All Grain

All grain brewing is the advanced process used by commercial and Craft Brewers to create commercial beers. With a little bit of equipment and time, the homebrewer can create all-grain brews as well. The main difference between all-grain and Extract Brewing or Partial Mash brewing is that in an all-grain brew, the entire volume of unfermented beer (called wort) is created by mashing crushed Malt and running hot water through the grain bed in a process called lautering.

All Grain Brewing Steps

All grain brewing includes the following steps:

• Crushed malts are mashed in a separate mash tun by heating them with either hot water (an infusion mash) or an external heat source. The grains are held at a temperature of 148-158 F for 45-90 minutes to allow sugars to be converted.
• The heated grains are lautered by running hot water through them and using a screen filter to extract the hot liquid called wort
• Hops are added, and the wort is boiled for 60-90 minutes
• The wort is rapidly cooled and siphoned into another vessel for fermentation
• Yeast is added, and the beer ferments for 7-14 days
• Priming sugar is added to the finished beer and it is bottled or kegged for consumption

See Also

• Brewing Processes
• Malt
• Moving to All Grain

External Links

• How to Brew by John Palmer