While many brewers are happy with extract brewing for a long time, many others get the urge to exercise more control and creativity over their homebrews. If that’s the way you feel, you may be ready to move on up to all-grain brewing.
Three main areas are impacted by a decision to go all-grain: the mash process, additional equipment, and new ingredient choices.
Moving from Extract to All-Grain Brewing
by Bob Peak and Gabe Jackson
What Does it Take?
A good start is to recognize that much of what you already do as an extract or partial-mash brewer carries over. Once the boil starts, it doesn’t matter how you made the wort. The difference between extract brewing and all-grain brewing takes place before the boil ever begins---in the mash.
All-Grain Mash Basics
This discussion will consider a basic single-infusion mash setup. That’s the way most American homebrewers make their all-grain beer. Also, it should be familiar to extract brewers who have experience with a "mini-mash", which is a very small scale single-infusion mash.
For a five gallon brew, you need to heat around 3 gallons of water to about 160° F, stir in about 10 lbs. of malted barley, and hold that mash mixture near 150° F for 60 minutes. It may be helpful to insulate the vessel during this period. After that comes mash-out and sparge to extract the freshly produced wort from the grains.
Consider the equipment options for all-grain brewing, and review some of our example all-grain brewery systems. Or...design your own system to suit your preferences. CLICK TO READ THE FULL DISCUSSION...
Economy All-Grain 5 Gal Brewing System - Single Burner
The most economical systems are based on the technique of Brew-in-a-Bag (BIAB). In this type of system, a large nylon bag lines the mash tun kettle to allow for straining the grains. Sparging may or may not be performed. Click for more details...
Economy All-Grain 5 Gal Brewing System - Two Burner
By adding a second burner, a traditional continuous sparge brewing system can be created. Gravity will be used for the transfer of liquids, and heavy lifting will be needed to use just two burners to heat three different vessels. Click for more details...
Premium All-Grain 5 Gal Brewing System - Three Burner
Most complete all grain breweries include three heating elements to allow for the heating of all three brewing vessels: hot liquor tank, mash tun, boiling kettle. This system incorporates a magnetic drive brewing pump (or two) to gain the comforts of brewing on a single level, and the quality improvements from recirculation. Click for more details...
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