Moving to AG, Finding the right grain

[melykabeer]

Hi fellow brewsters

After 5 years of extract brewing I am starting all grain. Recently I have been doing mini mashes and am very impressed with the results using maris otter. So impressed I am about to order a 70l stainless pot and rambo burner from Ross so I can do BIAB.

My first batch is going to be Drsmurtos golden ale, I will order the grains with the same order as they can just be thrown inside the pot and no extra postage costs.

My problem is I dont really know much about the different grains. I cant find the same grain that Drsmurtos put on his recipe. First up is 3.00 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White). The only grain I can find that is called "Pale Malt" is this Pilsner Pale Malt (Barrett Burston). Would this be an ok substitution?

[Bum]

Pilsner might work okay - I know of brewers who is it for all their beers and they seem to like it.

This might be a closer substitution though: http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=773

[warra48]

There's not really a lot of difference between Pale and Pilsner malts, both are base malts, and generally used to make up the bulk of any recipe.
Pale malts are normally malted somewhat darker than Pils malts, and often from different varieties of barley. Still, the differences are not great.
You can brew a Lager with Pale malt, and an Ale with Pils malt. For a lot of recipes they are interchangable.

Both are 2 row barley, and either will work.

Have a look through all the malts on CraftBrewer's website. The link is in Bum's post. It gives good descriptions of all the base malts, and the styles they suit best.

DrS Golden Ale is a good beer. Hard to go wrong with it. If you don't like the fruit salad character of Amarillo hops (tastes and smells like Sauvignon Blanc to me) then you can substitute most other US style hops. I use Cascade in mine, and it works really well.

[melykabeer]

Thanks Bum and Warra that makes sense now. So much to learn!

I will get lots of that ale malt enough for 3 batches. Will try 2 batches of drsmurtos golden ale, one with the amarillo the other with your suggested cascade. My 3rd will just be an experiment, I will go through the list of grains and pick some I like the sound of. I really do like maris otter that nutty flavour goes really well IMO.

I have to order the grain cracked, I am guessing its only good for a couple of months. Im saving my pennies for a monster mill ($360 shipped with hopper). Once I get that I will see of my LHS can supply 25kg sacks of the base malts.

[rotten]

Slightly OT, but $360 for the monster and hopper shipped sounds a bit steep. That would depend on which model you got though. I thiught it was around $250 for the 2 roller job, maybe a bit more with the current $AU. You could just use a piccadilly water bottle for the hopper to save some of those pennies.

Back On Topic. BB pale ale is a pils malt AFAIK. You probably won't notice the difference unless you aim to brew a lager. I just bought my first bag of BB pale ale to try some lager type brews with a cleaner finish in mind. Marris Otter is great isn't it

[Bum]

BB pale ale is a pils malt AFAIK.

Huh. Did not know that. Sorry for the bum steer (so to speak), melykabeer.

[emnpaul]

You have probably discovered by now that you don't actually have to make a pilsener with pilsener malt and the term pilsener malt has more to do with the colour. I'm pretty obsessed with Weyermann pils malt at the moment and I've even heard of it being used with some success in English styles as well as lagers, although I'm yet to try it myself.

[rotten]

BB pale ale is a pils malt AFAIK.

Huh. Did not know that. Sorry for the bum steer (so to speak), melykabeer.

It may not be a true Pilsener malt for the purists, but I have it on good authority that Barrett Burston pale ale malt is much lighter than Barrett Burston ale malt. I could find the specs, maybe another day.
Cheers

[melykabeer]

I priced the millmaster shipped with its perspex hopper and crank handle is around $300. I thought it might be worth the extra $60 for the monster mill, that is with stainless rollers ($40), stainless hopper and the board that it sits on which really is just a square peice of wood with a square cut out of it lol. Adding the hopper increases postage around $100 total around $140. I might look into this piccadilly water bottle thing save myself some cash to buy more grain with .

I am hoping to place my order this week and brew 2 batches the following weekend.

If I get around to it I will try 2 batches of golden ale or something else with both pilsener malt and pale malt to see if it has any noticeable diff other than colour. I imagine it will take me quite a few brews to get everything down pat then after drinking a few I shall attempt this.

What is a good use for the old grain? My last partial used 2.8kg of grain which I just chucked into the garden. After a couple of days it smelt pretty bad then it rained a bit now its all moldy but does not smell haha. Think it might end up being good for the garden but I have been banned from putting any more in there lol. I think I did not sparge enough as my OG was off by 7 points so there would have been alot of sugar left in that grain. Soon I will have 5+kg of waste grain every batch. I am planning on building a chook pen soon maybe the chooks will enjoy it?

[rotten]

I put %95 of spent grain in the bin. A little bit goes to the chooks occasionally but they only eat so much and in summer it attracts flies etc. What I rinse from the mash tun goes into the garden, for now.

[melykabeer]

Just checked the prices of the mill by itself
Monster Mill MM2 (1.5inch rollers) in 303 stainless $206
Monster Mill MM2-2 (2inch rollers) in 303 stainless $303

My LHS stocks grain at reasonable prices and can crack it for me. I will use their grain for the time being till I decide what to get.

[warra48]

What is a good use for the old grain? My last partial used 2.8kg of grain which I just chucked into the garden. After a couple of days it smelt pretty bad then it rained a bit now its all moldy but does not smell haha. Think it might end up being good for the garden but I have been banned from putting any more in there lol. I think I did not sparge enough as my OG was off by 7 points so there would have been alot of sugar left in that grain. Soon I will have 5+kg of waste grain every batch. I am planning on building a chook pen soon maybe the chooks will enjoy it?

Just chucking it on top of the garden does tend to make it go mouldy. When I do this, I usually fork it through the soil, and that seems to work for me.
Alternatively, I throw it into the compost bin.

[drsmurto]

I use a range of base malts in the golden ale, currently using maris otter, the next will be golden promise. Not overly important as you have ~20% of munich to bulk up the malt backbone.

Spent grain goes to my chooks, they love it and come running when they see me walking towards them with a bucket of grain!

[melykabeer]

Yeah chooks are awesome. Now to complete my all grain setup I need chooks, a garden fork and a compost heap.

I forgot I need to cool the wort. I have been looking into making my own copper immersion chiller but will cost around $100-$150 for 18m roll of new 3/8inch copper tubing. I read on a forum somewhere some guy recons he got his copper tubing from a scrap yard sold for $9 per kilo. Ill see how I go with that tomorrow, will make some calls. If I don't have one sorted by next weekend I will try no chill.

[drsmurto]

Plate chiller is cheaper and ready made - $129.95 here

[melykabeer]

Just bought that same one from craftbrewer with my stainless pot. Had to take out all my grain tho to keep within my budget

drsmurto does your plate chiller ever get blocked? I throw my hops into the boil will they pass through the chiller ok? Any tips for keeping it clean? Rinse and back wash as soon as I have finished brewing, pull it apart after every brew?

[melykabeer]

I found the strainer you use by beerbelly, does it work ok using pellet hops just thrown in? I think to start off I will use a hop bag and any late editions < 20min I will throw the bag into the fermenter to give any flavour left in them into the beer.

[rotten]

Have you thought of whirlpooling instead of using a hop screen? I have had great results lately by doing this and don't have a hopscreen. Pellet hops would be fine for it. I wouldn't throw the hop bag into the fermentor as the flavour would have been extracted already after 20 mins. Dry hopping after primary fermentation may suit better for that extra hit, or move your late hop addition to 10, 5 or 0 mins.

[melykabeer]

Can I whirlpool without letting it cool first? I just read the homebrewtalk wiki article on it here http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Whirlpooling there the wort is cooled first.
Also regarding the hops I often add flameout hops, so its worth transfering those into the fermenter?

I probably should have ordered this this http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=4209

[rotten]

Whirlpool immediately after flameout for say 2-3 mins and leave for 20-30 mins. You want the convection currents to stop or at least slow dramatically. If you place your pickup tube high enough so you don't pick up any trub then you shouldn't need a screen IMO. You may need to adjust your brew program and accept some more losses. I think I have 2 ltrs loss for trub and chiller and that's right for my setup. I don't dry hop as a general rule, 10 to 0 min additions work well for my taste. I have only whirlpooled for about 3 months since moving to double batches and the difference in clarity has been huge for me, I also don't get my chiller blocked any more which was very thrustrating.