All Grain brewing is really special thing. I find it really
rewarding. You design your own recipes, and you can
make any style of beer you want. You don't limit it all
when you're stepping into the homebrewing process. That
sounds pretty straight forward, and is not as hard as you
think. I'll take you through this process today, and I'll
show you how to make your best beer.
The first thing I'll do though is explain why All Grain
brewing is different. You're dealing with hop grain, and
you're boiling wort can be really sticky and messy if it
boils over. So you need to pay attention, you need to wear
the proper safety equipment, wear gloves and covered
shoes, and be careful when you're brewing.
This is why All Grain beer are more or less likely to get
infections. You're investing a lot more and time, so you
need to really be careful with your cleaning and
sanitation, and follow our really slow process. The last
thing you need is an infection to ruin your beer and wastage of time and energy.
You mix in the grains with water to form like a porridge
mixture. During this time the starch is going to be converted to
sugars, your yeast can ferment these and you make beer
out of it. When you're mashing in then you need to make
sure that the grains mix completely with the water. If
there's dry clumps still in it, this is going to mean the
starch go through your fermenter and it's going to cause
problems down the track. You need to make sure that you
completely mix the malt through the water.
You want to make sure that it hits to 153 degrees
Fahrenheit or 67 degrees Celsius. At this temperature
starches will convert to sugars, and the liquid that
comes out will be fermentable and lead to a really good beer.
You need to be careful, you don't splash or aerate your
mash - your boiling wort, or your wort when it's cooling
down as well. If you introduce oxygen into at this stage,
your beer is going to stale quicker. Always take care
when your wort or mash is hot, and be gentle when you're stirring it.
Also you need to make sure that your grain bag doesn't
get too hot. If your wort grain gets over 171 degrees
Fahrenheit or 77 degrees Celsius, you're going to extract
tannins. This will lead to problems in flavor down the
track, you're going to boil your wort. You want to make
sure you got a good rolling boil. This is going to end in as
the flavor of the beer, it's going to extract the bitterness
flavor and aroma out of the hops, and it's also going to
mean the protein is going to drop out better, so you get a
more clearer and stable beer at the end of the day.
Once you've broiled your wort, you need to cool it down.
While cooling it down quickly, proteins are going to
drop out of it quicker, and you get a clean and more stable
beer as well. There's processes happening in the hop
wort. If you allow it continue for too long, you're going to
get some odd flavors coming through your beer.
Once you've cooled your wort down, it's in the fermenter,
you need to aerate, so you need to splash it and a mix it
around so it get air through it. This introduce oxygen into
the wort - yeast needs this to reproduce and ferment your beer.
If you're working with fresh dried yeast, this is not as
much a problem, as the manufacturers created the yeast to
work in a low oxygen environment. So aerate as much as
you can and give your yeast a good stir. You want to
leave as much hops and protein sludge in the brew pot as
you can, syphon out the wort into your fermenter, and just
try to leave as much this sludge behind as you can.
If you follow these rules, your beer is going to be
awesome - it's going to be the best beer you've made,
and you're going to be really excited about All Grain
brewing. So pay attention to the times, and temperatures,
and processes, make sure you're within these guidelines,
and your beer is going to be great.
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