Later this week I’m reviewing the DVD shown in this picture, “Stepping into All Grain,” by Basic Brewing. But as I hurtle full-tilt into a busy week, every now and then I take a moment to fondly reflect on a small project I squeezed in between household errands and writing, inspired by the DVD: building a partial-mash tun from a 2-gallon cooler and a handful of inexpensive parts (instructions from the Homebrew Wiki — though the DVD made it much clearer what I was doing).
A mash tun is a device for steeping cracked grains in hot water at a controlled temperature long enough to convert the grain’s starches into sugars. The remaining liquid is recirculated through the mash tun a couple of times and then drained into a kettle, where the wort (the liquid) is mixed with other materials and boiled. After that, the wort is cooled, mixed with yeast, fermented, mixed with sugar, and bottled, and in a couple of weeks or more, there you have it, beer.
(I guess that’s the Book-a-Minute Classic version of beer brewing. There is a wee bit more to it than that…)
Brewers who are hardcore go outside with propane burners and massive kettles and use 5 or 10 gallon mash tuns. (Then there are folks who go out and spend hundreds of dollars on very fancy equipment… we thank them for stimulating the economy.)
Despite her fondness for fancy equipment and even her affection for nature, Miss Karen has no intention of sitting outside with the skeeters and heat and humidity and whatnot. To me, brewing is a culinary craft, to be shared in a climate-controlled kitchen with Sandy, Rachel Maddow, and our indoor cats, and to be fitted into the larger scheme of things, such as cooking dinner.
I’ve been happy with the kits that include mostly precooked malt extract and a small amount of grain that is then steeped in a grain bag on the stove for a while. But this partial-mash tun gives me a way to experiment with temperature control for the grains and play more with the science of brewing. I made Sandy her very own beer this weekend (Lighthouse Ale from Homebrew Den) and had a very pleasant time using the mash tun.
(It’s worth trying homebrewing just for the language… wort, mash tun, lauter, vorlauf, sparging, and much more!)
By the way, if you want really good service in Lowes’ or Home Depot, just explain that you’re assembling homebrew equipment. One fellow at Home Depot actually said to the other clerks, “Look what she’s making!”
Posted on this day, other years:
- ETD Policies and the Hobgoblins of Little Minds - 2007
- Free is Never Free: The TANSTAAFL Principle - 2006
- Right Pew, Right Church - 2005
- Someone Please Tell Me I'm Reading This Wrong - 2005
- UNESCO Award goes to Jailed Cuban Journalist - 2004
My brother started here then when whole hog. We grew up in Los Angeles where skeeters are not a problem. It is great to see someone appreciate the fine art of home brew!
If I were someplace with California’s climate I’d be tempted to go outside, as well! Yes, it’s tremendously fun… very mind-clearing, too.
Well I brew outdoors in MN and I gotta say that the skeeters don’t like the steam coming off of the brew kettle too much. It’s winter that you gotta worry about. Low ambient temps will turn a 4 hour brewday into a six or a seven hour day, and you can forget about decoction mashing, unless you have a freak thaw on your hands.
Fortunately in North Florida it doesn’t get quite that cold in the winter, though it can hover around freezing some mornings. I’ll take your word on the skeeters… one more thing to think about: the steam might be good for my complexion. 🙂
[…] Many homebrewers avoid all-grain brewing because it seems complicated and spendy — far beyond the “fun” part of the hobby that first drew them in. Many might change their minds after viewing Stepping into All Grain. Even if the viewers don’t step into all-grain now or ever — and it would be hard not to after watching this DVD — they can at least become armchair all-grain brewers, stoked with the kind of knowledge to keep them looking smart on the many homebrewing bulletin boards and mailing lists, and pleasurably revisiting their fantasy hobby time and again. (Or like me, they could take one step forward, with countertop partial-mash brewing.) […]