Samuel

First off, in my Beer Terms post several months ago, I made a technical error. I described ‘mashing’ and ‘malting’ as being the same thing. This is not the case. Malting is something that professionals do pretty much exclusively. I haven’t run across any information about people doing this themselves. Malting is when they just begin to sprout the grain, then pop it into a kiln really quickly. I’m not clear on the technical specifics of why this process works, but my understanding is that it generates the enzymes that will later be used to convert the starch to sugar, then freezes the process by kilning so that the brewer can start it again later.

Mashing, on the other hand, is what the All Grain home brewer does. In a mash, one submerses malted grains in hot water (155 degrees or so, depending on what you’re doing. Again, not clear on the specifics yet) for a period of time, allowing the enzymes to work their magic and create the sugars that will be converted to alcohol in the fermentation.

Today, with part of my tax return, I went to the Home Depot and began the work of piecing together the equipment for All Grain brewing in preparation for my next experiment, a Heffeweitzen flavored with chamomile and honey. A good spring afternoon nap time beer. Here’s what I got;

*A five gallon Igloo cooler. I did this today because the HD has these on clearance for $8.00. It’s small enough that it will be limiting in the long run, but the next size up was 10 gallons for $40. I think not.

*A 1/2 inch ball valve to replace the plastic thing on the cooler. The plastic thing is fine for water, but will not serve my purposes.

* The hardware needed to create a bulkhead fitting. I’m not going to go into this, and I’m not 100% pleased with it. It’s water tight. For now.

What I still need to complete this project is

* A false bottom. I’m working on several ideas for the best way to achieve this. I’m thinking about possibly using a sort of a tube made of screen, buying or otherwise getting a circle of perf plate to fit, or maybe even using a laundry bag type apparatus to hold the grain above the bottom of the tub.

Also, I bought 20′ of 1/2 inch copper tubing and several feet of vinyl tube, some hose clamps, and a deal that hooks to a garden hose on one end and the vinyl tube on the other. This will be a wort chiller, with which I will run cold water into my wort and get hot water out, thus chilling the wort. Awesome.

Finally, I invented a simple spreadsheet for developing a recipe. You tell it the target Original Specific Gravity, the proportions of the different grains you’re using (50% wheat, 40% pale 2 row, etc…) and the points/pound/gallon rating of each (I’ll explain later maybe, or just look it up) and the expected attenuation from the yeast you’re using and it’ll tell you how much of each ingredient you need in pounds for a 5.5 gallon batch (you can scale up or down easily), what the expected FG is, and the expected ABV. I ran a quick recipe plan for the Chamomile Honey Wheat beer, and here’s what I came up with;

For a 5.5 Gallon Batch I’ll use

5.8 lbs of Malted Wheat
4.6 lbs of Pale 2 Row malt
1 lb of Honey

With the Bavarian Wheat yeast I plan to use, I’m expecting 75% attenuation (high estimate, I think).
My target OG is 1.05 (I assumed a low efficiency for my brewing setup, since it’s the first time I’m using it and better too much gravity than too little I always say)
My expected final Sp. Gr is 1.013
My expected ABV is 5.06

I’m thrilled, as this is the first recipe I designed with no help from brewing software (except the formulas in my own spreadsheet). I’m beginning to understand some of the calculating that goes into recipe design, which is great.

For hops, I’m using 1/2 oz of Saaz or something similar for bittering and another 1/2 oz for flavor. I’m also using 4 oz of Chamomile, 2 oz boiled for 60 minutes and 2 oz added at the end of the boil and infused into the wort with the lid on to preserve the essential oils. I’ll check the flavor after primary fermentation, and if I still want more Chamomile character I’ll add more in the secondary like dry hops.

As always, reviews to follow.