Today I brewed my first all grain recipe. I needed to brew 10 gallons for the upcoming Augusta Bottoms Beer Festival. My local homebrew club, the Garage Brewers Society (GBS) is part of the festival and we are donating and serving over 60 gallons of beer during the 1 day event. They are also brewing and serving over 300 gallons (hopefully) at St. Charles Oktoberfest the weekend before.

After my recent trip to Minn/St. Paul I wanted to brew Surly Furious, but with a few tweaks that incorporated some of my favorite IPAs. I wanted some Rye in my version, mainly because I love the spicey notes that Rye gives and the mouthfeel from Rye is unique. I substituted Belgain Aromatic with Biscuit Malt, I prefer Biscuit over Aromatic and the Aromatic at STLW&B was a few lovibonds higher than what I called for in my recipe. Since this was my first all-grain, I really wanted to try and hit the color just right. Extracts are always so dark, this time I wanted a properly colored beer.

I had to substitute Cascade for Ahtanum because STLW&B was completely out. HopUnion says Cascade is widely used as a sub, plus, Cascade is a better dry hop choice.

I named this beer the Dennie IPA after the Dennie Stones. If you haven't figured it out from my brewery name, each beer will have a strongman or lifting inspired name.

 Dennie IPA (10 gallon recipe)
20# American Two Row Pale
2# Rye Flakes
1# 4oz Biscuit Malt
2# Crystal 60L
6.5oz Roasted Barley

60 Min - 2oz Warrior, 1oz Cascade
30 Min - 1oz Simcoe, 1oz Cascade
15 Min - 1oz Amarillo, 1oz Simcoe, 1oz Cascade, 4 Tablets Irish Moss
Dry Hop - 1oz Warrior, 1oz Amarillo, 1oz Simcoe, 1oz Cascade

Yeast - 1098 Brittish ESB (Wyeast)

I mashed in with all 25lbs in my 48 qt mash tun. I made it with the cooler and made my manifold two nights before with 3/4" CPVC. I made cuts in the CPVC with a hacksaw at 1/4" increments. More photos of the mash tun to follow. 


I hit the 154 degree mash temp that was called for online, my tun held temp very well and the only leak I had was right at the connection through the wall. I had to cut this myself and will need to get some better gasket material to seal is properly. I mashed for the 1 hr required, and then started my sparge. I have a fly sparge arm but it was too long and would have been in the grain bed. I will need to make a couple stilts for it to sit on.

As I was sparging I kept a close eye on my water temp. I read that the sparge temp should be 180 deg but not boiling. I tried to keep it there and watched the bed temp at the same time. I stayed at a constant 170 deg throughout the sparge, not sure if this was good or not.

After that my beer was in my new keggle. Now here is the fun part, the night before I pulled out this handy hop holder that I bought from Mike Sweeny (stlhops.com) but the bag had apparently not gotten sufficiently cleaned after my last brew session and was infested with "black stuff". Soooo I just threw hops into the keggle. No false bottom. Plus my Simcoe hops were whole leaf, see where this is going? Oh yeah, the mash paddle is neat and is used and from an experienced brewer, hoping some good joo-joo comes from it.

Once i figured out the drain was plugged with hop cones, I had to use a pitcher to empty the keggle of boiling hot beer, 1 gallon at a time. All 12 gallons. How I did not end up with 3rd degree burns I do not know. After dumping, cooling, and tranfering to two fermenters, I had my beer in the basement and slowly chugging along.

I also got a Brix refractometer. Now I have never used one of these before. I've seen plenty of people use them before, but never used one myself. I took a reading after the boil and read 11.75 Brix. Online calculators say thats equal to a OG of 1.047. If that is true I missed the mark by 0.020. But maybe I didn't let the temp equal out long enough, who knows.

Anyways, the plan is to leave one fermenter alone and let it be the "base" while the other 5 gallons get vanillafied. Thinking either 2-3 vanilla beans or I will use vanilla extract. The other route I am thinking is to tea bag it. Maybe with some type of flavored tea. Who knows. 

I held off posting a lot until I started brewing, but I got some new toys and I am planning some batches today.


On the toy front, I already mentioned the new burner. After that I picked up an Igloo square 60qt cooler at Big Lots ($19 on sale a while back!), a keggle with a lid and a valve, a refractometer (w/ ITC), and a small mash paddle.


Now I didn't get the nice big mash paddle I was wanting on www.mashpaddles.com, but its a small one that will work for now.


I'm pretty excited to use it all. I do need to convert the cooler into a mash tun, but a little PVC, a drill, and a PVC valve will take care of that. My first batch on the system will be a fun one. I am brewing a Surly Furious clone recipe that I found online (and tweaked for MORE HOPS!).


That same day I hope to brew another version of Furious, but less hopped but aged on oak and vanilla. I've always wanted to oak age an IPA (not for long though), so I will have to dry hop it to maintain the hop aroma. I am planning on brewing both batches using the same malt bills (a 10 gallon mash) on September 4th, that gives me 4 weeks to ferment and then quickly drop in the keg to force carb before the Augusta Bottoms Beer Festival on October 2nd.

So we are all wanting to save money here and there with the economy the way it is, but you don't want to give up your homebrewing. There is a solution, you can save some money by buying ingredients in bulk. Most homebrew clubs will do bulk buys maybe once every other month depending on how often members brew.


Example:

1. I can buy 8 lbs of Rahr 2-Row Pale Malt at a homebrew shop for $1.34/lb. If you don't have LHBS nearby you have to add shipping, and the cheapest online is $7.99. That takes the LHBS malt to $2.34/lb. 
2. The local homebrew club is doing a bulk buy and I can get Canadian 2-Row (different brand I know) for $0.49/lb, and with fuel surcharges and shipping it can come out to $1.00/lb or less depending on how much is bought (the more bought lowers the shipping cost). 
3. I can get malt from a Malt Supplier, right now I can buy 13.75lb of Rahr 2-Row for $0.89/lb. The drawback here is that I am limited to buying 1/4, 1/2, or full sacks of malt. That is only what they have in stock as well. 
1. Bulk buys through the supplier are in full sacks only. You can split with another brewer, but YOU have to buy the full sack. This comes to $0.532/lb ($26.60/55lb sack).

As you can see, the malt supplier is the best choice.  Even with buying by the in stock 1/4 sack (13.75 lbs or 12.5lbs) you are spending between $12.24 and $11.13, respectively. Comapred to the LHBS you would be spending $18.25 to $16.75, respectively.


Now if you can plan ahead, you can order from the supplier (a full sack) and pay $26.60, but you save $0.358/lb, so your 13.75 lbs would really cost you $7.32 which is a savings of $4.92! If you brew once a month, that is a savings of $59 on 2-Row ALONE! Now add in your other base malts and some of the specialty grains, and you could hit $100-$200 easily. Thats enough to pay for that new keggle you've been wanting, or to buy your wife that new purse she has been eying.

Feel free to leave comments and hoppy brewing!