Thinking making the switch

I have been doing extracts for a while now. I have been thinking about jumping to all grain but all the lurking I have done has started to make me think its way to intense for my purposes. Water tests, refractometers,water additives, HLT,mash tuns. It seems like there is so much involved at it couldn't be enjoyable?

Aside from doing BIAB if I picked up a mash tun what else should I pick up?
What should I worry about my water?

All-grain is like a lot of things in brewing - it can be as complicated as you want to make it. If you are making good extract beer, don't worry just yet about water additives. You'll need to be able to do a full boil and you'll need a pot to heat water in, a mash tun, and a pot to collect your wort after mashing (and boil in). Get a thermometer you trust.

This is not rocket science. If you are interested, go for it.

Besides.. If you feel you make good beer using extract and steeping grains.. AG is not necessarily the holy grail. It allows you more options and can be less expensive per batch.. but, not a whole lot. Personally, I am very satisfied doing extracts and steeping grains. There is still room for modifications to suit your experimental nature.

Make the jump! Just take it one step at a time. You'll learn as you go. At first, don't worry about efficiency, water chemistry, or more complicated recipes. Just pick a few simple recipes. After you get used to controlling mash/sparge temps, grain absorption amounts, and boil off rates you can start to tackle efficiency and water. Just keep very detailed notes on EVERYTHING as you go. Aerate good and pitch plenty of yeast. It's a lot easier than it tends to sound.

I have extracts down. I feel like the best way for me to learn enough to make recipes, is go all grain so I can learn individual what individual grains bring to the beer. Also with 3lbs of DME running $14 I'm sure it will save some pennies. Most grains run about $1.05 a pound at LHBS

Think about it this way. People have been making beer via the all grain method for THOUSANDS of years. Back in the day they didn't have water chemistry tests, chemical additives..etc.

As others have said, you can make it as complicated as you want. As long as you understand the basic process, your worst case scenario is you'll end up with beer

Once you get a feel for AG, you can make improvements to your process as you get more comfortable with it.

Cheers!

grouperdude said:

I have been doing extracts for a while now. I have been thinking about jumping to all grain but all the lurking I have done has started to make me think its way to intense for my purposes. Water tests, refractometers,water additives, HLT,mash tuns. It seems like there is so much involved at it couldn't be enjoyable?

Aside from doing BIAB if I picked up a mash tun what else should I pick up?
What should I worry about my water?

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1. Whats wrong with extracts and steeping grains? All that all-grain brings to the table is you become the one who extracts the sugars from the grain instead of a pro. Big distributors have fantastic fresh LME's custom made for them and they move a bunch of it, so its very fresh. Not to knock the LHBS, but if you buy from one of the bigger guys, you will get it delivered as fresh as he does, and you wont sit on it till it sells. I read that you have your process down, so your brews are ready for competition? And there are lots of extract recipe's on places like hopville to build on, and calculators for venturing out on your own. Even if you decide to go all-grain, I would reccomend returning to a solid process that you know in extract to try your first recipe's with. Remember that for every process you add, the chance of error increases.

2. The price difference is not huge between LME and grain when you buy the LME in case lots and split the cost with a friend or two.

3. If you want control of all phases of the process (thats the only real reason to go all grain nowadays) as most eventually do, why do you dismiss BIAB? It allows you to minimize additional first cost to the brew kettle, and some paint strainer bags from home depot along with a good double fine strainer. Its still full volume all grain brewing, with minimal investment. Sleeping bags and blankets wrapped around a good quality brew kettle work just as well as insulation in a cooler (or a good winter jacket wrapped around that kettle atop a turkey fryer burner outside). Most new issues presented in all grain will present themselves using BIAB. And you reap all the rewards of recipe formation, cost savings and creativity that all grain offers.

4. You will need a hot liquor tank (your old brew kettle should suffice there), a means of distributing sparge water over the grain bed, a mash tun (there are cooler to tun threads all over the place here) and the new brew kettle and a couple of burners all built on a three tier rack of some sort to build a good set up. A good thermometer is needed for all grain brewing, but if you have been really steeping right, you already have one of them.


Whatever you decide, remember that its all in personal preference and keep it friendly and fun for you.

I went to AG, but I'm back to partial mash. It wasn't worth the increased number of variables for me (water chemistry, pH, oxygenation, etc.).

I'm a very happy partial masher now.

I've done extract, partials (with DME and/or LME), BIAB, and standard AG. BY FAR, my AG batches are the best. BIAB comes in pretty close, and partials (with DME only) come in a respectable 3rd place. All of my extract (using mostly LME) batches had a "taste" to them that I didn't like. Some weren't bad and some were worse than others. The "taste" was similar with all of them, though. I chalked it up to being LME.. I still use DME if I under-shoot OG on an AG brew, sometimes. Just my experience....

when i switched from doing full boil extracts to AG, all I had to build was a mash tun. the cooler and parts were a total investment of about 60 bucks give or take. Do it. I wished that I had made the move sooner.

Stauffbier said:

I've done extract, partials (with DME and/or LME), BIAB, and standard AG. BY FAR, my AG batches are the best. BIAB comes in pretty close, and partials (with DME only) come in a respectable 3rd place. All of my extract (using mostly LME) batches had a "taste" to them that I didn't like. Some weren't bad and some were worse than others. The "taste" was similar with all of them, though. I chalked it up to being LME.. I still use DME if I under-shoot OG on an AG brew, sometimes. Just my experience....

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Were you using the nasty old 3.3# cans of LME? DME is LME deyhdrated. Another loss of flavor and freshness. Were you buying it from your LHBS and had to blow the dust off the top of the can?

Buying a quality LME from a big distributor (who moves bunches of it and specifies grains) in the plastic milk jugs, fresh, SHOULD blow away any DME you buy. Things have drastically changed in the extracts. If you think DME is better than LME, revisit.

I bought all of my LME in plastic "milk jugs" from Austin, Midwest, and Northern Brewer. It wasn't "dusty" and I brewed with it within a few days of it arriving. I tried late additions, early additions, full boils, partial boils, fermenting at higher end of temp spectrum, fermenting at lower end of temp spectrum, various yeast strains, different types of water, etc, etc.... I did make a couple batches that were pretty good, but as I mentioned before they still had a very slight hint of the "taste" that was present in all of my LME batches. If you like LME, more power to ya'! I don't knock you for it. I just prefer AG!

Huh. I buy from NB. I get none of that "taste". I do know that "taste". It was bad. It came out of those nasty cans. But I dont get that now. In fact, its the reason my three tier is gathering dust. Really, when we buy DME, we are buying the LME dehydrated. So if the LME is fresh, and the quality good, it should not be that way.

I started to think it had something to do with how long it took for stuff to ship to me. That coupled with the fact I'm in the hot, desert southwest. I theorized that my shipments were spending too much time in hot trucks/warehouses.. But, that's just a theory.

Stauffbier said:

I started to think it had something to do with how long it took for stuff to ship to me. That coupled with the fact I'm in the hot, desert southwest. I theorized that my shipments were spending too much time in hot trucks/warehouses.. But, that's just a theory.

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Maybe. I live in the Northeast and never brew in summer ( I am too busy out playing on my boat and have a big built up supply for drinking) I do ferment at the very lowest temps in the yeast range, using a fridge with temp controller on it. But I do that with the AG too. You could be onto something there. I dunno. And NB from time out their door to time at my door is about 3 days. Its about two more maybe three for it to go out their door. Thats the 7 day ship thing. So the syrup never really gets warm like that. I wonder...

For me it's about 5 days shipping. Sometime a day or two longer depending on day of the week it ships.. And I do indeed brew in the summer.

EDIT: I will say that I just enjoy the process and creativity level of all grain, plus I buy grain in bulk. I consider this to be a better option, because I can store grain way longer than LME. It's also way cheaper that way...

I only did 4 extract batches before switching to all grain. The first 3 were pre-hopped, no boil, Mr Beer kits and just didn't feel like "I" was really making the beer, plus I wanted it to be as fresh as could be and be the one in control of the process. I have only had the opportunity to try one of my AG brews (which isn't even fully carbed yet) and I never plan to use extract again. You can definitely make good and even great beer with extract, but the options are endless with AG and you never have to worry about the quality of your LME or DME.

Stauffbier said:

For me it's about 5 days shipping. Sometime a day or two longer depending on day of the week it ships.. And I do indeed brew in the summer.

EDIT: I will say that I just enjoy the process and creativity level of all grain, plus I buy grain in bulk. I consider this to be a better option, because I can store grain way longer than LME. It's also way cheaper that way...

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+1!

This is why we go all grain. More creativity. More control over the whole process. Total control over quality in the entire process. Price? meh. The extra money invested in equipment takes quite a few 5 gal batches (which we dont stick with, long either. buy for 10 gals sizing if you are going to go a.g. ) to see roi. if you are buying case lot extract and sharing with a friend or two.

The huge draw back is time. Brew days are 6 hours long +-. no big deal in nice weather. But when its -10, snowing, and 30mph winds whipping around, 6 hours in that weather, even in the garage with the door open, gets old fast. To stay AG in the cold, its back to the stovetop for a good 5 gal BIAB day. lol.

Just add a mash tun to start. Batch sparge is easy. Can do a partial mash with extract to keep you in the comfort zone. I started by using 3 pounds of 2 row to replace 2 pounds of LME in my extract with specialty grain kit. Use the same water etc and see how it turns out. Beer is more forgiving than people and it makes you happier than most people. mmmmm that was deep.

barneygumble said:

which we dont stick with, long either. buy for 10 gals sizing if you are going to go a.g.

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Speak for yourself. I use a five gallon Rubbermaid and have no intention of going bigger. If anything, I am planning smaller sized brews. Since I got into all grain I have a huge desire to branch out and try a whole load of different styles and varieties not exactly possible with extract. I don't really need ten or even five gallons of barleywine or doppelbock kicking around taking up bottle space when I could instead be doing yeast experiments or brewing another two and a half gallons of a novel style.

urbanmyth said:

Speak for yourself. I use a five gallon Rubbermaid and have no intention of going bigger. If anything, I am planning smaller sized brews. Since I got into all grain I have a huge desire to branch out and try a whole load of different styles and varieties not exactly possible with extract. I don't really need ten or even five gallons of barleywine or doppelbock kicking around taking up bottle space when I could instead be doing yeast experiments or brewing another two and a half gallons of a novel style.

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Its preference, like my initial point was. Smaller size brews are perfect for BIAB, no sparge/single sparge batches. But if you are going to drag out the 3 tier and spend 6 hours in the cold, you might as well brew 10 as 5, lol.

I started with BIAB and the only extra equipment I needed was the bag. Went to walmart and got a voile window curtain for like $4.50 and my wife sewed together 2 bags with material leftover, I've got a 52 quart pot. I get my 2 row pale for .72 a lb. ($30.00 for a 50 lb. sack) and fresh LME for $1.75 lb.