Extract vs. Grain

Hi all. What are peoples thoughts about extract vs. partial or all grain? Is one better than the other?

You are either trolling or you haven't sufficiently searched this vast pillar of information on homebrewing.

google: homebrewtalk all grain vs extract

or do a site search to the same effect.

Not trolling just new to brewing. I will look into those suggestions you made.

Cliff's notes answer: All preference. people debate till they are blue in the face. With good techniques any of sed methods can produce good beer. I switched to AG simply for cost.

You can make great beer with any technique. Extract is by far the easiest and least time consuming. All grain opens a lot of doors as far as grain selection; however, takes considerably more time in process and cleaning, and obviously a significant investment in equipment which in turn results in more storage space requirement. Partial, well, that seems to be for the person who has pretty much decided that making beer is going to be a long term hobby and wants to see what the all-grain thing is all about, after fighting a few times with collanders and spilt sticky wort you just go out and get a mash tun and be done with it...which of course leads to a pump, grain mill, bulk grain storage, more kettles, fermentation chamber, more carboys, taking up the freezer space with hops, a kegerator, and so on and so forth.

Ok I am glad to hear that you can make good beer either way. I just wanted to ask because I can see the benefits of using extract but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't shorting myself by not going all grain.

Don't mind some people's comments, I guess since everyone is such an expert they forget this is in the beginners forum.

You will hear a lot of opinions on this topic and vtrookie is right, you'll find an answer anywhere. But I know how it feels to search 100 websites to get varying answers; which is why I joined this sight so I could ask questions and get real responses.

Anyhow, to your question... In my opinion, all grain is much more fun and gives you more control over the beer. I did about 9 extract batches with steeped grains, doing partial boils, and then made the move to all grain. It did take quite a bit of investment to get a good hot liquor tank and a mash tun together, but there are cheap and easy ways to move to all grain. As far as the quality of beers, people make amazing extract brews, so I won't say one tastes better than the other. But since you mash in all grain, that essentially gives you more control over the fermentable sugars, body, alcohol content, etc than extract. If you're just getting into brewing, start w extract and you can always add equipment here and there if and when you decide to move to all grain. Starting w extract will allow you to focus on the basics, get your fermentation process down.

Hope that was somewhat helpful. I tend to ramble on. Feel free to shoot any questions my way, I'm no expert but I've been having fun trying

I appreciate your response Carson. I think your advice is pretty spot on with what I was thinking. I am doing my extract kits and I was planning on doing extracts for a while and slowly incorporate more specialty grains and flavoring agents (orange peels, spices, etc.) as time goes on. I guess if all that goes smoothly and I get to the point where I can feel comfortable with that I will move on to more complicated procedures such as all grain.

Thanks again for the response!

jmuman703 said:

I appreciate your response Carson. I think your advice is pretty spot on with what I was thinking. I am doing my extract kits and I was planning on doing extracts for a while and slowly incorporate more specialty grains and flavoring agents (orange peels, spices, etc.) as time goes on. I guess if all that goes smoothly and I get to the point where I can feel comfortable with that I will move on to more complicated procedures such as all grain.

Thanks again for the response!

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No problem. If you haven't already heard this 100 times, pick up a copy of John Palmer's "how to brew". Great book and is useful as a beginner and an experienced brewer