New to Brewing

Welcome to the forum Stu. Sounds like you have a grasp on the basics enough to try AG. Other than your LHBS, have you tried any online stores? Their prices might be more to your liking. With all that land, you might also have the ability to grow hops. Yeast can be harvested and washed also. There are a couple of guys that do pod casts and really live for the small beers (1-gallon batches). Their URL is

Good luck and let us know about your progress.

Wild

For ideas about inexpensive equipment and easy AG techniques, see my site at

--------->Denny

-- Life begins at 60...1.060, that is.

I second Denny's site for a very good way to go for AG. There's no real reason NOT to go AG first, if you have the equipment. It is only slightly more involved than extract (you only have to make a mash and rinse it).

NOTE - you can NOT just get the barley locally and brew beer from it, as your post "sorta" implies. Raw barley has to be "malted" first. While it is possible to home malt barley, and some posters here have done it, nobody does it as a normal part of their routine. It seems that it is very difficult to get a consistent product from home malting.

On the other hand, it sounds like the "Eden's Organic Barley Malt Syrup" is simply "liquid malt extract" to me. You can use that directly for extract brewing. I wonder if the "Organic" version isn't much more expensive than the LME you can order online, tho'.

I don't remember if anyone posted any online sites for you, but here are some stores (just as they come to mind, I have no affiliation):

(and tons more)... Lots of people use on-line stores due to non-local HBSs.

Regarding some of the things you mentioned: You can use "roasted barley" (unmalted) in stouts. You can use wheat, malted and unmalted, in different styles of beer. It is possible to malt wheat and make 100% wheat beers, I understand, but I think you need to add rice hulls for a filter in your mash tun. Honey can be added to any beer - it will boost the alcohol level like any pure sugar would. Honey will add a very slight flavor/aroma... personally it was never enough for me to notice.

You don't mention them, but you can malt most any grain ... a popular one for people who can't have gluten is "grain sorghum" (not "sweet" sorghum). Again, you have to home malt the raw grain.

Derric

I have bought some 3gal carboys online, some airlocks (since they were half the price as LHBS), and some odd bungs they don't carry.

I would like to grow some h>For ideas about inexpensive equipment and easy AG techniques, see my

Thanks Denny, I like the Batch Sparging, wasn't real sure what type method to use. I also liked your Mashtun. Didn't occur to me to use a braided hose when I was looking at other designs.

I do preheat and doughing-in right? I'm a bit anal about details.

I was plann>NOTE - you can NOT just get the barley locally and brew beer from it,

I was thinking more of my own roasted barley and wheat. Just for flavor/coloring and because I can get it for less than $10/60lbs.

Still... I might give it a try. I don't grow my own grapes yet, but I do have apple trees and hope to make at least 80 gallons of wine this year. Only made 5gals of apple 2 years ago when I only had 1 carboy. The next year, I had 2-3gal, 5-5gal, and 1-6.5gal, but had a killing frost and didn't get any fruit. This year the trees are loaded. A local suprplus store, the next town over has pallettes full of 6.5 carboys for $15 each. Have already bought 3, and plan to get more.

It's about $6.50 for 20 oz.gar, which is more expensive than other bulk extracts I've seen online. It doesn't say it has preservatives, but it doesn't say it has doesn't have any either. Should be about right for a 1 gal batch, with maybe some roasted barley and/or roasted wheat steeped first.

What about corn? Should it be sweet corn or feed/field corn? Malted? Or is it too strachy?

As for all grains for the mash, should they be crushed/smashed with minimal dust and flour if I mill them myself (freezer bag w/ rolling pin style)?

Or, say, I buy 10lbs of Pale Malt 2row, and 2lbs of Crystal 80 (or

2lbs of Caramunich) my LHBS would mill both for me, and I add both to the mashtun for batch sparging?

I'm still a little confused about what grains are what (sugar or flavor or color), and when they are added to the mash.

Forgive for asking so much. I've been reading a lot lately and my thoughts are sort of jumbled. Stu

I agree. I've been brewing for a decade and a half and made the transition into all grain about 6 years ago. It wasn't hard, though you should know a few things.

1.) Making beer from malt extract is a way to "test the waters" with less equipment needed than all grain brewing requires. That said, there's no reason you couldn't do your boil in two or three pots on a kitchen range top (unless it's a flat top type--sugars will attack the ceramic material and you will no doubt spill some or have a boil-over). That would save you from buying a 10 gallon pot. 2.) Making beer from extract is the way to go if your time is precious. Figure a long day of it if you make an all grain brew, maybe several hours, so start early in the day. Extract takes a bit more than the hour you need to boil your wort, and some methods take less time than that. 3.) Starting with extract costs less initially. It does cost more in the long run to make it from extract, though, once your equipment for all grain brewing is paid for.

Making beer from all grain is not difficult to do. Read this page and see what you get from it. It's what started me on the all grain trail.

I do make an extract batch every now and then, maybe 1/2 of the time, due to time considerations. It's convenient to have a kit with everything I need. Several places sell these kits which are based on a particular style of beer. Here's one I deal with:

and their monthly kit specials:

If you like the idea of all grain but would like the convenience of a kit with all of the ingredients, try looking here:

the grains are not cracked, and you will either have to order them pre-cracked (at this place it's 15 cents per pound), or get a grain mill.

My suggestions on a mill:

A used Valley mill is great--if you can find one (they're out of production). They have a 6 lb. hopper as part of the unit. Try ebay or Usenet.

A Schmidling mill is probably your next best bet--it has a lifetime warranty. You can get the adjustable one at extra cost but Jack Schmidling claims that it really isn't necessary. He sells them because some people think it is a needed option and won't buy one that isn't adjustable.

On the "cheap" side (it's relative what you consider cheap) is the Corona grain mill (or the similar Victoria mill). It's not intended to crack grains but is for making flour, so it requires careful adjustment. You can "motorize" it with a hand drill and a suitable cut-off bolt to fit in the place where the handle bolt would go (take the handle off, of course!). It's around $50 or less, and you might find these used also.

In between cheap and over $100 is the Phil's grain mill at

(also a source of malt extract kits and free shipping east of the Mississippi for orders over $35). Dan Listermann can also put together an all grain kit for you but I don't think it is in his online catalog. It would be something customized for you from your recipe or his.

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There are other mills people love, like the Crankandstein and others. Look around before you settle on which one to buy.

Some advice on using one of these:

Donald

kinds, but it seems

Most folks I know that grow hops only use them for flavor and aroma. The trial and error bit would only work for the single harvest. The Alpha Acid of homegrown hops changes from season to season.

Wild

Sorry, was looking over the posts here and realized that I forgot the link for the above:

This is an easy to follow set of instructions on doing a simple mash session to get one started in all grain brewing.

Use it as a guide only for the process. It doesn't have a "recipe" for any particular beer, but you can find a simple recipe for a basic beer and follow this procedure, add your hops at boil time according to the recipe, and be on your way to your first all grain brew.

Be ready to spend the better part of the day on your first one, and since you'll be doing a full boil, you may want to invest in an immersion chiller, which you can use in your extract brews also. You must cool the wort quickly (to avoid bacterial infection) and you won't have the option of blending with cold water like you would with an extract brew to get the temp down to fermentation temp quickly.

Donald