Wearing The Big Pants Now

After years of brewing beer either in small "extract plus specialty grain" batches or all-grain batches on borrowed equipment or cobbled-together mini-mashes I made the Big Leap. I invested all my birthday money in this lovely all-grain brewing system available at Northern Brewer.

First, the birthday money. Mrs. Smitty, in her infinite wisdom and loving support of my bestest hobby, told everyone to chip-in a couple bucks for my birthday because I had a wild-assed notion that I wanted to "step-up" my brewing process. So the family, strangely, happily, obliged.

So what do we have here? From right to left: a new grain mill with pre-set rollers and a hopper with a 7-pound grain capacity (with the capability to run it with a drill versus the hand crank, giving me a six-pound-per-minute throughput); a 10-gallon brew pot with pre-drilled holes for a thermometer and ball valve (thermometer and valve pictured but hard to see; the thermometer is in the white box to the left); and two 5-gallon coolers - one for the hot liquor tank (hot water) and the other as the lautering tun (steeping grains, sparging) complete with a false bottom to create a grain bed without clogging tubing and ball valves to control water flow for each.

The boil kettle is big enough to handle really massive batches, but can only be fired-up on my turkey fryer. My stove isn't big or powerful enough to heat up this stainless steel monster.

For the first few batches as I get used to how my grains crack and a gajillion other little nuances, the quality of my beers may suffer a bit. But in the medium-run and the long-run, brewing consistent all-grain batches yields way better flavors, way less off flavors and a much more professional-quality beer, nearly indistinguishable from Pro batches. There is so much more one can do with all-grain systems for the color and flavor and style of beer it is a reward in itself.

That said, all-grain batches are more time consuming. It becomes a 4 hour process as opposed to about a 2 or so hour process. But the improved quality and sheer increase in range of styles is worth the extra couple hours.

At least, that's what the Smitty Clan hopes for!