Section 3 – Brewing All-Grain Beer
Introduction
Welcome to the third section of How To Brew. Here is where we remove the training wheels and do everything from scratch. All of the world’s classic beers are produced using malted grain and the methods that I am now going to teach you. The all-grain brewing method allows you the most flexibility in designing and producing an individual wort. Once you have mastered these basic techniques, you will be able to walk into any beer store or pub, select any beer and say with confidence, “I can brew this.” The fundamental techniques and related science will be explained in the following chapters.
Using all-grain brewing can be like driving a car. You can get in, turn the key and off you go; using it to go from point A to point B without much thought about it. Or you can know what’s under the hood—knowing that by checking the oil, changing the spark plugs and listening for clanking noises that there are things you can do to make that car work more efficiently for you. Without getting into internal combustion theory, I am going to teach you what is under the hood of your mash. You may not use all of this information (Lord knows I haven’t changed my oil in over a year), but at least you will have a good understanding of what is available to you.
To make an all-grain beer, you can simply crush the grain, soak the grain in hot water for an hour, drain the grain, rinse the grain, and be done. It really is that simple. This section will make it seem really technical, but is only because I am trying to give you all the tools. People have been doing this for a thousands of years; it works at any level of technology. Feel free to skip directly to Chapter 19 and just do it. You will make beer.
In this chapter, I will explain how different temperatures activate different malt enzymes and how these enzymes convert the malt starches into fermentable sugars. Each temperature rest and its related enzyme groups will be described with respect to the effects on the composition of the wort.
The difference between a good brewer and a great brewer is his or her ability to control the brewing process. The pH of the mash affects enzyme activity as well as the flavor of the wort. In Chapter 15—Understanding the Mash pH, we will discuss how the malts and the brewing water combine to determine the pH of the mash. Water chemistry will be explained by showing you how to use the information in a city water report to customize your mash. The chemistry of the brewing water can be adjusted through the use of brewing salts to insure proper mash conditions for best performance of the enzymes discussed in the preceding chapter.
In this chapter, I describe how to actually do the mash. There are two principal methods—infusion and decoction. Infusion is the simpler and I will discuss how to use it to brew your first all-grain beer. Equations for both infusion and decoction temperature rests are discussed with examples.
In Chapter 17—Getting the Wort Out, the fluid mechanics of lautering will be discussed so that you will have a better idea of how to conduct the lauter for the best extraction. There are several lautering techniques in common use and I will describe each.
This chapter brings the malt types, mashing parameters, and lautering techniques together to show you how much wort you can expect from your efforts. The concept of brewing efficiency is presented to enable you to adapt any recipe to your equipment and methods.
Finally! We get to mash! Step by step, let's go!
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