cornyandy
Junior Member
Hi all,
I know there is a lot of equipment and methods out there and some of it can be overwhelming to the newbie wanting to get into all grain brewing so as a sort of how I did it and made mistakes yet I still came out with a superb Theakstones Best Bitter clone as in the original Graham Wheeler book.
So first of lacking an electric drill I poked holes in the bottom of an FV with a hot skewer to make a mash ton (fine with my first light brew but a problem later on when the holes were a bit fine). I mashed in at the mash temperature rather than strike temperatiure. I sparged with boiling (literally straight out of the kettle) water and poured it over slowly. I put the hops in the boiler as soon as the boiler was full rather than waiting for it to come to the boil.
In terms of cooling it was a case of seal the FV and wait overnight.
Oh and I sucked the bottom of the tap to get the syphon to run.
The ale at the end was superb and much enjoyed by my family and friends.
This isn't to say I didn't improve my technique as I realised a few things were wrong. However as I move ever closer to mashing again I won't be changing much, I will still use two modified fermenters lagged with bubble wrap as a mash tun, I'll still boil my hops in a muslin bag in the boiler and I won't be investing in a wort cooler.
I'm not at all trying to belittle the methods of others who brew much more correctly and use more impressive equipment rather to encourage neophyte and would be mashers to give it a go, we get loaded up with jargon and equipment and it can make mashing sound a much huger prospect than it is.
I hope that helps folks get into the most creative part of our hobby:
A
I know there is a lot of equipment and methods out there and some of it can be overwhelming to the newbie wanting to get into all grain brewing so as a sort of how I did it and made mistakes yet I still came out with a superb Theakstones Best Bitter clone as in the original Graham Wheeler book.
So first of lacking an electric drill I poked holes in the bottom of an FV with a hot skewer to make a mash ton (fine with my first light brew but a problem later on when the holes were a bit fine). I mashed in at the mash temperature rather than strike temperatiure. I sparged with boiling (literally straight out of the kettle) water and poured it over slowly. I put the hops in the boiler as soon as the boiler was full rather than waiting for it to come to the boil.
In terms of cooling it was a case of seal the FV and wait overnight.
Oh and I sucked the bottom of the tap to get the syphon to run.
The ale at the end was superb and much enjoyed by my family and friends.
This isn't to say I didn't improve my technique as I realised a few things were wrong. However as I move ever closer to mashing again I won't be changing much, I will still use two modified fermenters lagged with bubble wrap as a mash tun, I'll still boil my hops in a muslin bag in the boiler and I won't be investing in a wort cooler.
I'm not at all trying to belittle the methods of others who brew much more correctly and use more impressive equipment rather to encourage neophyte and would be mashers to give it a go, we get loaded up with jargon and equipment and it can make mashing sound a much huger prospect than it is.
I hope that helps folks get into the most creative part of our hobby:
A
