Opinions Needed

[jimjohson]

First and foremost... Thanks one and all for the responses. 2; Y'all got good clubs, all we do down here is sit around and drink. Which is sad, as we have at least 2 professional brewers in the club. I noticed from the responses that I was unclear. The brewers in question are not beginners they are all veteran brewers of extract kits (we carry True Brew kits {http://www.monsterbrew.com/Search.cfm?s ... rue%20Brew} They been picking my mind for a couple, three months now. They already know what to do. Yes I've seen The Galloping Gourmet (my Grandmother watched him when I was a kid) though my favorite was Justin Wilson. but the point about pre-preparing is taken. Hadn't thought about that. Jeff I'll send you a pm when things calm down(still got people comin' and goin' been near 2 hours typing this) I don't intended to put the sign up sheet out 'till Jan. the second.

[bpgreen]

I looked at a true brew kit, and I see a potential problem with the approach you described in your first post.

The instructions say that a 3.5 gallon pot is needed, but for an all grain batch, you need a full volume boil. I would guess that many of these brewers are stove top brewers, so they may not have pots that are big enough and also may not have propane burners to bring that much to a boil.

I generally do partial mash, but actually have the equipment to do all grain. I'd probably still do stovetop brewing, just with two pots. But many stovetop brewers aren't able to do that if they only have one large pot.

Ate you committed to all grain? If they've been doing extract plus steeping grain, partial mash or mini mash might be an easier step for them.

If you're going to go with all grain, I'd suggest doing BiaB since it's a bit simpler. Actually, I'd do that for partial/mini mash as well.

But I'd go with a demo with audience participation (ok, you in the blue shirt, come here and stir) rather than try to have everybody brewing at the same time.

Keep in mind that there are long stretches where nothing happens (the mash, bittering boil, etc), so make sure you have other things to do during those times. If the only thing to do is drink, some (many? ) people won't be able to remember all of the steps.

[mashani]

The instructions say that a 3.5 gallon pot is needed, but for an all grain batch, you need a full volume boil.

Maybe it's not best practice, and perhaps you should not teach this - but this is actually not true. You might get better efficiency if you go full volume, and figuring your mash efficiency is a lot easier of course, but you can very well do a thick mash, use less sparge water, and top up in the fermenter. I know because I've done it and made really good beer. I sometimes do it today as BIAB for lower abv beers IE brew a 1.07ish wort that will turn into 5 gallons of ~1.04ish wort or 1.08ish wort that will turn into 1.05ish wort in the end after top up. If your boil gravity is really high you might want to tweak the bittering hop additions to match that gravity (calculate this as if boil was full volume at that gravity, even though your boil is lower volume).

You can do lots of crazy things and still make good beer.

IE I can show a stove top brewer how to make 5 gallons of really good beer in a 12Q pot if you want to be crazy and don't mind doing it extract + steep, and using a massive top up and top ups during the boil, and even more especially if you are using high AA hops that you can short boil and end up with the result you want (IE you are brewing an IPA/APA or some other beer where hop flavor is appropriate and you have a high AA hop with that flavor). The best thing about that is you don't need a chiller at all either, there is enough top up water that it cools it for you if it's cold. It sounds totally stupid according to the "rules". But you can make it work and you can make really good beer that way. I know because I've done that too before I got my bigger pots and better stove.

It might not be best practice, but you can make it work. This comes from someone who 20 years ago did nothing but AG with big equipment. Desperation leads to innovation. That's where BIAB came from. And No-Chill. Aussies with no water, but wanting to make beer.

Doing it right is over-rated LOL.

Jim, if you want to have an "insane brewing techniques" demo, let me know LOL.

[bpgreen]

The instructions say that a 3.5 gallon pot is needed, but for an all grain batch, you need a full volume boil.

Maybe it's not best practice, and perhaps you should not teach this - but this is actually not true. You might get better efficiency if you go full volume, and figuring your mash efficiency is a lot easier of course, but you can very well do a thick mash, use less sparge water, and top up in the fermenter. I know because I've done it and made really good beer. I sometimes do it today as BIAB for lower abv beers IE brew a 1.07ish wort that will turn into 5 gallons of ~1.04ish wort or 1.08ish wort that will turn into 1.05ish wort in the end after top up. If your boil gravity is really high you might want to tweak the bittering hop additions to match that gravity (calculate this as if boil was full volume at that gravity, even though your boil is lower volume).

You can do lots of crazy things and still make good beer.

IE I can show a stove top brewer how to make 5 gallons of really good beer in a 12Q pot if you want to be crazy and don't mind doing it extract + steep, and using a massive top up and top ups during the boil, and even more especially if you are using high AA hops that you can short boil and end up with the result you want (IE you are brewing an IPA/APA or some other beer where hop flavor is appropriate and you have a high AA hop with that flavor). The best thing about that is you don't need a chiller at all either, there is enough top up water that it cools it for you if it's cold. It sounds totally stupid according to the "rules". But you can make it work and you can make really good beer that way. I know because I've done that too before I got my bigger pots and better stove.

It might not be best practice, but you can make it work. This comes from someone who 20 years ago did nothing but AG with big equipment. Desperation leads to innovation. That's where BIAB came from. And No-Chill. Aussies with no water, but wanting to make beer.

Doing it right is over-rated LOL.

Jim, if you want to have an "insane brewing techniques" demo, let me know LOL.

I think you misunderstood me.

I rarely use a wort chiiler; I use an ice slurry. When I use a chiller, I recirculate (I live in a desert). I do extract + steeping grains and mini mash on the stovetop all the time. I've never done a thick mash technique. Wouldn't that also require a big adjustment to the hop schedule?

[mashani]

Wouldn't that also require a big adjustment to the hop schedule?

It depends on the beer, but for many kinds it's mostly just adjustments to the bittering hops. Beyond that in my experience it's not really so much of an issue. It's obviously more difficult if you are trying to "clone" something vs. building your own recipe, and may require multiple attempts to figure out exactly what makes it work out the way you want until you get the hang of it with your equipment/volume. But the changes are not as drastic as you would think, and regardless you will likely get good beer, even if not a "perfect clone".

Another thing you can do with small pots limiting initial volume to gain some efficiency, is to do a thick partigyle style second mash with a limited sparge or no sparge - put the results into a second pot, and boil that along side your main pot, then add that back to the main pot as the main pot boils off some of its volume. You likely would be topping up the main pot anyways during the boil since your working with a small volume (and you are *going to top up to final volume anyway, so this does not hurt anything even though it sounds evil*), so you may as well top up with more mash instead of just water and gain some extra gravity points to make up for the lower efficiency. In either case, it's actually better for hop utilization to keep topping it up since your gravity is higher.

This is the kind of thing where yes, it defies all of what we know is right, but it can work and work well - you just have to tinker with it until you find the sweet spot for your equipment limitations.

[jimjohson]

Remember ale was accidently being made by hunter/gatherers around a campfire...we overthink things. there is not nor will there ever be a video on insane brewing techniques. I ain't got the personality to pull it off. Got nothin against vids, when I sell an equipment kit and HME kit I direct them to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAJKWCdaPq4 I don't agree with him boiling the HME but the boss said the official shop line is Boil...So boil. As to how I brew a.g. ... I brew cheap I do not have a mash tun what I have is: one 8 gal aluminum pot, one 6.5 gal bottling bucket, one 6.5 gal fermenter, 1 plastic lid for a colander, one 6.5 gal sparge bag with 3 cloths pins, a solar blanket (bubble wrap with aluminum foil on either side) and 3 of my wife's "throws".(less in the summer) I mash in my pot (the grains go in "commando")the bag is in the bottling bucket with the colander lid(for space between the bag and the spigot). At the end of the mash empty the pot into the bottling bucket. Drain into the fermenter. Vorlauf x 3.(by this I mean run the wort thru the grain bed 3 times) add sparge water cove and wrap in throws...allow to "mash" for 20 min. Vorlauf x 3. Repeat sparge.

[The_Professor]

I apologize. When I read this thread title it reminds me of a saying that compares a word in the thread title with something else everyone has. So swapping those words makes the thread title somewhat humorous. And oddly enough that would be exactly what it would take to spoil the class.

A bit more seriously, an "all grain" class would depend on the intended audience. At it's most basic, it would be getting past foreign brewing terms and really understanding that the process is pretty simple. Such as mash/rest is really holding a certain temperature. Sparge is really just rinsing the grain. After that is a familiar hop boil. Maybe with a mention of hot and cold break, and cooling wort before pitching yeast.

[Yankeedag]

I thought I covered that in the Simple Brew Guide. Maybe I should go back and re-read that and see what I failed to explain. It isn't that brewing is hard, it's that bit about learning the Terminology. Once you learn the "lingo", you can jack jaw with the best of them. Oh well.

[FedoraDave]

Jim, do you intend to do a 5-gallon batch, or something smaller volume? I ask because you say these guys are experienced extract kit brewers, so a lot of stuff doesn't need to be explained (hot break, hop additions, etc.). Basically, you're just guiding them up to "the next step" in their brewing knowledge.

So maybe a smaller batch would be appropriate, and you might want to focus on the difference between BIAB technique and using a mash tun. Because, really, once you've got your pre-boil wort volume, they pretty much know the drill after that. So you're not teaching a class on AG brewing, you're teaching a class on AG technique, to get them to the point they're already familiar with.

I don't intend to throw a left-handed monkey wrench into your plans; I'm merely trying to help you focus on what you need to emphasize in your presentation. This isn't Brewing For Dummies; it's a class on AG technique for experienced brewers. Maybe a BIAB demonstration with a correlation to using a mash tun would be another direction to pursue.

Just throwing it out there....

[jimjohson]

You haven't thrown anything in yet. I ain't even posted the sign up sheet yet. Not doing that till sat.. However You Dave are in the , perhaps, un-enviable position of being able to advise on sign up sheets. I'm thinking of letting it run all month. these guys only seem to have 1 fermenter each, so they show up in dribs -n- drabs. I also plan to announce the sign ups on the stores fb page. I also intend to announce inkleg's BIAB demo to my local club. Do you think I would benefit from a longer sign up?

As to your suggestion, I even gave thought to a partial mash with one of the kits they're use to. The down side is it's been a couple years since I worked with a small batch. IMHO I should stick to my strengths. (I am open to other opinions)

[Pudge]

If these guys are extract brewers, seems like you really only need to hit the grains/mash hard. The rest they should already have a grasp on. Explaining how the mash works and how it opens up a whole new world of possibilities with the various grains out there is the important part. They might pick up a tidbit here or there about the boil/chilling/fermentation too.

Terminology, that's the big part in my mind as I said earlier. Rinsing the grains is soooo much easier than "sparge".

[FedoraDave]

Well, my point was sort of that you don't need to take them from raw grain to bottle of beer in this class/demonstration. That will shorten the presentation dramatically, since you really only need to concentrate on grind, strike temp, mash-in, rest, sparge, and reaching pre-boil volume. After that, these guys know the drill. So it's only a matter of which technique you want to demonstrate, and I think you are right to go with your strengths. These guys know enough to be able to branch out on their own later. Once I was comfortable with my mash tun technique, it was easy for me to pick up some pointers on BIAB and start doing that for my smaller batches.

So demonstrating mash-in technique would be where I would start. I'd emphasize strike temperature, properly stirring the grains in to avoid clumps, air pockets, and dough balls, calculating mash volume based on grain weight, and what to expect re: first runnings volume. During the rest, I'd talk about efficiency, grist, online resources. You might even want to talk about recipe formulation. Start with base malts and their characteristics, then introduce the specialty malts. Use your current recipe as an example, i.e. "I'm making a pale ale, and these are the grains I used, and why I used them. I could start with this grain bill, add some of this malt, and some of this malt, and suddenly I've got an Irish Red grain bill." You're going to have an hour in which to do this, so prepare for it. Take questions and encourage discussion.

As far as the sign-in sheet, I think a month is adequate, especially if you're using the other resources like their FB page, and announcing to your club.

[bpgreen]

Another thing you can point out about all grain (and partial mash to an extent), is the added control over body that they have some they control mash temperatures.

[jimjohson]

i.e. "I'm making a pale ale, and these are the grains I used, and why I used them. I could start with this grain bill, add some of this malt, and some of this malt, and suddenly I've got an Irish Red grain bill."

Actually the recipe we will be doing was made exactly like that. It started life as that extract cream ale recipe by Palmer (on howtobrew.com)I wanted to make an APA instead. So I "fixed" it (After all I just spent the last hour learning how).

I like the "evolution" of a recipe idea..

[Inkleg]

Just to update this, I contacted Jim and offered my brewing services. So Saturday Jim and I met at the shop and brewed. Some folks stopped by, we brewed beer, we learned, we talked and a good time was had by all!!!! (sorry I had to leave so soon Jim, but Im still feeling under the weather). The folks that came by wanted to expand their brewing knowledge and as questions, to which we answered.
Great to see you and your wife again my friend and talk beer and life! My Pale Ale is fermenting away quite nicely.