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All Grain Brewing Steps 

  • 1-2 days prior to brewing: Have 8-3/4 gallons of tap water sitting in open containers for at least 24 hours to dechlorinate. Filter water if possible. Water quality directly affects beer.
  • 3-5 hours prior to pitching: Remove Smack the pack of liquid yeast from refrigerator and smack (or use yeast starter).
  • process: Setup gas burner, propane tanks, work table, and brewing gear
    • Gear list: Mash paddle, cylinder, hydrometer, digital thermometer, siphon, stopper, airlock, plastic wrap pieces, beer thief, tubing – 1 for wort runnings, 1 for airlock
  • Make sure sanitizing bucket is ready with solution – make fresh batch
  • Bring 8-3/4 gallons of strike water to 166 degrees in 10 gallon pot
  • Add 1/2 tsp gypsum and stir in thoroughly
  • Get grains ready to pour in and have stirring paddle ready
  • Pour strike water into mash tun
  • Check temperature again – should be 163-166 degrees before adding grain.
  • Stir grain into strike water in mash tun
  • Place thermometer probe into mash and close lid – temperature ideally should be 153-155 degrees
  • Wait 60 minutes – check temp, if low, add more hot strike
  • While mash is resting, bring remaining 5-1/4 gallons up to 170 degrees.
  • Begin running wort into 5 gallon pot – 2 gallon pot ready
  • Spray sparge with 170 degree water through strainer slowly – close lid after each sparge to conserve temperature
  • Have smaller pot ready to use when 5 gallon pot near full – when pot full replace lid and use smaller pot
  • Continue until all water has been used – switch to smaller pot when 5 gallon is near full
  • Pour contents of both pots into 10 gallon pot and bring to boil
  • Empty spent grains and clean mash tun
  • Have sanitizing solution ready and place all utensils needing into it
  • This includes airlock, tubing, hydrometer, and beer thief
  • Make sure smack pack is dipped in sanitizer
  • When rolling boil starts, turn heat down some and add bittering hops
  • Bring back to rolling boil
  • After 45 minutes, add flavoring hops and get hose ready for wort chiller
  • 5 minutes before flame out, place wort chiller in for sterilization
  • 3 minutes before flame out, add irish moss tablets
  • 1 minute before flame out, add aroma hops
  • At flame out, hook hose up to wort chiller and turn water on
  • Sanitize carboy and siphon thoroughly
  • Have piece of plastic wrap sanitized as well as airlock stopper
  • Keep eye on temperature – lower to below 80 degrees
  • Move wort pot to bench ready for siphoning
  • At 75-80 degrees put wort sample into cylinder and take hydrometer reading
  • Place a piece of sanitized plastic wrap over carboy opening and replace sanitized stopper
  • Shake vigorously to aerate the wort – do this by rocking the carboy over your knees
  • Pull stopper, take smack pack out of sanitizer and carefully pitch into carboy
  • Have pitcher of water ready to airlock the fermenting wort
  • Place airlock and stopper on carboy and move to fermenting area – place tubing into pitcher of water
  • Cleanup

NOTE: These are steps that we use when brewing.  There are “better” ways of doing it and there are more expensive, therefore somewhat easier ways of doing it. This is what I have used that has worked well and good beers came out of it as a result.  My best advice is to watch plenty of YouTube videos and buy a few good books: