a picnic cooler
my sparging setup.
My brew pots
Calculate how much water you need and the temperature..
That white dot in the bottom is the Campden tablet...
The basic equipment that you need for all-grain is:
(1) A means for holding the mash at a desired temperature for about 1.5 hours. I use a picnic cooler. You could use a large pot...
(2) Something to separate the sweet-liquid from the spent grains
(3) Enough pot capacity to handle 6+ gallons of wort. I use two 16 quart stock pots.
Other than that, once you get to the boiling stage it's pretty much the same as extract brewing except that you may be dealing with a lot more liquids than your accustomed.
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The first thing to do after you have gathered up all your ingredients is to calculate just how much hot water (strike water) that you are going to need for your mash. I use 1.25 quarts per lb of grains. So if I have a total of 9 lbs of grain... this is 1.25 x 9 = 11.5 quarts or just about 3 gallons.
When you mix hot water with cold grains, the final temperature is going to be less than the hot water. With my cooler I get a 15F drop. Since I want 150F for my mash temperature, I should heat my strike water (11.5 qt) to 165F. When I mix this with the grains, the final stable temperature should be close to 150F.
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As I heat the water up I throw in a Campden tablet. The sulfates react with the chlorine in the water. Nifty, eh? Note the candy thermometer. The digital outdoor / indoor thermometer goes up to like almost 160F, so 165F is a little off-scale...
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