Starting allgrain

[Paul Cannell]

Hi guys.

Looking to get into allgrain brewing because I've come to the conclusion that the extract brews all taste the same. I've got a 40L chilly bin that I'm going to make a manifold for today. However, I only have a 20L aluminum pot which i think may be a little small to boil 19L in. Is there any way i can get away with it?

Any hints or suggestions appreciated. 

[Richard Jack]

You could always just brew a higher gravity wort and dilute into the fermenter.

What you should do is just get a big pot from trademe. Cheap as chips and then when budget allows you can put in some weldless fittings (drain, sight glass, whatever).

[Peter Smith]

You could brew strong and water it down,   regarding volumes, as an example yesterday I started the boil with about 33L in the pot , got 22L wort and turfed about 3-4L of crap at end , thus lost about 7L evap during boil off...  but the point is you need at least a 40L ish pot to have some margin of safety and ability to not have to stand over the boil.   I use electricity not gas.   If possible I would look towards a 55-60L pot if you ever intend on doing double batches.....   makes doing singles easy as virtually no change of a boil over.

[Paul Cannell]

Something like this you think

http://www.trademe.co.nz/717637841

Budget being the main factor at the moment, hi do I go about making it stronger and watering it down?

[Scott H]

These are pretty much the same but cheaper.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/716046042
The internal dimensions of the 63L ones calculate to have a 55L volume.
I'm using them in my current build.

[Crusader-Rob]

yep, get a bigger pot, miakes life much easier. I suggest checking trademem for a deal, i ended up getting a cheapo 50litre one and paid $35 plus shipping, (it was a $1 reserve) brand new pot.

[Paul Cannell]

Got a 60l pot on the way. Made a manifold for my chilly bin. Should be good to go now.

[Scott H]

Cool. Look forward to hearing about your first AG brewday.

[Paul Cannell]

Looking at getting an epic clone AG kit from Allgrain.co.nz

Figured its probably a good way to start.

Any complaints?

[Peter Smith]

Grains:

5.5KG Pilsner Malt (NZ) (*Base Malt)

0.45KG Pale Crystal (UK)

interestingly he says pilsner on the web site, I have always done this with golden promise pale malt.   I have this in a keg at the moment used us05 as had it, and ended up doing a 150g dry hop in the end.    It tastes awesome, I did 60 , 10 and 3 with a 10 min whirlpool.  I mashed at 66C

There isn't a lot of places to hide any off flavours with this beer,  I used us05 at 17 for three days then took up 0.5C each day until it was 19.5, dried hop first time , left for about 5 days then moved carboy into garage,  in total i did secondary this beer for 3 weeks, a little long but no grassy flavours came through.   Have to say its been in keg for 3 weeks at 2-3C tastes great once its fully carbed up.  Its a bit cloudy but no floaties....  I cold crashed to 2C for about 3 days prior to kegging.  Should have used gelatine.

I need to do a side by side tasting again,   great beer but these days I find the single hop a little bit one dimensional, find myself leaning towards wanting to drink a deeble style pale ale with a ton of different nz hops all late additions.   you find out you own tastes when you get several good beers side by side in kegs.  Great beer to have on tap when friends come around.

[Richard Rice]

That is NOT Epic Pale Ale. 

THIS is how you brew Epic Pale Ale:

http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/profiles/blogs/brewing-a-good-nz-pa...

I didn't have the right amounts of grain but had all four of them and my clone still turned out pretty good.  This guys recipe is apparently one of the closest you can do as a homebrewer.  I'm pretty damn sure Luke Nicholas doesn't use Pilsner malt to make a Pale Ale.

[Peter Smith]

 but Deebles pale ale with all those different hops is nothing like epa.... DPA is damn good maybe better (ducks for cover...) but EPA is 100% us cascade as per Luke's interview.

I get more tangerines in my kegged Epa clone vs the real bottles which are a little spicier...  maybe the us05 as well?  its nice enough that the keg will be finished in under 2 weeks....   when i have bottled its best 3-5 weeks, under this its too sweat and after looses its super hopiness

[Richard Rice]

Oh rats...of course...I forgot he did his own hop bill.

We did ours as a last minute thing and could only find Pacifica, and the marmalade that came out of it was magnificent - but I would definitely prefer to use NZ or US Cascade next time - try to replicate the flavour as much as possible.

Tho, my point was more about the grain bill than the hop bill... :)

I found a random bottle yesterday actually and thoroughly enjoyed it!  Tho, like you it's definitey lost it's hoppiness, but overall the beer was still damned tasty!