The legend himself. It's always fun to read the comments here. This is one of the first AG videos I watched when learning, and still find myself re-watching -- or reading "the" book, and still continue to learn something new. Cheers! -Ian
Brewery Show Yeah I watch this video a lot for little subtle details in technique. And also to see the awesome wall of grains that he's just chewing on nonchalantly.
Thanks for this. There are many other "how to" videos on all-grain brewing but this is by far the best. Great info from someone that knows how to teach it, nicely shot, good sound and well edited. The others have some of these, but rarely all of these.
Also be patient and never panic during the process. In my very first batch ever (in my kitchen in Kuwait), I am a mechanical engineer and thought I had everything organized and calculated perfectly, including heat transfer calcs. But imagine my surprise when I started my cooling phase and found that my "cold" tap water was 108F, and not the 85F that I had assumed (I knew it was warm from my showers, but not THAT warm!). My final temp was 95F at midnight (after using all the ice that I had prepared and even frozen peas bags and everything else in my freezer!), and I figured all my hard work was in vain, as I would never be able to get it cool enough in time to pitch yeast. Then I had a flash, I put an old tee shirt over my carboy, soaked it and put a room fan in front of it. I went to bed, got up 4 hours later, and had 68F! And this ended up being the best batch I have ever made! (Of course this judgment may have been a little influenced by being my first batch and being in a totally dry country! But, trust me, it was gooood!).
That's a fun story, I have my first batch going right now, 5 days old. 5 gallons of a kit called st paul porter. Very dark and smelled amazing on brew day. 5 more weeks though before I can open a bottle of it, can't wait to see how my first comes out.
awesome story man, brewing adventures are always full of surprises. I also had a very interesting apartment home brew experience where my buddies immersion chiller leaked all over and it was my buddies apartment,and we were a lil drunk lmao. I kept warning him saying it's too much water leaking but he didn't listen, next thing ya know I hear his girlfriend yellin his name soo mad 😂 (they're engaged now lmao) but yeah we had to soak up the water with towels, wring it into their bathtub and repeat, this was also at like 11 pm and we were still cooling down our boil 😂😂😂
got your book and learned to brew 5 gal on stove nov '18. learning curve turned up tons as i grow to 30 gal HERMS elect system from Blichmann. thank you for sharing your knowledge sir.
After having first read "how to brew" maybe 25 years or more ago it's nice to discover a video and put a face to the name! That looks like a great mild! Nice to see John appreciates the style too. I regularly brew two types of mild ales quite but more in the Victorian style.. 0.60 and 072 OG, or a summer beer and a winter jet fuel! boiled in copper, open fermented and without wort chillers or any fining additions, usually maris otter and a combination of black / crystal malts. The Kent Goldings are a must of course but I usually go with fuggles, might give it a go substituting the fuggles with progress but was told many years ago by an old timer that progress were a poor mans fuggles! :)
If a picture is worth 1000 words, then a video must equal a million. Then when J.P. is on it, it goes TeraExponental. That man is awesome for Homebrewing. Being an extract guy, I never realized you stir & reset the grainbed with each sparge (I had this image in my head, I guess from fly-sparge pics, of carefully trying to preserve the original grainbed. And the calcium and pH discussions were very useful. Thanks gents!
This was a great demo. I'm doing all grain, but actually have never done a batch sparge. Looking at this demo, I'm willing to give it a try and it looks as if I'm just going to have to bit the bullet and upgrade my kettles. Thanks! Very helpful.
Great video. I have been brewing for years and still love videos like this. Some is validating my process and some is learning. Thanks for the time to create these vids. Keep them coming.
Hi, I'm watching this from Canterbury, Kent in the UK. Our lovely local hops, the East Kent Goldings you refer to at the start of the boil are what characterizes our local beers in Kent as being distinctly hoppy. Shepherd Neame in nearby Faversham typify this style. I used to brew all grain at home many years ago and I'm looking to take it up again. Great video and you guys have some lovely equipment that I'm jealous of! Well done over there for championing our style of beer and thanks for posting. It's inspiring me already.
Was chatting online to a friend from Texas and he mentioned those hops too. They seem like a good place to start for serious efforts - I'm just obtaining the equipment together now. Videos like this help, but also show what a mountain there is to climb to do it properly!
Ian.... My Family roots are in Timsbury , Romsey Shire, and We have a pub there....The Malthouse Inn....Been in the Family for generations. I remember Uncle Pip telling me stories of walking to Kent, Which was a long journey just to get some of those East Kent Goldings for the brew....... Thank you for recalling those stories...!!
Great Vid. John's a great teacher. His book "How to Brew" is IMHO the best out there. I used it when I first starting brewing and haven't looked back since.
Great videos. Learning so much from John Palmer after reading 'Water a comprehensive guide for brewer's'. O started off using DME and the boil but in the last 6 months started all grain brewing which didn't seem quite right. Now I know why thanks to John, great stuff, more of your knowledge please 😃
Thanks for the video. I used to brew back in the 90's from extract and it was pretty good New Castle clone but life happened and stopped doing it. I recently brewed a 5 gallon all grain batch for the first time, and I wasn't ready. (I didn't have spigot buckets or a false bottom) so everything was by hand. The beer was very forgiving so I got lucky. I learned alot here. I need some more equipment lol.
I appreciate you knowledge John. I must read how to brew once a week (bits and pieces). Getting into partial mashes and someday when I get out of my small apartment I can go full mash. You've really made it easier to understand. Thank you!
Thanks for the brilliant website and videos! Great for us first-time brewers. Just bought your book on Amazon and am looking forward to going through it in detail...
Wow what a great calmness and what a thoroughly explained lesson. Thank you so much. I´m soon in for my THIRD batch ever :D (Actually I did a batch of extract beer in the nineties and I guess it scared me off and recently a friend got me to begin and I wonder "Why did´nt I do this earlier"? I recently did my first with some second hand gear and man it was pure chaos! But It´s "beer" in the fermenter!! The nice thing today is there is so much nice gear. Second thing I bought now was a 9 liter keg and a carbonation kit. Any day now I will buy another keg and some complementary things. Merry Christmas!!
I am glad you mentioned extract kits. I just did a Brewers Best Double IPA. Holy crap! It was awesome. I am new at this, but some of the veterans in our club were blown away at how good it was. I added time to the boil for the hop additions for more hop flavor. It had some amazing body. The only suggestion given to me was to dry hop it for added aroma. Some of the veterans look down on extract kits. I was glad I was able to make them rethink their views. Thanks for the video.
I never paid much attention to the water I used in terms of ph and alkalinity, etc. But I will now. Thanks for posting your brew. Very helpful. -cheers
When batch sparging you don't need to mash out. Mash out is to raise the temp to stop conversion. With batch sparging you can start heating the first running as you drain and draining only takes a few minutes.
John, do you like your Top Tier? I ask because I like how it doesn't take up a lot of space. I have two Blichmann pots and one HLT made from a Gott Cooler. I am also going to make the Gott HLT electric soon. Thanks for all you have done for the Homebrew community.
Ben Jerry: I can't seem to direct reply to you, but the reason Americans use pellet hops is simply that they are cheaper, and more readily available. When I go to a homebrew store, they may have a few varieties available in whole leaf or plugs, but the vast majority of their stock will be pellet. Even commercial brewers use pellets.
Thanks man, I brewed an amber ale with extract and grain, carbonated in the bottle with priming sugar, it was okay. All grain is going to suit my taste much better, thanks.
Great video! John explains everything so calm and clear! I've a question though, when you are sending the bolied wort from the pot to the fermentor, there's a kind of temperature controller (a thermometer, in daily language). Can you give me the details of this instrument? can I buy one in metric units? Thanks!
I'm just getting ready for my first all grain. When you put your 2nd batch water in, and stir. Do you keep the tap flowing into the boiler, or turn it off for a while to let the grains circulate and then rest again upon the filter?
I am going to be jumping to all grain. Built my own cooler mashtun from videos on here. Buying a 10 gallon kettle from Amazon. This video helped with my anxiety a little. I have Florida well water. It has a ph of 8.6. Could I use acid malt instead of mash stabilizer and using powdered chemicals?
It absolutely depends on the gravity you are looking for and the mash efficiency of your system. Play around with some online calculators and DEFINITELY start with some established recipes if you are new.
How high a temperature will those plastic coolers withstand? I've heard at high temps they tend to expand and buckle and stay that way, not that it matters. What do you think of the stainless steel jobs with injected foam insulation in them?
This video was shot some time again, so the details are fuzzy. (We've had a homebrew or two since then.) But, we believe it was Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley Ale. www.northernbrewer.com/products/wyeast-thames-valley-ale
I've got to ask about the mashout and the profile of the beer based on your conversion temperature. If you didn't mash out, there was no denature. If the boil kettle wasn't fired up, the liquid was allowed to cool below your target mash temperature. This essentially kept the conversions going down in the ranges that make a beer highly fermentable, as you had mentioned early in the video, right? I've wondered if this was true, considering I brew in the same style.
Hey thanks for the help. I've done 2 all grain brews now, trying to do lagers. they prob won't be drinkable!! But I guess i'll get better in the end!Hopefully :)
Dang.. I've been having all sorts of efficiency issues usin my new brewzilla lately.. What you said about a slow sparge may be the key... I've been mashing out for 10mins which has been meaning the sparge drains so quick I can barely keep up getting water from my HLT into it! Light bulb moment.. thanks mate!
Instead of heating the entire malt back up for insertion of hopps, can you take a small portion of the malt and boil this on the stove and add back to cooling batch to save power ? 5 Gal is a lot to heat back up.
If you are concerned about your water at all it is a good idea to add the Campden Tablets to all water that's going to be used for mashing, sparging, topping off, etc.
The brew temp is "boiling." Basically, you want to start your hop addition schedule when you reach your boil. If you are doing a 60 minute boil, you typically will add your bittering hops as soon as the wort boils, and then start your boil timer.
Did the mash temp ever exceed 152F to cease conversion, prior to batch sparge, or during sparge? Perhaps when batch sparging you do not cease conversion?
Very new to homebrewing myself and thinking of going all grain as I am doing partial mash/BIAB brews now after staring off with extracts. My first question is that after watching this and many other vids it seems with AG its very easy to convert to by just excluding extract from the ingredients? I do partial/BIAB but still add about 3-6lbs depending on recipe to my boil after mashing/steeping. Also, he mentioned the bad water here in TX, i've noticed a pH powder being used in some AG vids and was curious if a tablespoon per 5 gal as instructed will be enough or should I focus on salts, acids, etc or add in campden? Thanks
Interesting talk from John regarding the pH of the sparge water @ 15:57 . Would sparging still be safe if doing an all grain lager/pilsner that is quite sensitive to pH? Would the pilsner malt retain enough buffers to bring the pH down? (I will be using a bit of acidulated malt in the initial mash to bring it down to 5.2-5.4 after pH testing with litmus if needed...). Would it be wise to add a bit of acidulated malt to the sparging mash (after first-draining)? Two of my previous batches of pilsners ended up with an unpleasant metallic taste and I have since researched a lot about mash pH - so tomorrow will be my first attempt at mash pH correctness and also using double decoction (thanks Michael Dawson for the video on his keller beer decoction, watched it 5 times - Canoe Cam! haha) anyways - your advice would be great!
Tom.. Lager nor Pils are pH sensitive. Enzymes are pH sensitive. Using RO and Pils malt, mash pH will be 5.8 /5.7. Refer to a malt data sheet before attempting to produce any type of world class styles of beer. The sheet is produced for a reason and brew master's use it. Home brewers, including the marketing team of ZanyPalmerJammySheff, Chip and Dale, do not know that one exists. The sheet indicates pH, Kolbach, protein level, saccharification time, etc... As long as mash pH is at 5.3, sparging with straight RO at pH 7/7.2 will not increase run off pH above 5.3. As long as over sparging does not take place. Since, you are going to attempt the Chip and Dale show's poorly performed decoction process, realize that a step is missing, as well as different steps that are part of the true decoction method. The double decoction is relatively new, since the 60s. It came about due to profit margin. Do not assume that just because someone claimed that modern malt is wonderful, that steps can be eliminated. Malt is malt. However, there are different grades of modern malt and the only thing that can be used to determine the quality of malt is by using the malt data sheet. A brew master uses it for that purpose. Do not assume that just because the malt is in an HBS it is fine malt. Cheap malt is just what it is. Do the following, it is the way that a true decoction is performed and the final product will be of a much higher quality than the liquid produced during the Chip and Dale show or the liquid which Brew Keester creates. Dough in the mash at 60F with one quart water per pound of malt and allow pH to stabilize. Then, add sauer malz to reduce main mash pH to 5.5. Do not follow the instructions that mention that a certain quantity of sauer malz reduces mash pH to a certain level, it is home brew nonsense. Sauer malz varies in pH and it is better to start out with a small amount and test pH and add more as needed. Sauer malt quality varies, as well. Fine sauer malz costs between three to five dollars a pound. There is a reason behind reducing pH to only 5.5 during dough in, it has to do with what will occur during the 1st decoction. When mash pH stabilizes at 5.5, remove the 1st decoction. Increase decoction temperature to 122F and rest the decoction for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes increase decoction temperature to 155F and rest until saccharification occurs. The decoction will darken during saccharification. Test with iodine, the iodine should be deep red/mahogany in color. If iodine turns purple/blue/black, wait another 10 minutes and test again. If the iodine remains purple/blue/black, the malt is slack, cease operation. There is no sense in going any farther. Purchase finer malt, next time. Purchase Weyermann's floor malt, light, dark or Barke, if it is available. The numbers on the side of the sack can be e-mailed to Weyermann and they will send the malt data sheet to you for that sack of malt. After saccharification takes place in the 1st decoction, bring the decoction to boiling. Boil the decoction until hot break forms and skim off the break. Continue to boil until hot break ceases to form. The reason for doughing in cold is to allow the brewer to work with the 1st decoction for longer lengths of time, there by reducing protein gum, during the time when the main mash temperature is below the temperature at which enzymes become active. Return the boiling decoction back into the main mash, the temperature to reach is 130F, use boiling water if necessary. When the main mash temperature stabilizes at 130F, remove the second decoction. Understand, that you are now on Mother Nature's time clock and saccharification, although it is slow, is beginning to occur during the 130F rest. During the rest, proteinase will activate and it will reduce beta glucan and form glucose, thereby, reducing mash viscosity. The glucose formed will be converted into complex sugar, maltose and maltotriose during the next step in the process. When fine malt is used, iodine will be orange/red during the end of the 130F rest. It is imperative that mash temperature does not vary during the proteinase rest. Raise the temperature of the 2nd decoction rapidly to 145F and rest the decoction for 20 minutes and test with iodine. The iodine should be reddish/orange in color. If the iodine turns purple/blue, do not worry, wait another 10 minutes. Then, bring the decoction to boiling and boil it for 20 minutes, regardless of the iodine's color, and skim off hot break. After 20 minutes of boiling, return the 2nd decoction back into the main mash. The temperature to achieve will be 149F. Use boiling water if necessary. When the main mash temperature stabilizes at 149F, add sauer malz and reduce pH to 5.3 and no lower that 5. The pH favors Beta and slows down Alpha. The mash will jell, dextrinization (body created from A and B limit dextrin), as well as, conversion will begin to occur. The mash will darken. It is imperative that mash temperature stays at 149F and no higher than 150F. Remove the 3rd decoction as soon as the main mash pH and temperature have stabilized and quickly increase the temperature of the 3rd decoction to 158F and rest the decoction for 10 minutes. Then, bring the decoction to boiling and boil it for 20 minutes, skimming off break as it forms. Return the 3rd decoction back into the main mash, the temperature to reach is 162F and rest the main mash for 10 minutes. Mash out if desired. However, it is not necessary because the snot has been beat out of the enzymes. Transfer the mash to the lautertun and stir the mash one time and only one time. Tan or gray colored mud will form on top of the grain bed in the lautertun. DO NOT STIR THE MUD INTO THE MASH. DO NOT BATCH SPARGE, you have worked very hard to create pristine wort and there is no sense in ruining it by batch sparging. If the mud is tan, sparging can be performed quickly. If the mud is gray, sparging will take longer, so don't get excited or become impatient. Perhaps, you have read that sparging may take three hours? Gray mud. Sparge until run off gravity drops to 1020, that is far enough, unless the volume of wort is not enough. Then, sparge down to 1015. Sparging down to 1010 is more home brew nonsense. Run off pH if RO is used will be around 5.3 at the end of the sparge. When the bottom of the boiler is covered with wort, add a small single handful of leaf hops and fire the boiler. This is actual first wort hopping, it has nothing to do with what home brewers have been led to believe. It is a brew masters trick which reduces hot break and the small amount of hops will not add any bitterness. As the wort boils skim off hot break as it forms, there will not be much, the wort is very clean. After hot break ceases, add the bittering hops and boil the wort for at least 60 minutes, skimming off break. Chill the wort and allow the wort to settle for eight hours. Then, rack the wort off of the trub, aerate and add yeast. First fermentation 10 days. Second fermentation two weeks. During second fermentation another type of conversion occurs when yeast absorbs maltose and expels glucose through the cell walls of yeast. The gravity will reduce. Keg the beer at 1020/1015 gravity, it should be there after two weeks in the secondary. Priming sugar nor artificial carbonation will be needed. The maltotriose will be absorbed by yeast during aging and natural carbonation occurs when the yeast converts maltotriose into glucose, after yeast uses the glucose as fuel. Gravity will continue to reduce as the beer ages. The beer will be void of oxygen. The oxygen used by yeast in order to burn the fuel is bound within the molecular structure of the sugar. Age the beer for at least four months, six months is better. The things about brewing that you have learned by reading home brew books or have learned from watching youtubes does not scratch the surface when it comes to the art and science involved in producing the finest world class styles of beer from Ale to Wee Heavy. It takes years of hard work to learn about and to understand Mother Nature.
I enjoyed reading this treatise, and am curious. Is all the decoction mashing necessary for all styles? I know that as a basic home brewer, I am leaving out steps and protocols that a pro does automatically. What you say makes a ton of sense. I've always wondered how some of the new breweries are keeping their recipes consistent since the malt will vary from sack to sack, and you've enlightened me. I can't help but think, though, that lots of these new breweries are essentially ramped-up buckets and coolers and really aren't doing much more than Palmer shows in this video. Agree?
Michael, WOW! Can't believe I've only seen your reply now... Thanks for this great reply and all the info, an eye-opener and I will definitely try this method from now on. One question: What volume of decoction do I pull? A third or two thirds of the mash?
Oh and my pilsner I brewed just after my initial comment last year turned out a lot better than before, it did have a slight banana aroma and nutty taste, which was very drinkable but not what I was going for. I have researched more on water and minerals etc. I'm looking at RO filtration and adjusting with minerals and salts to achieve a more classic lager/pilsner profile. I haven't brewed a lager/pilsner since last year. Its quite daunting and I always strive for perfection, so if you could point me to some water adjusting websites or info, I'd be very grateful. Thanks again for your info.
So, I'm trying to dip my toes in here at All Grain, the Mashing/Sparging stage is, in laymen's terms, sort of like doing a pour over or drip coffee, correct? I get the grains and what not in a consistent, warm bath and then filter and pour it back to let the grains settle and maintain flavor, and then empty it after a bit?
Sort of. Mashing in means you have water already in your mash tun, and you pour the grain in and mix it around (to prevent doughing up). After it has sit for an hour or so, you run some out and pour it back in, repeating until it's clear. When it's clear, you drain it completely into your kettle. After that, batch sparging is just dumping more hot water back into the tun, mix it around, and wait again (20 mins or so). Then do as you did with the mash: run some out, pour back in (until it's clear). When clear, drain entirely into your kettle.
@@stgeorge143 So so worth it. Small batches, no problem. And you can get sterile pipettes by the bag on amazon cheap. Just make sure to get a temperature compensating refractometer, or you will spend all the time saved on calibration, etc.
What an amazing video. How can I help in producing more videos? Personally this is worth a couple thousand dollars for me. I love the change in beer perspective! how can I help the movement?
re-watching this vid again, and just noticed that in the how to brew book, that i have also been rereading, John says to add the water to the grains, not the other way around (exact quote from the book , page 201 under starting the mash, paragraph 3 - mash in) but in the vid, its adding grains to the water... Im still learning, but which is it? does it make a difference? or it is for certain beers?
Can someone explain why he adds the grain to the water and the reverse like he tells you to do in his book "How to brew"? From what I remember I thought he specifically said not to add the grain to water.
L0ts0fPiggies You can use ditilled water and then do the math to emulate the water of a style you are brewing. BUT You will need to add more than the above only. In particular trace minerals like zinc if useing distilled water--its no biggie as there are lots of online water calculaters-
2023 and this is still one of the best tutorials on TH-cam👍
John Palmer not only understands brewing well, he is very good at imparting his knowledge. Nice video.
The legend himself. It's always fun to read the comments here.
This is one of the first AG videos I watched when learning, and still find myself re-watching -- or reading "the" book, and still continue to learn something new. Cheers! -Ian
Brewery Show Yeah I watch this video a lot for little subtle details in technique. And also to see the awesome wall of grains that he's just chewing on nonchalantly.
Nice to see John Palmer hasn't forgotten about us home brewers with this video. Cheers
The best run through possible
Thanks for this. There are many other "how to" videos on all-grain brewing but this is by far the best. Great info from someone that knows how to teach it, nicely shot, good sound and well edited. The others have some of these, but rarely all of these.
Excellent instructional video. Palmer is as articulate here as he is in his book. Best overview of mashing and batch sparging I've seen.
Also be patient and never panic during the process. In my very first batch ever (in my kitchen in Kuwait), I am a mechanical engineer and thought I had everything organized and calculated perfectly, including heat transfer calcs. But imagine my surprise when I started my cooling phase and found that my "cold" tap water was 108F, and not the 85F that I had assumed (I knew it was warm from my showers, but not THAT warm!). My final temp was 95F at midnight (after using all the ice that I had prepared and even frozen peas bags and everything else in my freezer!), and I figured all my hard work was in vain, as I would never be able to get it cool enough in time to pitch yeast. Then I had a flash, I put an old tee shirt over my carboy, soaked it and put a room fan in front of it. I went to bed, got up 4 hours later, and had 68F! And this ended up being the best batch I have ever made! (Of course this judgment may have been a little influenced by being my first batch and being in a totally dry country! But, trust me, it was gooood!).
That's a fun story, I have my first batch going right now, 5 days old. 5 gallons of a kit called st paul porter. Very dark and smelled amazing on brew day. 5 more weeks though before I can open a bottle of it, can't wait to see how my first comes out.
awesome story man, brewing adventures are always full of surprises. I also had a very interesting apartment home brew experience where my buddies immersion chiller leaked all over and it was my buddies apartment,and we were a lil drunk lmao. I kept warning him saying it's too much water leaking but he didn't listen, next thing ya know I hear his girlfriend yellin his name soo mad 😂 (they're engaged now lmao) but yeah we had to soak up the water with towels, wring it into their bathtub and repeat, this was also at like 11 pm and we were still cooling down our boil 😂😂😂
EASY MEAD
Just looking into starting all grain and this video has explained so much compared to other videos I've seen cheers lads keep them coming
got your book and learned to brew 5 gal on stove nov '18. learning curve turned up tons as i grow to 30 gal HERMS elect system from Blichmann. thank you for sharing your knowledge sir.
After having first read "how to brew" maybe 25 years or more ago it's nice to discover a video and put a face to the name! That looks like a great mild!
Nice to see John appreciates the style too.
I regularly brew two types of mild ales quite but more in the Victorian style.. 0.60 and 072 OG, or a summer beer and a winter jet fuel! boiled in copper, open fermented and without wort chillers or any fining additions, usually maris otter and a combination of black / crystal malts.
The Kent Goldings are a must of course but I usually go with fuggles, might give it a go substituting the fuggles with progress but was told many years ago by an old timer that progress were a poor mans fuggles! :)
You had us at open-fermented mild. I bet it's a thing of beauty.
If a picture is worth 1000 words, then a video must equal a million. Then when J.P. is on it, it goes TeraExponental. That man is awesome for Homebrewing. Being an extract guy, I never realized you stir & reset the grainbed with each sparge (I had this image in my head, I guess from fly-sparge pics, of carefully trying to preserve the original grainbed. And the calcium and pH discussions were very useful. Thanks gents!
This was very helpful information for someone who is preparing for a first time all grain brewing. Thanks for taking the time to film this.
Having seen the disappearance of mild from the pubs in and around Nottingham. It hearten me to see Americans brewing this style.
+eyechubcunt You can get mild in micropubs in the UK. AND, try the geordie mild kit. It's done in only three weeks.
This was a great demo. I'm doing all grain, but actually have never done a batch sparge. Looking at this demo, I'm willing to give it a try and it looks as if I'm just going to have to bit the bullet and upgrade my kettles. Thanks! Very helpful.
Great video. I have been brewing for years and still love videos like this. Some is validating my process and some is learning. Thanks for the time to create these vids. Keep them coming.
Hi, I'm watching this from Canterbury, Kent in the UK. Our lovely local hops, the East Kent Goldings you refer to at the start of the boil are what characterizes our local beers in Kent as being distinctly hoppy. Shepherd Neame in nearby Faversham typify this style. I used to brew all grain at home many years ago and I'm looking to take it up again. Great video and you guys have some lovely equipment that I'm jealous of! Well done over there for championing our style of beer and thanks for posting. It's inspiring me already.
Was chatting online to a friend from Texas and he mentioned those hops too. They seem like a good place to start for serious efforts - I'm just obtaining the equipment together now. Videos like this help, but also show what a mountain there is to climb to do it properly!
Ian....
My Family roots are in Timsbury , Romsey Shire, and We have a pub there....The Malthouse Inn....Been in the Family for generations. I remember Uncle Pip telling me stories of walking to Kent, Which was a long journey just to get some of those East Kent Goldings for the brew....... Thank you for recalling those stories...!!
Great Vid. John's a great teacher. His book "How to Brew" is IMHO the best out there. I used it when I first starting brewing and haven't looked back since.
The best brewer especially batch sparging. Brilliantly done 11:59
What a great video for a newbie like me to see. Learned so much thanks guys
Great videos. Learning so much from John Palmer after reading 'Water a comprehensive guide for brewer's'. O started off using DME and the boil but in the last 6 months started all grain brewing which didn't seem quite right. Now I know why thanks to John, great stuff, more of your knowledge please 😃
Great to hear! Thanks for checking it out and letting us know.
Thanks for the video. I used to brew back in the 90's from extract and it was pretty good New Castle clone but life happened and stopped doing it. I recently brewed a 5 gallon all grain batch for the first time, and I wasn't ready. (I didn't have spigot buckets or a false bottom) so everything was by hand. The beer was very forgiving so I got lucky. I learned alot here. I need some more equipment lol.
Drooling at the choices of grains at Northern Brewer! How cool it'd be to work there AND to be able to brew with John Palmer!
This was very helpful. New grain Brewer doing 1 gal biab but soon to be purchasing some equipment for 5-6 gallon batches of all grain.
Thank you.
John Palmer is a legend - check out his book "how to brew"
that's the 1st book i read. thank you JP
I appreciate you knowledge John. I must read how to brew once a week (bits and pieces). Getting into partial mashes and someday when I get out of my small apartment I can go full mash. You've really made it easier to understand. Thank you!
That was the best video I've seen in explaining sparging and how it's done.
Thanks for the brilliant website and videos! Great for us first-time brewers. Just bought your book on Amazon and am looking forward to going through it in detail...
Wow what a great calmness and what a thoroughly explained lesson. Thank you so much. I´m soon in for my THIRD batch ever :D (Actually I did a batch of extract beer in the nineties and I guess it scared me off and recently a friend got me to begin and I wonder "Why did´nt I do this earlier"? I recently did my first with some second hand gear and man it was pure chaos! But It´s "beer" in the fermenter!! The nice thing today is there is so much nice gear. Second thing I bought now was a 9 liter keg and a carbonation kit. Any day now I will buy another keg and some complementary things.
Merry Christmas!!
It's great to see Oz from American Pie is keeping busy. ;) great video!
Been a follower for years. I was surprised he did a youtube video.. thats awesome!
great book, great video! thanks JP.
I am glad you mentioned extract kits. I just did a Brewers Best Double IPA. Holy crap! It was awesome. I am new at this, but some of the veterans in our club were blown away at how good it was. I added time to the boil for the hop additions for more hop flavor. It had some amazing body. The only suggestion given to me was to dry hop it for added aroma. Some of the veterans look down on extract kits. I was glad I was able to make them rethink their views. Thanks for the video.
Good stuff. That looked like a great batch.
This is a seriously helpful video. Clearly presented various steps I needed to understand. Thank you.
Thanks for the great batch sparging video, JP should do more of these videos lots of good info for learning homebrewers cheers!
This guy is a brewmaster, speaks English properly and is really polite ¡great!
Thanks for the video and the book. Your book is great.
Excellent video…..very informative
Great walkthrough, thank you!
I never paid much attention to the water I used in terms of ph and alkalinity, etc. But I will now. Thanks for posting your brew. Very helpful. -cheers
What a great ad for northern brewer
When batch sparging you don't need to mash out. Mash out is to raise the temp to stop conversion. With batch sparging you can start heating the first running as you drain and draining only takes a few minutes.
Did my first all grain brew yesterday, made a SMASH with Marris otter and cascade
Awesome! What kind of system or equipment did you use?
@@NorthernBrewerTV Pretty low tech equipment, just a big pot and brew in a bag set up. Seems to have got the job done though 🤞
John, do you like your Top Tier? I ask because I like how it doesn't take up a lot of space. I have two Blichmann pots and one HLT made from a Gott Cooler. I am also going to make the Gott HLT electric soon. Thanks for all you have done for the Homebrew community.
What a great video, thanks guys
Man, awesome, so informative. Im going to watch this 10 times and take notes!
Great video john
Great job John
Cheers
Thanks for passing on your knowledge. Happy 2020.
Ben Jerry: I can't seem to direct reply to you, but the reason Americans use pellet hops is simply that they are cheaper, and more readily available. When I go to a homebrew store, they may have a few varieties available in whole leaf or plugs, but the vast majority of their stock will be pellet. Even commercial brewers use pellets.
great video! thanks for taking the time to put this up.
Thanks man, I brewed an amber ale with extract and grain, carbonated in the bottle with priming sugar, it was okay. All grain is going to suit my taste much better, thanks.
I plan on buying the book as soon as it's released.
Best place to buy high quality home brew equipment and kits
Thanks so much. We always try our best!
Great video! John explains everything so calm and clear!
I've a question though, when you are sending the bolied wort from the pot to the fermentor, there's a kind of temperature controller (a thermometer, in daily language). Can you give me the details of this instrument? can I buy one in metric units?
Thanks!
to you mean thermometer on the fermentor,or do u mean a temp controller for your fermentation temperture control?
Great video, I have learnt a lot with John's book and videos.
I'm just getting ready for my first all grain. When you put your 2nd batch water in, and stir. Do you keep the tap flowing into the boiler, or turn it off for a while to let the grains circulate and then rest again upon the filter?
Great video from one of the masters. I wonder what yeast he used though.
The man the myth the legend
I am going to be jumping to all grain. Built my own cooler mashtun from videos on here. Buying a 10 gallon kettle from Amazon. This video helped with my anxiety a little. I have Florida well water. It has a ph of 8.6. Could I use acid malt instead of mash stabilizer and using powdered chemicals?
Great learning experience. Thank you!
Thanks John! I bought your book. You have answered a lot of my questions about home brewing, thank you for keeping everything simple
It absolutely depends on the gravity you are looking for and the mash efficiency of your system. Play around with some online calculators and DEFINITELY start with some established recipes if you are new.
How high a temperature will those plastic coolers withstand? I've heard at high temps they tend to expand and buckle and stay that way, not that it matters. What do you think of the stainless steel jobs with injected foam insulation in them?
Did you ever pitch the yeast? What kind did you use? Didn't see it in the video
This video was shot some time again, so the details are fuzzy. (We've had a homebrew or two since then.) But, we believe it was Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley Ale.
www.northernbrewer.com/products/wyeast-thames-valley-ale
I've got to ask about the mashout and the profile of the beer based on your conversion temperature. If you didn't mash out, there was no denature. If the boil kettle wasn't fired up, the liquid was allowed to cool below your target mash temperature. This essentially kept the conversions going down in the ranges that make a beer highly fermentable, as you had mentioned early in the video, right? I've wondered if this was true, considering I brew in the same style.
This man is my hero
excellent video very informative, sure beats those craigtube videos that are all over youtube
Added link to video description above. Thanks for your interest!
And the mash out???
Hey thanks for the help. I've done 2 all grain brews now, trying to do lagers. they prob won't be drinkable!! But I guess i'll get better in the end!Hopefully :)
Dang.. I've been having all sorts of efficiency issues usin my new brewzilla lately.. What you said about a slow sparge may be the key... I've been mashing out for 10mins which has been meaning the sparge drains so quick I can barely keep up getting water from my HLT into it! Light bulb moment.. thanks mate!
Instead of heating the entire malt back up for insertion of hopps, can you take a small portion of the malt and boil this on the stove and add back to cooling batch to save power ? 5 Gal is a lot to heat back up.
do you still add the tablets to get rid of the chlorine in the sparge water?
If you are concerned about your water at all it is a good idea to add the Campden Tablets to all water that's going to be used for mashing, sparging, topping off, etc.
Great video, thanks!! Was that an extract packet in the background? Looked like 'Mangrove Jacks'?
Love your book!
Great video! Helped a lot! Cheers!
The brew temp is "boiling." Basically, you want to start your hop addition schedule when you reach your boil. If you are doing a 60 minute boil, you typically will add your bittering hops as soon as the wort boils, and then start your boil timer.
Did the mash temp ever exceed 152F to cease conversion, prior to batch sparge, or during sparge? Perhaps when batch sparging you do not cease conversion?
Very new to homebrewing myself and thinking of going all grain as I am doing partial mash/BIAB brews now after staring off with extracts. My first question is that after watching this and many other vids it seems with AG its very easy to convert to by just excluding extract from the ingredients? I do partial/BIAB but still add about 3-6lbs depending on recipe to my boil after mashing/steeping. Also, he mentioned the bad water here in TX, i've noticed a pH powder being used in some AG vids and was curious if a tablespoon per 5 gal as instructed will be enough or should I focus on salts, acids, etc or add in campden? Thanks
Any reason why the boil was so 'soft'? I thought the more agressive and bigger the rolls in the boil increases clarity?
Great Video! Thanks so much!
Interesting talk from John regarding the pH of the sparge water @ 15:57 .
Would sparging still be safe if doing an all grain lager/pilsner that is quite sensitive to pH?
Would the pilsner malt retain enough buffers to bring the pH down? (I will be using a bit of acidulated malt in the initial mash to bring it down to 5.2-5.4 after pH testing with litmus if needed...).
Would it be wise to add a bit of acidulated malt to the sparging mash (after first-draining)?
Two of my previous batches of pilsners ended up with an unpleasant metallic taste and I have since researched a lot about mash pH - so tomorrow will be my first attempt at mash pH correctness and also using double decoction (thanks Michael Dawson for the video on his keller beer decoction, watched it 5 times - Canoe Cam! haha)
anyways - your advice would be great!
Tom.. Lager nor Pils are pH sensitive. Enzymes are pH sensitive. Using RO and Pils malt, mash pH will be 5.8 /5.7. Refer to a malt data sheet before attempting to produce any type of world class styles of beer. The sheet is produced for a reason and brew master's use it. Home brewers, including the marketing team of ZanyPalmerJammySheff, Chip and Dale, do not know that one exists. The sheet indicates pH, Kolbach, protein level, saccharification time, etc...
As long as mash pH is at 5.3, sparging with straight RO at pH 7/7.2 will not increase run off pH above 5.3. As long as over sparging does not take place.
Since, you are going to attempt the Chip and Dale show's poorly performed decoction process, realize that a step is missing, as well as different steps that are part of the true decoction method. The double decoction is relatively new, since the 60s. It came about due to profit margin. Do not assume that just because someone claimed that modern malt is wonderful, that steps can be eliminated. Malt is malt. However, there are different grades of modern malt and the only thing that can be used to determine the quality of malt is by using the malt data sheet. A brew master uses it for that purpose. Do not assume that just because the malt is in an HBS it is fine malt. Cheap malt is just what it is.
Do the following, it is the way that a true decoction is performed and the final product will be of a much higher quality than the liquid produced during the Chip and Dale show or the liquid which Brew Keester creates.
Dough in the mash at 60F with one quart water per pound of malt and allow pH to stabilize. Then, add sauer malz to reduce main mash pH to 5.5. Do not follow the instructions that mention that a certain quantity of sauer malz reduces mash pH to a certain level, it is home brew nonsense. Sauer malz varies in pH and it is better to start out with a small amount and test pH and add more as needed. Sauer malt quality varies, as well. Fine sauer malz costs between three to five dollars a pound.
There is a reason behind reducing pH to only 5.5 during dough in, it has to do with what will occur during the 1st decoction. When mash pH stabilizes at 5.5, remove the 1st decoction. Increase decoction temperature to 122F and rest the decoction for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes increase decoction temperature to 155F and rest until saccharification occurs. The decoction will darken during saccharification. Test with iodine, the iodine should be deep red/mahogany in color. If iodine turns purple/blue/black, wait another 10 minutes and test again. If the iodine remains purple/blue/black, the malt is slack, cease operation. There is no sense in going any farther. Purchase finer malt, next time. Purchase Weyermann's floor malt, light, dark or Barke, if it is available. The numbers on the side of the sack can be e-mailed to Weyermann and they will send the malt data sheet to you for that sack of malt.
After saccharification takes place in the 1st decoction, bring the decoction to boiling. Boil the decoction until hot break forms and skim off the break. Continue to boil until hot break ceases to form.
The reason for doughing in cold is to allow the brewer to work with the 1st decoction for longer lengths of time, there by reducing protein gum, during the time when the main mash temperature is below the temperature at which enzymes become active.
Return the boiling decoction back into the main mash, the temperature to reach is 130F, use boiling water if necessary. When the main mash temperature stabilizes at 130F, remove the second decoction. Understand, that you are now on Mother Nature's time clock and saccharification, although it is slow, is beginning to occur during the 130F rest. During the rest, proteinase will activate and it will reduce beta glucan and form glucose, thereby, reducing mash viscosity. The glucose formed will be converted into complex sugar, maltose and maltotriose during the next step in the process. When fine malt is used, iodine will be orange/red during the end of the 130F rest. It is imperative that mash temperature does not vary during the proteinase rest.
Raise the temperature of the 2nd decoction rapidly to 145F and rest the decoction for 20 minutes and test with iodine. The iodine should be reddish/orange in color. If the iodine turns purple/blue, do not worry, wait another 10 minutes. Then, bring the decoction to boiling and boil it for 20 minutes, regardless of the iodine's color, and skim off hot break. After 20 minutes of boiling, return the 2nd decoction back into the main mash. The temperature to achieve will be 149F. Use boiling water if necessary.
When the main mash temperature stabilizes at 149F, add sauer malz and reduce pH to 5.3 and no lower that 5. The pH favors Beta and slows down Alpha.
The mash will jell, dextrinization (body created from A and B limit dextrin), as well as, conversion will begin to occur. The mash will darken. It is imperative that mash temperature stays at 149F and no higher than 150F.
Remove the 3rd decoction as soon as the main mash pH and temperature have stabilized and quickly increase the temperature of the 3rd decoction to 158F and rest the decoction for 10 minutes. Then, bring the decoction to boiling and boil it for 20 minutes, skimming off break as it forms. Return the 3rd decoction back into the main mash, the temperature to reach is 162F and rest the main mash for 10 minutes. Mash out if desired. However, it is not necessary because the snot has been beat out of the enzymes.
Transfer the mash to the lautertun and stir the mash one time and only one time. Tan or gray colored mud will form on top of the grain bed in the lautertun. DO NOT STIR THE MUD INTO THE MASH. DO NOT BATCH SPARGE, you have worked very hard to create pristine wort and there is no sense in ruining it by batch sparging. If the mud is tan, sparging can be performed quickly. If the mud is gray, sparging will take longer, so don't get excited or become impatient. Perhaps, you have read that sparging may take three hours? Gray mud. Sparge until run off gravity drops to 1020, that is far enough, unless the volume of wort is not enough. Then, sparge down to 1015. Sparging down to 1010 is more home brew nonsense. Run off pH if RO is used will be around 5.3 at the end of the sparge.
When the bottom of the boiler is covered with wort, add a small single handful of leaf hops and fire the boiler. This is actual first wort hopping, it has nothing to do with what home brewers have been led to believe. It is a brew masters trick which reduces hot break and the small amount of hops will not add any bitterness. As the wort boils skim off hot break as it forms, there will not be much, the wort is very clean. After hot break ceases, add the bittering hops and boil the wort for at least 60 minutes, skimming off break. Chill the wort and allow the wort to settle for eight hours. Then, rack the wort off of the trub, aerate and add yeast. First fermentation 10 days. Second fermentation two weeks. During second fermentation another type of conversion occurs when yeast absorbs maltose and expels glucose through the cell walls of yeast. The gravity will reduce. Keg the beer at 1020/1015 gravity, it should be there after two weeks in the secondary. Priming sugar nor artificial carbonation will be needed. The maltotriose will be absorbed by yeast during aging and natural carbonation occurs when the yeast converts maltotriose into glucose, after yeast uses the glucose as fuel. Gravity will continue to reduce as the beer ages. The beer will be void of oxygen. The oxygen used by yeast in order to burn the fuel is bound within the molecular structure of the sugar. Age the beer for at least four months, six months is better. The things about brewing that you have learned by reading home brew books or have learned from watching youtubes does not scratch the surface when it comes to the art and science involved in producing the finest world class styles of beer from Ale to Wee Heavy. It takes years of hard work to learn about and to understand Mother Nature.
I enjoyed reading this treatise, and am curious. Is all the decoction mashing necessary for all styles? I know that as a basic home brewer, I am leaving out steps and protocols that a pro does automatically. What you say makes a ton of sense. I've always wondered how some of the new breweries are keeping their recipes consistent since the malt will vary from sack to sack, and you've enlightened me. I can't help but think, though, that lots of these new breweries are essentially ramped-up buckets and coolers and really aren't doing much more than Palmer shows in this video. Agree?
Michael, WOW! Can't believe I've only seen your reply now... Thanks for this great reply and all the info, an eye-opener and I will definitely try this method from now on. One question: What volume of decoction do I pull? A third or two thirds of the mash?
Oh and my pilsner I brewed just after my initial comment last year turned out a lot better than before, it did have a slight banana aroma and nutty taste, which was very drinkable but not what I was going for. I have researched more on water and minerals etc. I'm looking at RO filtration and adjusting with minerals and salts to achieve a more classic lager/pilsner profile. I haven't brewed a lager/pilsner since last year. Its quite daunting and I always strive for perfection, so if you could point me to some water adjusting websites or info, I'd be very grateful. Thanks again for your info.
Very helpful. I already see 3 or 4 things I did incorrectly with an all-grain (Biere de Garde) brew last weekend.
Is this the guy from Clerks?
Walter LaFleur I like to refer to him as the Kevin Smith of homebrewing.
Lol a Mashup between Dante from clerks and Julien from trailer park boys!
No . . . this is .... ''The Man''
What temperature is your second sparge?
John - do you ever do any demos / presentations etc. back in HOUGHTON, MICHIGAN? Come back to da U.P.!
Great vid. thanks for putting it up.
What a great video!
i noticed that you added the grain to the water but your book says to add the water to the grain. so does it really matter which way it is done?
So, I'm trying to dip my toes in here at All Grain, the Mashing/Sparging stage is, in laymen's terms, sort of like doing a pour over or drip coffee, correct? I get the grains and what not in a consistent, warm bath and then filter and pour it back to let the grains settle and maintain flavor, and then empty it after a bit?
Sort of. Mashing in means you have water already in your mash tun, and you pour the grain in and mix it around (to prevent doughing up). After it has sit for an hour or so, you run some out and pour it back in, repeating until it's clear. When it's clear, you drain it completely into your kettle. After that, batch sparging is just dumping more hot water back into the tun, mix it around, and wait again (20 mins or so). Then do as you did with the mash: run some out, pour back in (until it's clear). When clear, drain entirely into your kettle.
At about 17:14 or so, what is that device that you are looking into? I'm relatively new to this so i'm not not familiar with every tool.
Its a refractometer, they're using it to measure the gravity of the wort.
It's a very handy tool that lets you use only a few drops of wort to measure gravity as opposed to a few hundred milliliters with a hydrometer.
@@stgeorge143 So so worth it. Small batches, no problem. And you can get sterile pipettes by the bag on amazon cheap. Just make sure to get a temperature compensating refractometer, or you will spend all the time saved on calibration, etc.
I'm new to homebrewing so bare with me. How many pounds of grain are typically used in a 5 gallon batch?
What an amazing video. How can I help in producing more videos? Personally this is worth a couple thousand dollars for me. I love the change in beer perspective! how can I help the movement?
re-watching this vid again, and just noticed that in the how to brew book, that i have also been rereading, John says to add the water to the grains, not the other way around (exact quote from the book , page 201 under starting the mash, paragraph 3 - mash in) but in the vid, its adding grains to the water... Im still learning, but which is it? does it make a difference? or it is for certain beers?
grains to the water, otherwise you could develop dough balls
@@dylangaming537 stirring constantly of course. Either way if you don't have a person or system mixing for you, you run that risk.
Great video! I didn't see you put in the yeast though, or did I miss that part?
How did you oxygenate the beer?
Gary Layton I use a disposable oxy welders tank and a stainles steel oxy stone for 60 seconds to oxygenate
Thanks Neo
Can someone explain why he adds the grain to the water and the reverse like he tells you to do in his book "How to brew"? From what I remember I thought he specifically said not to add the grain to water.
Okay so when using calcium chloride and calcium sulfate, could you use distiller water? Or should I just stick to my regular spring water?
depending on where you live, 2:1 ratio of distilled to tap, you need those minerals for mashing, to put it simple.
L0ts0fPiggies You can use ditilled water and then do the math to emulate the water of a style you are brewing. BUT You will need to add more than the above only. In particular trace minerals like zinc if useing distilled water--its no biggie as there are lots of online water calculaters-
Was reading John's book and saw a photo... all I could think is, I swear I have seen him somewhere before...
It's like "Where's Palmer?"