Five weeks after Part 1, I took the plunge into all-grain. I’m not going to sugar-coat it: brew day was long, chaotic, and involved me standing in the kitchen at 11pm dumping cold tap water into a kettle to avoid a boilover. But the result was worth every minute.
The recipe
I brewed a simple single-hop American Pale Ale. Grain bill:
| Grain | Weight | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Pale Ale Malt (2R) | 4.5 kg | Base malt |
| Munich Malt | 0.3 kg | Body and colour |
| Crystal 20L | 0.2 kg | Sweetness, head retention |
Hops: Cascade (60-minute bittering addition, 15-minute flavour, dry hop).
Yeast: US-05 — the workhorse of homebrewing, tolerant of temperature swings which is important when your fermenter is in a South African shed.
Target OG: 1.052. Actual OG: 1.049. Pre-boil efficiency: around 68% — respectable for a first attempt.
The mash
Mashing is the process of combining crushed malt with hot water (the “strike water”) to convert starches to fermentable sugars. Target temperature is 67°C for a medium-bodied beer — I hit 65.5°C, which shifts the profile slightly drier.
My mash tun is a converted 20L cooler with a braided stainless steel false bottom. Not fancy. Works fine.
Strike water temp = (0.41 / grain-to-water ratio) × (target temp - grain temp) + target tempI mashed for 60 minutes then batch-sparged with 15L of 76°C water.
The boil
60-minute boil. This is where things got spicy. I was doing a full-volume boil for the first time and the kettle was very full. Hit a rolling boil, turned away for 30 seconds, came back to a volcano of hop-foam threatening the ceiling. Quick lid trick to break the surface tension, turned the heat down a notch. Crisis averted.
Cooling and pitching
Chilling the wort down to pitching temp (18°C) is the most time-consuming step if you don’t have an immersion chiller on city water. I used an ice bath — two bags of ice in the kitchen sink with the kettle sitting in it. Took about 45 minutes to get to 22°C, which is fine for US-05.
Pitched the rehydrated dry yeast, sealed the fermenter, attached the airlock. Done.
Two weeks later
FG came in at 1.010. ABV: approximately 5.1%. Colour is a classic amber-gold. The Cascade dry hop came through nicely — citrus and a little pine. Much more nuanced than the extract pale ale.
Carbonation is in progress. Part 3 will cover conditioning, kegging vs. bottling, and the patience required to not open bottles too early.