Experimenting with stepping into partial mash / all grain

I've been wanting to get involved with all-grain brewing for the longest time, but don't have the equipment, and have even less ability to control mash temperatures on an electric range - or so I thought until last night.

In my last batch, I used a cooler filled with an ice-water batch to chill my wort prior to fermenting. Since I am only doing small batches at the moment, it's easy for me to put my boiling kettle into the cooler, and I can even close the lid. Works great, and I can quickly chill my wort down to pitching temp.

I also steeped some crystal malt on my stove top for my last brew, and my experience was that it was very difficult to maintain a steady temperature - it was more like a 10-degree range that I kept bouncing around in (I hate electric ranges!), and I think I need to do better than that before I try a partial mash. I thought about using my oven to hold the temperature, but even that would be difficult without an accurate thermometer.

Then how do I manage my grains and sparging? I don't have a mash/lauter tun, and really don't want to build one just yet. So many questions...

Within the last two weeks I read an article about a home-built mashing tun that was pretty cool - using an immersion chiiler that circulated hot water through it (pump controlled by a temp controller) to maintain mash temps. Nice, but not a project I want to tackle right now.

So I started thinking... about my cooler, and how I could use it without having to carve it up. And I made a trip to Home Depot to get a attachment for my drill to help me aerate the wort prior to pitching my yeast, and it all came together. Instead of an ice bath to cool my kettle, I could use a hot water bath to maintain a temp. I bet I can get the temp in the cooler to my target temp within a fairly narrow range. It's then a matter of gently heating my kettle to get very close to my target temp and then transfer the kettle to the cooler and cover it. I bet the temp will hold a lot steadier than I could ever manage on the stove top alone!

This even makes it possible to add steps to my mash without adding more liquids to my grains... just raise the temp of the bath in the cooler, and then gently heat the kettle till I reach the desired temp then transfer back to the cooler for the rest period.

Of course, we're not talking about 5 gallons of wort being moved around. I'm doing 2.5 gallon batches to experiment with, so this is all very do-able. As I found my aerator, I also spied some 5-gallon nylon paint-straining bags... and cheap! So it's off for an experiment... Going to do a partial mash, grains in the bag for an infusion mash. After mashing, I can then put the grains and bag in a large strainer over the kettle to sparge... then add extract (going for an Imperial IPA) and get ready to boil!

I'm pretty excited about this. I could probably do all grain for medium to light ales with this setup. Looks to be a very manageable way to step into all-grain without having to spend some dough to scale up to 5 gallon all-grain. Cool! I'll let you know how this turns out.

 

I understand that is exactly what I am doing, and my ultimate goal is NOT to BIAB, but this is all highly experimental for me - I want to get a feel for this and see how it improves my beer before I step up and scale up to all-grain without spending a lot of money. I do NOT see this as a long term solution, just a stepping stone in my evolution.

And yes, it IS Rube Goldberg, and that has an appeal to me as well, to see how far I can go with the minimum of equipment. It's mazing what you can sometimes do with minimalist tools if you have the patience! I can even practice decoction mashing with this setup, so there are a lot of things I can do. If I screw-up, well I didn't waste a lot of money.

For all-grain, I'll need a bigger boiling kettle, a mash tun and an immersion chiller for starters, and that's about $150, even building the mash tun and immersion chiller.

All-in-all, I agree that it will be a lot of work this way, and there is the right tool for the right job. But it's an experiment, and eventually, I'll be ready to go "all-in".

 

I appreciate the input. Family cooler = no carving. My wife will put up with a lot of things (hey, she married me, for one!! LOL). Already have enlisted her to canvas our friends to see if they have any "donor" coolers available. I'm gonna get there... eventually.

But I'm impatient... I might go for my first batch this weekend.

 

I agree... but my list of needed items is long. First on my list of things is a temp controller for my refrigerator so I can control my fermentation temps better. It's a step-by-step process.