DIY Beer Brewing - All-Grain

As I’ve mentioned before, I love beer. I’ve taken to brewing my own at home, and I find it an enjoyable and relaxing experience.

Until now, I was only able to buy the ingredients to do extract brewing. This was okay as it taught me the basics, but it doesn’t offer nearly the same level of flexibility with recipes. I was itching to be more creative.

Recently, my good friends and neighbours (#freighbors) tipped me off to a new homebrew supply store opening up locally. A quick check with the good people down at the internet confirmed this and I was able to find their contact info easy.

However, even after following Short Finger Brewing on social media for a few weeks, I hadn’t paid them a visit because...I don’t know...life got in the way. I had several different excuses, but I was genuinely interested in checking them out.

Finally, while writing my post about how I brew with extract, I decided to actually look at the map and see where they are located. To my amazement, they are literally in my office’s back yard.

With this newfound information, I immediately sent them an email and made arrangements to drop in the next day.

For my first attempt, I didn’t want to try a recipe too advanced. All-grain brewing requires some different pieces of equipment, and I didn’t know how well my homemade gear would work.

As you can see, all-grain brewing requires many more large pieces of equipment. While a good size brew pot and a fermenter is all you need for an extract beer, all-grain needs a few more items.

Like most things, there is more than one way to skin a cat. That said, there are different methods to sparge the grains. I will get into the specifics later, but based on the equipment I had at my disposal I had to batch sparge. This means I only need one mash/lauter tun, but two pots.

For my pots, I use my brew pot for extract brewing to heat the strike and sparge water, and a large turkey fryer as my brew pot. This way I can boil a full 5 gallon batch with no issues as the turkey fryer is large enough that it won’t boil over unless I’m completely negligent. And even if it does, since I’m outside it won’t be as devastating as it would be if I were in the kitchen.

While I had to buy my pots, I got to use my handyman skills to make my mash tun. I have a buddy who has access to a lot of coolers that his work just tosses out after they are done with them. He was kind enough to grab one and give it to me for free.

This one didn’t have a drain, but since I was going to replace it with a ball valve anyway, this wasn’t an issue. I carefully drilled a hole and inserted my valve construction.

I realized as I was doing so that the rubber washers I had were slightly too small, and even though I doubled them up, they are stretched too far. As a result, if I’m too rough opening or closing the valve it leaks a little. It doesn’t seem to drip any other time, so I think it will do for the time being.

To create my filtration system, I paid a visit to my local hardware store and picked up a cheap braided washer hose, a copper plug, and a couple hose clamps. When I got home I cut the ends off the hose and struggled to pull the steel braid off the rubber hose without stretching it too much.

Ultimately, I was successful and then it was simply a matter of attaching one end of the braid to the drain and fitting the plug in the other.

With that done (and obviously a good clean), it was time to start brewing.

My first attempt I bought a preassembled kit and followed a recipe made by the awesome Rob at Short Finger Brewing. It was easy and meant for beginners. It didn’t have too many different ingredients or complicated timing.

To start, I heated the strike water in my small pot. When it was the right temperature according to the recipe, I dumped it into my mash tun and poured all the grains on top of it. After a good stir to make sure there were no clumps of grains, I closed the cooler, set the timer and walked away. It was almost too easy.

I didn’t take too long of a break, however, as I needed to start warming my sparge water. I mentioned that I needed to batch sparge, which means I simply add more hot water all at once and then drain off as much liquid as I need.

Eventually I would like to build myself a system that will allow me to fly sparge, meaning I could be draining from the mash tun into the brew pot at the same time as the sparge water was going into the mash tun. Fortunately, there is no significant disadvantage in the way I do it for this recipe, so it is what it is for now.

Since the pot I am using to heat the strike water is half the size of my brew pot, I needed to sparge in two batches. I was worried about this, but I was told that it would be okay.

Here’s how the mash looked after the first sparge:

I felt my filter worked quite well and I didn’t have to vorlauf too long before I was getting clear runnings.

And here you can see my poor setup and my brew pot half full of wort waiting for the rest of the sparge water to heat up:

Eventually I had enough sweet goodness to start the boil.

You know the saying, “a watched pot never boils?” Well, I changed it to “a watched pot never boils over.” I hovered over my wort, spray bottle in hand, making sure I had as little sticky mess to clean up as possible until the hot break occurred. It felt like hours, but without too much drama I was eventually able to toss in the first hop addition.

As I said, this recipe wasn’t too complicated and pretty soon all the hops were bathing in deliciousness. However, the next step was the most worrisome for me.

The boiling wort needs to be cooled quickly so it can be transferred to the fermenter without breaking it or picking up any nasty bacteria that would be all too happy to enjoy my soon-to-be-beer before me. I like to share, but that’s not the company I want to keep, so I tossed in my sad, handmade wort chiller and hooked up the garden hose.

Again, it’s far from pretty, but it did its job.

After that, all-grain brewing is exactly the same as extract. Put the wort in a fermentor, pitch in some yeast, wait, transfer to a secondary fermenter and add dry hops (optional), wait, bottle, wait...finally enjoy.

Cheers! Let me know in the comments below if you brew your own beer at home. Also, if anyone wants to donate another cooler so I can fly sparge and stay within my frugal budget of zero, I’d appreciate it.

[Update] I made a couple mistakes during my first attempt, but I learned from them and have found ways to correct them. My subsequent batches have been much better.

The first issue I ran into was relatively minor and had an easy fix.

I had trouble knowing the accurate temperatures with the thermometer that came with my turkey-fryer. From then on I use our meat thermometer which gives a much more precise digital readout.

The second mistake ruined the brew, but thankfully had an even cheaper, simpler fix.

As I was draining from my mash tun into my brew pot, I realized I had no way to measure how much liquid was going in the pot. I just guessed and was very wrong and ended up boiling an extra gallon of wort, which threw my gravity way off.

To solve this problem, I took a piece of dowel I had laying around and cut a notch in it at the level I needed. Not the least bit fancy, but it works. (I’ve since just marked different amounts on the outside of my brew pot in Sharpie and that does the job well enough.)

As I said, with these two adjustments my second batch tasted as it should. Now I’m just excited to try new, more advanced recipes.

DIY Beer Brewing - Extract

I love beer.

I mean, I love good beer. But, unfortunately good beer is not cheap.

A bunch of years ago, a group of my buddies and I who got together regularly decided to check out a local u-brew. We thought it would be cool if we could get a bunch of high-quality beer for the price of the cheap stuff.

We were right, and as it turns out, our local brew house is pretty awesome. They have a lot of different recipes to choose from that closely resemble many of the most popular beers from around the world.

After letting The Brew House do all the work for us the first few times, I decided to join them and learn more about the brewing process myself. I was hooked.

As the years passed, everyone in my beer-drinking group either moved away or life got in the way. However, I still loved beer, so I continued visiting The Brew House regularly.

For Christmas a few years ago, my brother-in-law gave me an awesome book: The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in homebrewing or the brewing process in general.

Full of inspiration, I set out collecting the equipment needed to brew my own beer at home. With help from the good people down at the internet, I was able to do so staying true to my frugal nature.

Here’s how I do it:

I started with extract brewing because it is easier and I have no trouble getting my hands on all the ingredients I need. With this process, the two key pieces of equipment are the boiling pot and the fermentor.

I actually have 2 brew pots, but the one I use the most often these days is the one pictured. It simply is a large round roasting pot that I bought at Canadian Tire for about $12. It came with the wire lifting rack, which I thought I wasn’t going to need, but I found a creative way to use it that you will see later.

As for the fermentor, I bought 3 5-gallon carboys off a guy on Kijiji for $40. Recently, my wife stumbled upon a 6.5 gallon one at a yard sale for $12 and bought it for me.

The rest of the equipment is cheaper items I collected at either the thrift or hardware store. I use an old metal spatula to stir my brew and an old saucepan as a nice, big ladle.

One unnecessary item I use and highly recommend is a muslin bag. Putting your grains in a bag makes it infinitely easier to remove them. That said, it's not critical that you strain out every bit of grain, but it makes your beer clearer in the end.

These are the ingredients I used for this brew. This is a recipe I cobbled together myself to make an amber coloured IPA. I like how simple this beer is to make and it is easy drinking but has more flavour than most big commercial beers. I dry-hop with cascade hops and I love the aroma they add. I had to steadily add more to this recipe until I was finally happy - I could probably add more and may try that in the future.

I love darker, maltier beers, but I’ve struggled to make a great one with extract and my sources say that it’s something very difficult to do. I have high hopes for when I get around to all-grain brewing.

Here’s what it looks like after a few minutes of steeping. You can see the grains in the bag floating nicely and I use a thermometer to keep an eye on the temp. If the water gets too hot, the grains will burn and you will be able to taste that in the finished product.

After 30 minutes of steeping, the grains get removed and the malt extract and some hops get added. This is where I discovered that if I turn the lifting rack upside down, my mason jars fit perfectly in the gaps. This allows the malt to drip out slowly and the steam will clean the jar so I can get every last drop.

While this is happening, I need to stir constantly so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. I also toss in the hops that need a full 60 minute boil. It takes some time for the liquid to reach a full boil and it goes through what is known as the hot break. This is where a thick foam develops at the top and you need to wait for it to break apart and fall back into the liquid before you can move on.

Once it’s finished boiling, it’s time to strain and sparge. (I lost my picture somewhere in the cloud.) Using my pot ladle, I scoop out as much as I can and pour it through my strainer into a carboy. Depending on the amount of hops I use, sometimes I need to use my stir spatula to help the liquid drain by turning the hops in the strainer. As I get near the bottom of the pot, I can safely pick up the pot without spilling any or burn myself and dump the remaining wort into the fermentor.

Now that all my hard work is done, it’s time for the yeast to do its job. After sprinkling the packet into the carboy, I stick a 1-inch hose into the top and run it to a pail with a bit of water in the bottom. This way, most of the crazy bubbles created during the violent early fermentation can blow off and not fall back into my beer. These apparently leave a very bitter flavour, but I wouldn’t know because I’ve always done it this way.

After about a week, fermentation slows down so I can remove the hose and switch to a fermentation lock. At this point, I add the dry-hops and let it sit for another couple of weeks.

When I finally find the time, I set about getting my sweat beer into bottles. First I boil some sugar water and put it in the freshly cleaned pail. I then quietly siphon the beer on top of it.

With that done, I attach my racking cane to my siphon and start filling my bottles. I took the tough task of drinking a lot of beer that came in bottles with a flip-top lid. It was hard work, but now I have a sizeable collection of bottles I can reuse and don’t have to worry about capping. I do have a bag of caps and I will from time to time use them, but it just takes longer so I don’t like doing it.

Even after they are all full, I still need to wait a couple weeks to let the beer condition in the bottle. This allows the beer to naturally carbonate, but I have to admit, I usually break the seal on the first bottle after about a week - it tastes good, but it is a little flat.

After all is said and done, I have about two and a half cases of quality beer at the cost of less than $1 a beer. I also enjoy the process and look forward to doing an all-grain brew in the very near future.

Do you like good beer and make it yourself? Do you like to enjoy high-quality brew at less than half the price you can buy it? Tell me in the comments how you do it.