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.
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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.
The Recipe
A recipe at it's simplest will have, water, malt, hops and yeast. Most beers will have a base malt and at least one one speciality malt. The hops used will usually be added in 3 stages during the boil for bittering, flavouring and aroma. Other adjuncts can also be added.
The use of grain in this process puts the home brewer as close to commercial beer as one can get. One usually uses 5-15 pounds of grain for one 5 gallon batch. This grain must be milled so that the kernel is broken up but leaving the husk as intact as possible. Hop utilization will be greater when doing a full boil so the use of less hops in the recipe is recommended. A yeast starter is suggested to be made 1-4 days in advance to provide a quick fermentation. If brewing for a particular style the brewer might adjust the water to match that of a famous area from which the style is brewed.
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.
* See also: The Theory of Mashing * See also: Understanding Mash pH
After heating the water to the correct temperature, the brewer mixes the grain and water in a specific ratio ranging from 1-2qt/lb of grain. Be sure not to aerate the water to much, hot side aeration can occur at any point the water is above 100F. After checking that the mix is at the require temperature the brewer lets the mix mash for a dedicated period, an hour being fairly standard.
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.
Sparge
See also: * Fly Sparging * Batch Sparging * No sparge method * Batch Sparging, an Analytical Approach
After the mash is complete the brewer must "rinse" the grains of the sugars. This is done by sparging the grains, there are two common methods of sparging, batch and fly. Fly sparging is the letting out of the water from the bottom slowly and the adding of 170F water from the top at the same rate. Batch sparging is the draining of the mash/lauter tun as quick as possible and then adding more water, mixing, let it settle and drain again.
Boil
After sparging the collected mixture (now known as wort)is brought up to a boil where hops are added at the prescribed rate and times. During this period the wort will be condensed to make the desired amount of beer.
Cooling
Cooling 5 gallons of boiling wort to 70F is no small task since this is to be done as quick as possible. The use of a wort chiller is recommended to lower the temperature quickly. Since the generation of DMS occurs above 150F dropping the temp past this point is of importance.
Pitch
Once the wort is at 70F you may transfer to the fermenter. Aerating the wort at this point is highly recommended to raise the amount of oxygen in the wort. After aerating pitch the yeast in to the wort.
Other Methods
Detailed How To Pages
- Simple all grain brewing - Single infusion - batch sparging
- All Grain Brewing for the New Home Brewer
