How to Make Beer Using Grain Only

Making all-grain beer provides greater choice on flavor.

Using an all-grain approach to beer making provides the home brewer with an extensive array of different recipes to try. Unlike beginner recipes that use malt extract, all-grain beer making uses malted grain to break down starch into sugar and aid fermentation. The flavors associated with the type of malted grain create better tasting beer than the malt extract method. The types of malted grain commonly available for beer making are barley, wheat, maize and rice. Most recipes require a mix of pale and crystal malted grains to provide sugar and flavor, respectively.

Things You'll Need

• Two,1-gallon jugs of spring water
• Brew-pot
• 1 tsp.of gypsum
• Cooking thermometer
• 7-lbs of crushed pale malt
• 1 1/2-lbs of crushed crystal malt
• Insulated water cooler
• Metal spoon
• Pouring container
• Mesh strainer
• Cup
• Slatted draining spoon
• 1 oz. of hops
• 1 tsp. of Irish moss
• Liquid brewer's yeast
• 5-gallon brewer's glass carboy jug
• Funnel
• Carboy airlock-plug
• Brewer's siphon tube
• Bottles

Instructions

1. Chill two 1-gallon jugs of filtered spring water in your icebox overnight. Pour 3 gallons of tap water into the brew-pot, and leave it overnight in the kitchen.

2. Add 1 tsp. of gypsum to the brew-pot, and place on the cooker top. Turn on the heat and use a cooking thermometer to bring the water temperature up to 165-degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Tip the 7-lbs of crushed pale malt and 1 1/2-lbs of crushed crystal malt into an insulated water cooler. Pour the brew-pot liquid into the water cooler to 1 inch above the crushed grain, to create the single-infusion grain mash. Stir the grain with a metal spoon, and place a lid on top of the cooler for one hour.

4. Pour the excess water from the brew-pot into a pouring container. Insert a mesh strainer into the brew-pot. Use a cup to pour the grain and liquid from the cooler into the strainer, one cup at a time.

5. Rinse each cup of grain in the strainer with the water from the pouring container to further release the sugar from the grain. Remove the strainer filled with grain from the brew-pot. Use a slatted draining spoon to scoop up grain debris from the brew-pot liquid.

6. Add 1 oz. of hops to the brew-pot. Boil the liquid for 45 minutes without a lid. Add 1 tsp. of Irish moss and 1 tsp. of liquid brewer's yeast. Boil for a further 15 minutes.

7. Clean and sterilize the mesh strainer and the brew-pot lid in very hot water. Partly fill the kitchen sink with cold water and ice. Place the lid on the brew-pot and sit the pot in the kitchen sink for 30 minutes to bring down the temperature.

8. Tip a third of a gallon of chilled spring water into a 5-gallon brewer's glass carboy jug. Aerate the remaining water by shaking the water jug. Pour the aerated water into the carboy.

9. Insert the funnel in the top of the carboy. Place the strainer on top of the funnel. Pour the brew-pot grain liquid into the strainer to catch the hops and moss debris.

10. Top up the carboy with spring water from the second gallon jug if necessary. Pour the remaining liquid yeast into the carboy. Insert the carboy airlock-plug into the top of the carboy and fill the airlock with water.

11. Allow the all-grain beer to ferment for seven days. Use a brewer's siphon tube to transfer the beer from the carboy into bottles to complete the project.

Tips & Warnings

• Use more hops to reduce the malty flavor, and less hops for a richer malt beer.

• Ensure all brewing equipment is sterile to avoid contaminating the all-grain beer with bacteria.

References

• Jim's Beer Kit: Ingredients for All Grain Brewing
• Cruise News: Simple All Grain Brewing
• "Classic City Brew"; Tips on Making Easy 3 Gallon, All-Grain Batches of Homebrew; Owen Ogletree; 2007
• "Classic City Brew"; Owen's Simplified 3 Gallon All-Grain Homebrew Recipes; Owen Ogletree; 1999

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• "How To Brew"; Brewing Your First All-Grain Beer; John Palmer; 1999