Difference between revisions of "All-grain brewing"

All-grain brewing is a term used by homebrewers to describe a beer made by the homebrewer from grain rather than malt extract. The term may be misleading; "all-grain" beers may contain sugar or other adjuncts, spices, or flavorings, and of course extract is simply a concentrated "all-grain" wort.

What "all-grain" really means in the homebrewing community is that the brewer creates the wort from crushed grain through a process called "mashing". Most home brewers begin by brewing their first few batches, at least, using extract, before adding the extra complication (and equipment cost) of all-grain brewing.

All-grain equipment

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There are a few key pieces of additional equipment needed to make all-grain batches:

Grain mill

The raw grain must be crushed before being added to the mash. If you want to avoid buying this fairly expensive piece of equipment, many homebrew stores will crush your grain for you, or, for smaller batches, you can crush your own using a bottle or rolling pin.

Hot liquor tank

Mashing and sparging (rinsing) the grain requires a large amount of hot water. Because you will be draining the wort out into your boil kettle, you will need a separate vessel to heat and store this hot water.

Mash tun

This is the vessel in which the grains will steep.

Lauter tun

Most homebrewers use a single vessel as both a mash tun and a lauter tun. The lauter tun is the vessel in which the sugars are rinsed from the grain.

Milling the Grain

Before they can be mashed, the malted grains and adjuncts needs to be crushed to expose the starches to the mashing process.

• Evaluating the Crush
• Advanced: Malt Conditioning

Mashing

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Mashing is the process of soaking the grain bill in hot water for a period of time to allow the enzymes to convert starch into sugar. It also extracts colors and flavors from the grain. The following articles provide in-depth information on the science and theory behind the mashing process.

• The Theory of Mashing
• Understanding Mash pH

Lautering

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The process of separating the sweet wort from the grains. Some type of filter medium must be used between the grist and the lauter tun's drain valve to keep husk and other large particulates from entering the boil kettle. The physical media is usually rather coarse as the bed of grain husks compacts to create a more fine filtering during the vorlauf and subsequent draining of wort. The process of lautering usually involves "sparging" as well.

Fly Sparging 

Mash out, recirculation, and sparging

Batch Sparging 

Adding the sparge water in batches rather than a continual feed

No sparge method 

• Batch Sparging, an Analytical Approach