All-Grain Brewing Process & Pictures

I start with hot water from the sink, add ½ a campden tablet to the mash water to remove chlorine and chloramines, and then turn on my burner on low.
While the mash water is heating up, I weigh and crush my grains.
Once my grain is crushed, I check that my mash water is 15 degrees over my desired mash-in temp and pour the mash water into my cooler mash tun.
After the water is added to the mash tun, I pour my crushed grain into the cooler while stirring with my mash paddle.
Once the grains are mixed in and I have a temp between 148-158 (*depending on beer style)I let the mash sit for 60 minutes in order to convert the starches to sugar.
1. * If you want a beer that is very fermentable and has a thinner body, you will use a lower mash temp (148-150). If you’re making a beer you want to finish a little sweeter, use the upper range (156-158). NOTE: I typically mash most of my beers at 154.
When the mash has about 15 minutes left, I’ll measure out my sparge water, add the other ½ of the campden tablet, and then start heating that in the HLT.
Once my sparge water is around 185 degrees, I add enough of it to the mash to give me roughly half my pre-boil volume
1. For most beers, this means adding about a gallon of the sparge water to the mash.
After stirring my mash, I open the valve on my mash tun about ½ way and drain a quart or two into a pitcher until there are no chunks of grain coming through. This is called vorloffing.
I then start draining into my boil kettle and pour the couple quarts of runoff back into the mash tun.
After pouring the quart or two of wort back into the mash tun, I’ll slowly open up the valve until it’s fully open. I usually do this over the course of 10 seconds or so.
Once all the wort is drained from the first runnings, I add the remainder of the sparge water to the mash tun and stir well.
Follow the same process of draining as above.
While I’m waiting for the wort to come to a boil, I dump my mash tun and clean it out
When the wort comes to a boil, I usually skim off the break material that floats to the surface of the kettle. This isn’t necessary but really cuts down on boilovers when adding hops.
Add your 60 minute hop addition and start a timer. Add other hops as indicated in your recipe.

When there’s about 15 minutes left in the boil, I submerge my immersion chiller into the wort in order to sanitize it, and add both Irish Moss and Yeast Nutrient. After adding the immersion chiller, I usually turn up the burner for a little bit until the wort is boiling again.
Once I’m finished with my 60 minute boil, I hook up my chiller to a cold faucet and start running water through it. I usually open the faucet about ½ of the way or less.
While the wort is chilling down, I sanitize my fermenter and get the yeast ready to pitch.
When the wort reaches 70 degrees or les, I’ll remove the chiller and pour my wort into a sanitized fermenter. I’ve found that this adds enough air/oxygen to provide a good fermentation.
I then place the fermenter into my temperature controlled fridge and cleanup all my equipment.