AG Brewing - Upstairs Apartment Edition

January 20, 2008

Guest Post by: Josh Marenger

Don’t use the fact that you live in an upper as an excuse for not doing all-grain. I did for some time, especially since only two of the burners on my lousy electric stove work (the small ones too!). After some thought I realized that it was not only possible but easy provided that you pay a little closer attention.

What you need:
2 aluminum stock pots - no need for anything fancy here I just use cheapo $25 ones
A converted picnic cooler - more info here: http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD.html

Sparing all of the dirty details of AG, you mash and batch sparge as usual. The only difference is that you heat your water in equal amounts in the pots (with the lids on) to expedite the process instead of waiting forever for that one pot to hit the right temp. Take frequent measurements to ensure you don’t overshoot your temp! I collect the wort in my bottling bucket and then distribute it, again in equal amounts, back into the pots. Typically I heat them with the lids on until they get close to boiling, then remove the lids for the boil itself. The reasoning is here for those interested: http://www.homebrewzone.com/dimethyl-sulfide.htm Obviously at this point you split your hop bill and any adjuncts in half between the two pots and boil. Cool the wort and pitch as normal. Voila, you’re done!

Obviously there are limitations with this setup. You’re not going to be able to do a monster 1.100+ beer mainly due to the volume of water you’d have to collect from such a huge grain bill. It’d take forever to boil all of that off (if it boiled at all) or you wouldn’t be able to fit all of it in your cooler. A beer with an OG of 1.070 isn’t out of the question though. If you really want to bump it up after that, obviously that’s where adjunct sugars, extracts, etc. come in to play.

By no means am I an expert homebrewer nor the first to come up with this, but I’ve done several batches on this setup now and can say that it works effectively if you can’t or don’t want to fire up a turkey cooker outside.

Posted in Brewing