All Grain Brewing

What system do you have ?

 

I would say to go as simple as possible for a first AG brew. A pale ale, maybe. Mostly 2-row base malt, maybe a dash of crystal malt. Hop as you like it.
Mash at 152 for an hour, sparge, boil etc.

 

As asked, what equipment do you have to make the jump? That would aid in our suggestions.

 

I'd say a low abv porter or stout would do fine. A wheat beer would turn around quickly and give good results. You'll want rice hulls for a wheat or rye beer though.

After you decide on style let us know on this thread and we'll throw recipes at you.

 

Here's the first recipe I ever created, more or less, for a very simple beer
9 pounds 2 row pale or Maris Otter(OPTIONAL: I toast 1 pound for 115 minutes at 350F)
1/2 pound carapils
Mash at 152 for about an hour
Hallertau: 1.5 oz for 60 mins, 1 oz at 20 minutes, 1 oz at flameout
Ferment cool with Nottingham, S-05 or whatever yeast you really like.

 

Oh, and have lots of ice cubes and boiling water on the ready if you miss your mash temperature. I add 14 degrees, to my expected mash temp, to a preheated mash tun, and I get within a degree every time. If you don't preheat a mash tun, end up using a kettle, or have grains that aren't at room temp your mileage will vary.

 

Brew a SMaSH!

One malt.
One hop.

 

And one step mash.

 

Well, hmm. I assume you know you'll need to get a vessel to mash in. You're also going to have to purchase a larger pot if you want to do 5 gallon AG batches.

As to a stout...it's really no more difficult than other brews, but I'd skip on an Imperial one...those are a little more involved...and temperamental.

 

Stouts are great beers. They're forgiving to brew. If it tastes a little boozy because you didn't regulate your fermentation temperatures then That's fine too. It'll keep you warm for a Bengals' playoff game.

It sounds like you either need to build a mash tun or you need to do a BIAB (brew in a bag) mash. It's up to you which route you want to go. If you're serious about brewing then there's no doubt in my mind that a mash tun will pay off for you. It'll run $40-70 by the time you buy a cooler, valve, and a manifold/bazooka screen. Brew in a bag costs you what, a paint straining bag per brew? A buck a pop and less efficiency on your grains. For BIAB you'll use your 5 gal kettle and if you can't get 6.5 gal for a full boil, you'll need DME on the side to make up the gravity points that aren't there.

Bottom line, as John Snow mentioned, you need a bigger kettle. I have a 6 gal kettle. Guess what I use it for now? Heating water for mashing and sparging. You have the option of making a 4ish gal batch, or if you want to make a beer that's 20% too strong and 20% too hoppy you could always add RO/distilled water to the 4 gal batch.

We're going to need more feedback to help you through this one. It all depends on what you want to spend and how involved you want to get at this point.

 

Besides what others have stated I would suggest you to start here :

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/index.html

Good luck !!

 

Brew whatever you like, I'd say, with the only caveat being to do some homework about your water and how it will interact with different grists.

A stout would be a great choice. If you do brew one, be aware that roasted grains lower the mash pH when low carbonate water is used and can push it out of the desirable range. I would suggest finding out as much as you can about your water, and then feeding the info along with your grist into a program like EZ Water (available for free online). If you play around with it a bit, you'll be able to see how to make adjustments, if any are needed.

 

With that gear available, I'd recommend doing a 2.5 gallon all grain BIAB. You've got all the gear necessary for it.

Just pick up a bag like this: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/jumbo-coarse-strain-bag-18-x-32.html and find a 5 gallon recipe from a place like NB that looks good, and half it. It won't be spot on, but will come out just fine.

 

Pick up a bag like this ^^^ but from Lowes, Home Depot, or box hardware store. It's called a paint staining bag. They're for 5 gallons of paint, but we use them for brewing. They're soo much cheaper when you stop calling them a homebrew novelty item and don't pay shipment for them. Just go to the hardware store.

A half batch is a good idea and you'll be surprised at the cost of grain compared to extract. It'll cut the cost of brewing by about half. You have to justify what your time is worth. A gallon of beer is about 10 bottles. 10 Bottles will take about 4 hours to make. A full boil batch (50 bottles) will also take 4 hours to brew. This takes 6.5 gallons of wort and boil off over an hour to do. That means about an 8 gal pot so that you can comfortably boil wort without boil overs.

P.S. If you stick with what you've got a half batch is about a case of beer ~24+ beers.

 

Assuming you have sanitization and fermentation down pat from your extract brewing experience and you have equipment for doing all-grain batches (BIAB, cooler mash tun, or something more advanced), you could feasibly do any style you want. For a first time all-grain experience, you might want to resist the urge to do step mashes, decoctions, or cereal mashes. You can do just about any style with a simple single infusion mash, although some styles are arguably better if done with a more complicated procedure. Still, English, American, and Belgian ales are well-suited.

 

I just did my first solo AG batch with BIAB. Definitely get the paint strainer bag, not the homebrew bag, as others have advocated. I got a few 5 gallon fine mesh paint strainer bag for $1.61 each from the local Sherwin Williams. As for a recipe, here is the one I used for a breakfast stout. Just tasted a hydrometer sample, and this one should be great.

5 Gallon Batch
90 min boil
OG 1.080
Predicted FG 1.025
ABV 7.7%

74% American 2-Row
6% Flaked Oats
3% Flaked Rye (Can sub for another 3% oatmeal, I just ran out of oatmeal)
6% Crisp Chocolate Malt
4% Debittered Black Malt
3% Roasted Barley Malt
2% Crystal 120L
Mash @ 155

Hops (IBU = 54)
1 oz Warrior @ 75 min
1 oz Willamette @ flameout

~4 oz Light roast coffee, coarsely ground. Put in mesh "hop" bag after 2 weeks in primary (did not transfer to secondary). Probably going to let this sit for a week or so. Scale this amount down if you are doing less than 5 gallons.

Yeast: WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast