Breaking the All-Grain Barrier: Burner & Boil Kettle

Yesterday I finally brewed my first "all-grain" batch of beer. It was a great brew day. Everything went smoothly, my brewing buddy Eric and I had a great excuse to hang out, and we both learned a lot. After much reading prep, I really enjoyed seeing a few things with my own eyes. For example: I had read that brewers used to (and surely still do) use the first drain-off (or "runnings") from a mash to make stronger beers, then would make lighter beers with the second and third runnings. It was really interesting to watch as the first runnings were a rich, darker color and the third runnings were much, much lighter as the grains were progressively rinsed of their sugars.

The most satisfying part of the day came when it was time to take the specific gravity reading of the collected and boiled wort. Despite our first pass at all these new procedures—the mashing of the grains, two rinses (or "sparges"), and a full-wort boil—we nailed the target reading given in the recipe. Beginner's luck? Maybe.

I had had the ingredients for an Irish red ale—purchased as an all-grain ingredient kit from Northern Brewer—for months, but had to piece together equipment. I'm going to spend the next few posts recapping my setup and explaining why I chose the items I did. Until yesterday, I had been brewing on an electric stove top in my kitchen, so I needed quite a bit of equipment to go all-grain. There are countless ways to do this but here's what I did.

Burner and Boil Kettle

I needed a stronger, outdoor heat source and a bigger brew kettle to accommodate the larger boil volumes. (Instead of boiling 2 or 3 gallons of wort in recipes that use malt extract, you boil the full 5 gallons of wort for all-grain recipes.)

I purchased a Hurricane burner and a Blichmann BoilerMaker 15-gallon kettle. I liked the burner because for the cost of a $7 orifice accessory I can choose to use it with natural gas instead of the standard propane setup. The kettle was a tougher decision. I debated long and hard about whether to go with a converted keg (also sometimes called a "keggle") or another brand of brew pot. I decided on the BoilerMaker because of the quality fit and finish of Blichmann products, the features that this specific brew pot offered, and the reportedly quicker heat-up time compared to keggles. It was a relatively expensive route to take, but I'm planning on it serving me for many years.

Once I had settled on a Boilermaker, I agonized over the decision between the 10- or 15-gallon versions. The smaller size is perfect for 5-gallon batches, while the 15-gallon would allow me to also do 10-gallon batches if I watch the pot carefully for boilovers. (Ten gallons is a batch size homebrewers typically upgrade to when doing all grain, since you get twice the amount of beer for roughly the same amount of work and just a little more cost.) Another plus for the 15-gallon size was the fact that I could easily transition it into a more advanced brewing system if that day ever came. With the addition of Blichmann's $75 false bottom, the pot, which I'm now using as a brew kettle, would make a great mash tun (the vessel in which you mash your grains) for a 10-gallon system. The drawback to the larger size: 5-gallon batches are kind of dwarfed in the pot and the great Brewmometer that comes standard on the Boilermaker is rendered useless by its placement midway up the pot. Based on my observations with yesterday's batch, you need approximately 7 gallons of liquid in the kettle to cover the thermometer's probe. Since I already have an accurate probe thermometer this was less of a concern for me. In the end, I opted for the larger size to future-proof myself somewhat.

Both the burner and the kettle performed great during yesterday's brew session. I love how quickly the burner heats—a big time saver—and the design of the Boilermaker's base (with a ridge around the edge and a depression in the middle) makes it a perfect and sturdy fit on the Hurricane burner. We did have an issue with the burner backfiring when shut down, but it was no big deal and may be a common occurrence with portable burners for all I know. Also, note that much of the nice black paint on your burner will ignite and take to the air as ash the first couple of times you use the burner. I second the recommendation I read to run the burner for a while to clear some of this paint off prior to brewing your first batch on it.

Next time I'll discuss my setup choices for a mash/lautering tun and a hot liquor tank (including more about what those terms even mean to a fledgling brewer). Thanks for reading.

Update: After several brew sessions with my setup, I posted a follow-up with more thoughts on the Blichmann BoilerMaker on August 4, 2010.

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day

Sorry that I'm way behind on the blog. No shortage of content in my head; just a lack of time to get it posted. For example, I've been meaning to write for a while now about the "Teach a Friend to Homebrew" gathering I had at my house on Nov. 7—also known as Learn to Homebrew Day. I had planned to be brewing all-grain batches by then, but I decided to brew one more extract batch with some folks more fledgling than me at this event.

We brewed a recipe from the book Beer Captured. The recipe was based on Anchor Brewing's "Our Special Ale"—more specifically the 1995 iteration of their constantly changing holiday beer. None of us involved had ever had the original beer, but we were looking for something with a holiday flavor and a shorter turnaround time than the bigger holiday ales in the book. Here's the description from the book (p. 158):

The 1995 version arrives with a reddish tan whipped cream head that poses on an attractive dark mahogany brown beer. The aroma takes you back to Grandma's kitchen when she was baking spice cake. Sweet spices coat the tongue along with a malty palate. The finish is malty and redolent of vanilla.

With a handful of helpers and a dozen or so onlookers, we brewed on the stove top. While teaching friends to brew is a great concept, in reality the amount of activity and distractions took their toll. The first mistake occurred during the steeping of the specialty grains. The goal was to hold the grains in 150-degree water for 30 minutes, but my new-to-me probe thermometer, which was inserted through a vent in the brew pot's lid,  wasn't submerged. It was reading air temp in the pot, not the liquid temp. As a result, the grains steeped in the 170- and 180-degree range for 10 minutes or more. Steeping this hot is known to strip tannins from the grains and give the beer an astringent off-flavor. So we're not even past the steeping stage and I'm already keeping my fingers crossed.

The second error came with the addition of three spices that the recipe called for. Two of the spices—vanilla bean and anise—needed to be chopped before being added to the boil. The third spice, nutmeg, needed no preparation. When cleaning up after the event, I realized that we had focused on the vanilla bean and anise to the exclusion of the nutmeg. We simply forgot to add it, even though it had been set out. Fortunately this recipe is billed in the book as one that can host a mix-and-match array of spices. So while I considered adding the requested 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg to the fermenter, I figured we should just let the beer ride as-is and see what happens.

The rest of the process, from the boil to the ice-bath cool down, went well. But when we measured the original gravity of the wort before adding the yeast, we learned we had also missed our target original gravity by a few points. The recipe calls for an O.G. of 1.068-1.069 and our wort came in at 1.065. Since I have taken so long to post a recap of this brew day, the beer has finished fermenting and I can tell you that we also missed the final gravity by an even wider margin. The recipe indicates a final gravity of 1.017-1.018 and our fermentation ended several points short at 1.026. As a result, the beer's alcohol-by-volume (ABV) measurement is 5.1%—considerably lower than the 6.5% ABV that we targeted in the recipe.

The beer is now kegged and in my keg refrigerator, and as of tomorrow night it will have been under CO2 pressure for one week. I adhere to the "set it and forget it" method of force carbonating beer, which basically means you apply CO2 to the keg at the intended serving pressure and come back in two weeks. The "Our Special Ale" recipe states the beer will be ready to drink one month after carbonation and that it will peak within two to six months. So we wait.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the friends who came over for the event. They came with helping hands, patience and lots of great questions. I definitely plan to hold another "Learn to Brew" gathering to mark next year's homebrewer holiday—and probably sooner than that.