All Grain Brewing Made Simple
So, you have mastered extract brewing and you still love brewing beer? Then it's time to take the next step and upgrade to brewing with the all grain method. If you need some extra convincing, read this or if you need a mash tun, read this - otherwise, get ready for the simplest and least intimidating all grain tutorial out there.
If you already have a setup for extract brewing all you really need is the mash tun (aka: bucket for soaking grains in), although you may need a bigger pot (8 to 10 gallons) as well, since you'll need to boil the wort down to 5 gallons all at once.
Although you can skip all the background knowledge I can't promise your beer will turn out well. Even though I have the steps laid out nice and simple for you below, please make sure to read a little bit about mash temperature at the very least and make sure you have a good recipe. With a tiny bit of background these easy steps will ensure you'll produce good all grain beer even on your first try - it's not as hard as you might think!
Sanitize Everything you'll be using except the pot you will boil in.
Bring your desired mash water to a temperature about 12 F above the desired mash temperature.
example: 162 F water will cool to about 150 F when it mixes with your average amount of grain at room temperature
Add the grains to your mash tun and then the water, mix completely, cover and let sit for 60 minutes.
Bring your desired first run of sparge water to 180 F, this will raise the grain bed to about 168 - 170 F for ideal sparging, then add the water to the tun.
Drain the first runnings from the tun into a bucket.
Pour the second portion of sparge water over the grains, let sit for 10 minutes and drain into the bucket, combining the first and second runnings in the kettle and bring them to a boil.
Once the wort is at a rolling boil, start the hop schedule.
Once the hop schedule is complete, cool the wort as fast as you can with whatever sanitary means you have.
Siphon the wort into a bucket, pitch the yeast and wait two weeks.
Not so bad, right? Realistically you'll want more details about all grain brewing sciences, look around the site or read a book! Here are some good ones; The Complete Joy of Homebrewing (my favorite) or the Big Book of Brewing. If you don't have any equipment yet checkout our Brewer's Starter Kit post and pickup your stuff from MoreBeer.com for a great deal & free shipping.
Once you've managed your first all grain brew day you can stop being terrified of all grain brewing, start to learn more about the science behind it and even get on to creating some awesome recipes of your own!
Cheers-