Making the move to All-Grain Brewing

I've made the leap to all grain brewing.  I got a 10 gallon round cooler, installed a stainless steel mesh filter (From a high pressure hose) installed a valve and decided to try my hand at batch sparging.

Last weekend I did my Pale Ale recipe that turned out so good before.  I did an all grain version on Saturday, and then on Sunday I did the same recipe with extract.  My train of thought here is since these beers are only one day apart I can taste test both bottles and see what, if any, difference there is.

Here's the recipe I used:

Fermentables:
6lbs Light DME (for extract version)
9lbs Briess 2 Row Malt (for all-grain version)

Grains:
8oz Crystal 10L
8oz Carapils

Hops:
2oz Perle (60 min)
1oz Cascade (5 min)
1oz Cascade (dry)

Yeast:
Safale S-05 US Style Dry Yeast

Adjunct:
Wirlfloc Tablet (15 min)

I mashed @ 155f for 60 min, sparged with 170f water twice and brewed.  The color of the wort looked the same both times.  The gravity readings were different.  The all grain had an OG of 1.042, and the extract had an OG of 1.048.  The previous two times I brewed this I had an OG of 1.044 and 1.042, so I am on track.

One thing that is certain, all grain is cheaper, $0.77/lb of grain versus $2.02/lb of LME.  Of course you use more grains (9lbs of grains versus 6.6 lbs of LME) but that still comes out to $6.93 versus $13.33 for the fermentables.

The all grain did add a couple hours to my brew day, but all in all I think it was worth it.  I was able to do the mashing inside while watching the Ohio State game.  It was actually a lot of fun.

These brews will be ready to drink by the end of October, so I'll be sure to update when they are ready.

Today's the big day! GO BUCKEYES!

If you are a keen observer you may have noticed I moved my 'Buckeye Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter' to "ready to drink" on my current beers list in the side bar... You know what that means...

Tonight at 7:30PM the Buckeyes kick off against Marshall, and that means my 'Buckeye Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter' gets it's debut at kick-off tonight!

I put a 12 pack in the fridge last night, and I can't wait to have everyone try it.