Thanks all those who have contributed to the wealth of knowledge on this site. I particularly owe a big thanks to TL and Warra, and of course Oliver and Geoff.
For those that are yet to go all grain it was dead easy and done with minimal equipment. For those that have read of all the things that can go wrong with your first all grain, stuck sparges etc, I'm living proof of a relatively easy and uneventful deflowering. Yeah it took a lot of time, but with a lager pot this could have been halved.
I was not keen to purchase the gear for something that I was unsure if I would continue. However, for less than $50 I was able to all grain.
My Kit was a $19 19l thin stainless pot from Big W which I already owned and use to make my regular brews and a few partials, my mash tun is a 27l free esky found on the side of the road converted with $15 dollars for a brass ball valve, $12 for SS braided hose and about $20 dollars worth of brass T's and SS clamps. On the inside from the tap is a brass tee to 10 mm nipples. The braid sheath from the hose is bent into a rectangular loop that runs an inch from the wall of the esky. I also used two barbed 10mm tees to run a braid across the middle of the esky so it looks like -[ I ] with the parentheses joined. I use a $3 ebay digital aquarium thermometer to monitor the mash temp(make sure it can read to at least 70c (I also use one of these on each fermentor to monitor fermentation temps. I drop the probe wire through the airlock hole before putting the airlock in, these a bloody great!!!
). 1. Using TL's SNPA recipe (his partial recipe is mostly to blame for me trying all grain) I mashed 22.5 litres into a fermentor.
2. I poured half 12.25l of this into my pot and did an hour's boil using half of the hops.
3. Siphoned this 12litres into a second fermentor and threw it in the bathtub with 4 3litre frozen pet bottles.
4. Repeated step two with second half of wort and siphoned into fermentor in bath.
5. Stired brew one way and bath the otherway every now an then to increase chill rate.
6. Placed fermentor in my regular $12 rubber pail from Big W with some water and another 3L pet bottle to maintain 20C and pitched yeast.
A long post but hopefully of some use for potential all grainers.
Hirns
