What are the advantages and disadvantages

I've made some great extract beer up to this point, although I'm curious about the all grain brewing and curious what the pro's and con's are...

Pro less money per batch (once you have equipment)

Con more time

Pro: You become a man.
Con: You inherit manly responsibilities.



Joking aside, I've found that the art of manipulating a mash has had a profound impact on the outcome of my beer. Plus, my all-grain batches simply taste better.

Make the switch. You'll love it.

Pros: You can make better beer, tweak recipes to suit your tastes, clone popular craft beers and get very close to the originals, If you like gadgets and DIY there are heaps of gadgets you can make to use in all grain brewing, Cant beat a Sunday afternoon brewing a beer and enjoying a few of your past acheivements.

Cons: Takes more time, but this can be a pro (see last comment above) Can cost more money to setup, but BIAB in a 20 litre pot will get you started with little outlay.

Go on just do it, you know you want too.

Pro: You can better control how dry or rich your beer is with mash temperature.
Pro: Base malts tastes different from maltster to maltster and you have more choices in flavor than with extracts.

Con: takes longer
Con: Need more gear (probably need a new brew kettle 10 gallons or more so $$)

try BIAB [search around here for details] and then you might not need any more extra equipment, aside from the bag of course.

lazycomet said:

pro: You become a man.
Con: You inherit manly responsibilities.

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+1

pro - all grain is awesomer

con- takes longer, therefor you spend more time doing something you love. dammit that's a pro too.

I've brewed extract, partial mash, and all-grain many times... the one with the most advantages/least disadvantages is definitely Partial Mash. A lot of people neglect to see the obvious advantages of Partial Mash Indoor Brewing under full boils with two kettles. I feel like I'm one of very few homebrewers than prefer this method. You spend less $ on buying so much extract for extract beers. You get the complexity, the quality, the freedom, without all the hassle of all-grain brewing, brewing outdoors, or spending extra money on equipment (other than an extra kettle for side-by-side, twin 3.5 gallon boils to later be combined in one carboy). You can straddle two burners for each kettle and split the recipe for a 5-6 gallon batch in half accordingly. Chilling half batches is also quicker - one w/the ice bath, one w/the wort chiller.

bobbrews said:

the quality, the freedom,

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Not entirely. You can't chose the exact proportions or source of grain used in the extract and not doing a full mash there's some things you can't do as well.

There is a small compromise, but you're not using 90-100% extract so that is a major advantage. I can choose to brew with 40-50% of quality Muntons Extra Light DME, which is quite pure, only contains a touch of carapils, and near the real numbers of English 2-row (37 ppg/3 L) unlike the Briess counterpart at 43 ppg/5 L.

What can't I do without a full mash? ...I've probably done it or come close enough.

Pro: Absolute control over what grains go into the beer. I can use however much of whatever I want in my mash.
Pro: Absolute control over mash temp to change the body of the beer. I can mash at 148 or at 156 and get different beers from the same ingredients.
Now I know there are other things I can control, like fermentation temp, hops, etc, but to me the essence of brewing is converting grain to wort. I'm not putting extract brewers down, it's just my own philosophy.

I made some great extract beers...but I now make some awesome all grain beers.