

This first batch took me 9 hours from start to finish. That sounds insane (and is) and was mostly because I wasn't totally familiar with what I was doing. Another big factor was my apartment's limitations. I have a regular Chicago apartment with a regular stove. It's difficult to heat up the volumes of water and wort that I need to heat very fast. I've since done a second batch and finished in 5 hours based on the learning from the first time. I think that given the limitations of my current setup, I'm not likely to get a lot more efficiency than that.

On to the pictures of the brew day!

Most important equipment in this picture - iPhone (to look up things on the fly) and the homebrew (Cherry Wheat Ale):


More equipment, including my new mash tun:


The electronic scale is one that I "borrowed" from my chef-in-training wife, and has been indispensable when brewing:


Another very useful thing to have around on brew day - The Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian. It's an excellent reference.


My bags of grain, which I ground at my LHBS, as well as a thermometer to give me an idea of ambient temperature for use in some calculations:


My thermometer for taking the temperature of water, mash, and whatever else, as well as the spray bottle of water to keep foam down (which I didn't really need):


I don't have a pot large enough to boil all of the water I need, so I used my 5 gallon pot (from extract brewing) and two of my wife's 2 gallon stainless steel pots. The biggest problem is that the 2 gallon pots come up to temperature much faster than the larger one, requiring a bit of time/temperature management.


I wrapped the mash tun in blankets after dough in to help insulate. I wasn't sure it was going to be necessary, but on the second batch I did I lost significantly more heat, so I think I'll keep this practice up on future batches.


Running the wort off of the grains:


Measuring out hop additions to spint between the three pots I have to use.


Again, don't have enough space to boil all of the wort, so the three pots are sill necessary.

Igloo Cooler Mash Tun

I decided that it was time to try out all-grain. After shopping around, I found a 50 quart Igloo Ice Cube cooler that I liked. It's large enough to hold plenty of grains for high gravity 5 gallon batches but doesn't have a huge footprint, so it should work for lower gravity batches as well (if I ever felt like making a low gravity batch). I found it for $19.99 at Target.

The big problem was that the cooler didn't have a drain in it. From what I can tell, this only occurs in the 50 quart, not the 48 quart, which is visually identical but has a drain (and I imagine that it might be more insulated, as the cost tends to be significantly higher, if you can find them). Not having a drain was a problem that couldn't be easily fixed by a drill.

I pretty much followed the directions I found at the BrewTech blog, the major difference being that I wasn't using a pre-existing hole in the cooler wall. The hole I drilled was perfectly sized for the brass nipple to thread through. It doesn't even leak there at all.

One place that it did leak was where I threaded the nipple into the valve body. That's probably because I (like an idiot) didn't remember to use teflon tape on the connection. It got tightened naturally and I couldn't back it out to tape it afterward. So, I grabbed a tube of silicone sealant (for use on faucets and such) and sealed up that joint. No leaks after that. I just bought some tape to use on the barb fitting, since that one will loosen and leaks a very tiny bit when the drain is open. I also added a rubber washer to the inside to help seal against the cooler wall, but it probably would have been fine without that.

I wrapped the thing with blankets and threw some hot water in to test. It dropped 8 degrees over the first hour, which worried me a bit. Then I realized that hot water doesn't benefit from three things:

1. Insulating value of the grains - The grains themselves have an inherent insulating value
2. Sugar solution - A sugar solution loses heat slower than plain water
3. An exothermic reaction - The conversion process creates some amount of heat itself

Since the hot water test, I have done a mash with 12 pounds of grains during which it dropped 0 degrees! It started at 152.4 and ended at 152.4. I was amazed. I had done some research and knew that the hot water test wasn't indicative of mash performance, but I still expected to see at least a one degree drop.

The only other modification that I did to it was to drill some holes in the lid, which was hollow, and spay some expanding insulating foam that I got at Home Depot in there. It seems to work pretty well. If you try this, be careful, as the foam expands a LOT as it cures. I had to deal with foam expanding out of the holes for almost 12 hours. After the first hour I put a trash bag over the whole top and let it just leak (but only into the trash bag, so no mess). The excess leakage, once hardened, was easy to break/scrape off.

Pictures of the new mash tun:


It features a Michigan Brewer's Guild sticker on one side (I'm from Detroit, but now live in Chicago), an anti.team sticker by the faucet (that's my crew from college), and a Norther Brewer sticker on the other side (not pictured). I think this is going to become my beer sticker receptacle. I can't wait.