from what you said, it sounds to me like you could probably easily make the jump to all-grain brewing on the stovetop. here's how it might go for a 3-gallon batch:

in your brewpot, heat 9 quarts of water. when the water hits 170 deg(1), dump in the grain. stir gently to break up any dry lumps and make sure all grain gets wet. stir up the grains every ten minutes, stopping after the fourth time. this will give the grainbed the last 20 minutes of the mash to

settle. after one hour has elapsed, use a siphon (preferred) or careful ladling (also works) to transfer the clear liquid on top to a separate container. whatever big containers you have will do for this temporary step, since the wort is ultimately going to go back into your brewpot once the grains have been eliminated. also, since you're going to boil the heck out of the wort, you don't have to worry too much about sanitation of these other containers. the same goes for stirring spoons, other utensils, etc. the rule of thumb is that before the boil, anything the wort touches just has to be clean. after the boil it has to be clean AND sanitized.

if you can tell that you're getting this portion of the wort out without any

grains in it, carry on. if you're getting grains, you should run it through a cheese cloth on the way to your boil pot. (probably a good practice anyway) when you've removed all the liquid that can be gotten to conveniently, you'll be left with the grainbed plus a few quarts of water in

your mash pot(2). dump all of this into a separate container(s) through a strainer. a good way to strain the grains is to use a metal mesh strainer (not a solid collander with holes in it) and firmly attach a cheesecloth to

the UNDERSIDE of it. this way, the strainer stops the large husks, and the

cheesecloth then stops the smaller bits of hull that make it through the strainer. then dump the grains from the strainer into a separate cheesecloth bag. (in theory you could just dump it all into a cheesecloth bag and forget the strainer, but for ergonomic reasons this is easier said than done.)

The Teabag Analogy. the closest everyday experience to conducting the mash is making a cup of tea. you steep the tea in hot water for a few minutes, then remove the bag and drink the tea. but if you're careful, you can save the bag and make another cup with it. the second cup won't be as strong, but clearly the bag still has some left to give. your cheesecloth full of wet grains is in the same state. the water you removed at first has probably the lion's share of the sugars, but there's still a significant proportion left in that bag. so how do you get 'em out? make a cup of tea! heat up 5 quarts(3) of water to about 170 degrees(4), and dip in the bag. repeatedly dip it and gently squeeze it as you would a tea bag to extract the majority of the sugars from it. when you're satisfied, give the

bag a good final squeeze and discard(5).

now rinse out your brewpot to make sure you've got it free of any remaining grains. pour the wort you initially removed, along with your "tea", back into your big pot and crank up the heat. proceed with your hop additions as usual. at this point everything happens the same as with extract. the only difference is that you now have about $6 dollars more in your pocket than you would if you'd brewed with extract, since extract is usually at least twice as expensive as plain jane grain, which runs about $1 per pound(6). ----------------------

Notes

1) how i arrived at the 170 degree temperature here is from a chart in one of my brewing books that tells you how many degrees a given amount of grain will drop a given amount of water when added. to make it easier, the charts use a ratio of mash water to grain because that ratio tends to be fixed for a particular recipe. e.g., the standard rule of thumb ratio is 1.5 quart water/1 lb grain. so in theory any addition of grain to a volume of 170 deg water which results in a mash with a 1.5 qt/1 lb ratio will drop the temp of the water to 154 deg F, regardless of the initial volume of water. in theory. 2) the volume of saturated grain is .32 quarts per pound. so if you skimmed off ALL the liquid above the grain bed (not realistically possible), you would then be left with (.32 quarts/lb) x (6 lbs. grain) = 1.92 quarts of wet grain. this may affect your choice of strainer!

3) the final rinsing of sugars off the grains is referred to as sparging, and the water you use to do this is the sparge water. brewers like to know ahead of time about how much sparge water they will use in order to raise the collection volume to their target level. here's how i arrived at 5 quarts for your sparge:

final, post-boil volume (FV): 3 gallons preboil volume (PV): FV x 1.2 = 3.6 gallons (accounts for loss due to evaporation) mash volume (MV): 1.5 quarts/lb grain x 6 lbs grain = 9 quarts sparge volume (SV): PV - MV = 3.6 gallons - 9 quarts = 14 quarts - 9 quarts = 5 quarts

SV = 5 quarts

4) mid- to high 160's is fine, the main thing here is not to exceed 170 degrees because at about 175 degrees, water will quickly leach very astringent tannins out of the grain husks. the reason for using water hotter than the original mash temp here is twofold: one, at around
170,
water will deactive the enzymatic actions taking place in the wort. this is

desirable because, should your mashing/sparging process be interupted for whatever reason, you can let it sit without the flavor profile of the wort changing. for the small batch brewer, this is not too important unless you're really into repeatability. the second, more important reason is that the hotter the water, the better it will rinse the sugars. of course, boiling hot water would rinse even better, but then there's that pesky tannin extraction issue again. so 170 deg is the right balance. btw, this step is called the Mashout, and the high 160's-170 deg mark is known as the

mashout temperature.

5) don't forget to throw your spent grains onto the mulch pile; i've heard direct anecdotes that spent brewing grains are without equal in terms of nutrifying the backyard veggie patch. one guy told me that after a winter's worth of spent-grains mulched into his tomato patch, the tomatoes he got the following summer were so huge, dark and meaty that his neighbors were convinced that all his brewing equipment was just cover for some genetic engineering experiment going on in his basement!

6) cost savings. if you ever have an off day, or a ruined batch, or for whatever reason begin to doubt the wisdom of brewing your own beer, consider these numbers:

retail cost of six-pack (~half gallon) of good beer: $6 cost of six-pack of homebrew (expressed as a fraction of a typical 5 gallon batch): 9 lbs of grain $9 3 oz hops $3 1 yeast packet $1

Total $13

$13/5 gallons = $X/.5 gallons
X = $1.30

$1.30 a six-pack!!! for beer that is just plain BETTER than heineken. not to mention budweiser.

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Other Resources:

Online Strike Water Calculator, as well as other brewing calculators: http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml Suggested Reading. in my opinion, the best single book to buy about homebrewing is "How To Brew", by John Palmer. it describes techniques in a

format that's easily digested by the non-technical beginner, and has info useful for the advanced brewer as well. i carried this around under my arm for about six months, and i'd attribute about 75% of my knowledge to this single resource. and yes, after that six months the book did smell kinda funny.