Is it worth doing AG for hoppy brews?

I did my first all grain today, and frankly its a little bit of a pain doing AG on an electric range w/o a 7 gallon pot. Its a lot more stuff to clean and time consuming. However, AG brews my friends have made have much better malt characteristics.

But when you're making hoppy brews like IPAs or 50+ IBU pale ales, is it worth it to brew all grain or is a mini-mash just as good? Any opinions?

It is difficult to brew all grain on a kitchen stove and until you upgrade your equipment to include a propane burner and a large pot I would suggest you stay with mini mashes. Virtually any all grain brew can be duplicated with liquid or dry malt extracts and some of the best beer I've drunk were made with extracts. I switched to AG a couple of years ago because I liked the challange and because I wasn't able to brew a light colored beer with extracts-they all came out too dark but as far as taste was concerened the extract brews were just as good as the all grain brews. That's my two cents worth anyway.

Actually doing a full boil will help your hop utilization. So if you like hoppy beers all grain is really a help.

sause said:

Actually doing a full boil will help your hop utilization. So if you like hoppy beers all grain is really a help.

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You don't need to do AG to do full boils. I was doing full boils by my second extract batch, but only because I had the means. I still didn't know exactly what I was doing, though.

For me, AG and yeast harvesting cuts my costs dramatically, about in half! I have better control over the finished product (especially with light colored beers), the beer tastes fresher, and I love the smell and tast of the mash!

Timewise, it is still pretty quick. I keep all of my ducks in a row and clean. From "go" time when I start pulling water to heat for the mash and preheat the cooler to pitch time, I average about 4 hours 15 minutes. That is leaving my brewing stuff to soak over night, not shine everything up. That's not much more than an hour more than my extract brews were.

You really need at least 1 turkey fryer (or better) for doing AG. I can't imagine trying to do it on my stove top. I bought a second fryer (aluminum 30 qt) on Christmas Clearance for $18, and use it just for heating sparge and pre-heat water. My good 40 qt. stainless one gets used to heat the strike water, and do the boil.

For a hoppy ale, I think mini-mash and partial boils do the job. Late addition of the extract would boost your utilization. Run your calculations without the extract and add it at 15 minutes. As you noted, AG really shines in malty ales (although my favorite porter recipe is also mini-mash). AG also gives better results in very pale beers, like Pilsners.

I do full 7 gallon boils on my stovetop. Then again I have a fairly high BTU propane cooktop to begin with. I average just under 5 hrs start to finish. I replicated my first brew (which was an extract), an APA in all grain and must say it is by far much cleaner and crisper tasting.

simple ansure is hell yes!you can duy a 5.5 gallon tri ply pot at wal-mart for around 50$ and i use a second pot to boil the other 2 gallons and keep toping off the other pot to 5.5 gal. and use the rest to prime with.i just cant go back to extract i was paying $5.00 a lb for muntons dme and im paying only 25 cents a lb for grain.hell i had a few 7%abv extract brews that were 75+$ for 5 gal. of beer.dont get me wrong though thay were good beer not good enughf to justify the price when i can make better with ag.also its only a one time cost for a cooler and a pot and still under the price for an extract brew.jmho.

I've got an electric range, and I had to split the batch between my 26 quart and my 16 quart SS pots. I chilled them in the bath tub with about 20 lbs of ice and suprisingly I got the temps in line within 15 minutes (after 15 minutes of non-stop stirring between the pots). Splitting b/w two pots apparently causes the boils to go a lot faster - I started with 6.25 gal (+/- .25 gal) and had to top up almost a full gallon after a 60 min. boil.

My apartment management decided to take away the hose and cut water to the outdoor spigot, which makes A-G clean up a pain. But I left them a present in the form of 11 lbs in the front yard to show my displeasure (mostly b/c my wort was reaching a boil upstairs).

As for hop utilization.... why care? Hops are cheap (for me at least, living 7 miles from Austin HB). I only saved about $5 going A-G on their promotional black ale.