Extract vs All grain

At the risk of starting a flame war I'll go ahead and ask a question that seems to have a different answer for as many brewers on this forum. I'm currently about 5 batches into extract brewing. I've been reading up a little (verry little) on all grain brews. Other than the street cred that comes with it, are there any more solid advantages to spending all that cash to get a decent all grain setup going? Thanks for all the advice, I love this forum!

The biggest advantage for me is the taste, quality, and the freshness. You have control over all aspects of the beer when doing all grain as opposed to getting pre-made ingredeants. It's a bit of investment, but well worth it after a year or so. My first all grain was the best beer I ever brewed, even after 100 extracts. Hope this helps..

In addition to the above, once you pay for your A-G equipment, your cost per patch for ingredients will generally be less for all grain than extract.

Cost and control are the biggest differences that I've noticed. Cost of initial investment is quickly made up by the lower cost per batch.

You can make great beer or horrible beer using both methods, or in between (partial mash). All grain gives you all sorts of control, but if you don't know how to use that control then you can make some really awful beer.

All-extract leaves hardly any room for error. All the mashing (and sometimes the hopping) is done for you. However, if you have poor temperature control and ferment too hot or cold, then your yeasts are going to produce some nasty flavors. If you can't brew beer with extract properly, don't bother with anything else until you can. Brewing decent all-extract is mostly about learning to keep yeast happy. Making outstanding beer with all extract is probably not likely; but good, delicious, fun, and tasty beer should possible if you understand how to treat yeast and your extract is reasonably fresh and from a reputable maltster.

Partial-mash is the middle ground. You might just be steeping specialty grains for flavor, or actually mashing grains to provide a portion of the fermentable sugars. You might still use extracts here to fill in some gravity. Here you need to worry about temperature control during the mash AND during the ferment, as well as all the other things that keep yeast happy (hydration, temp, oxygen). Again, still room to screw things up, but some more control. To some degree you can control how dry or malty your resulting beer will be (tempered by the extracts) and can learn about hop extraction. You can make some really excellent beers with partial mash if you have good brewing technique and become knowledgeable about your extract malts (how well they ferment, adjuncts in them, etc..)

All-grain - if you have figured out all of the above, then all grain is a great place to be - you can make some extra-ordinary, excellent, nuanced beers. However, if you don't understand the basics, then going to all-grain will not be a magic fix to making good beer.

I'm a partial-masher myself, just due to my temperament and the size of my kitchen pots and pans. I'm happy with it. I'm brewing good beer and am learning more and more with every brew. Maybe some day I'll go nuts and buy an all grain rig, but PM is pretty fun and interesting already.

Holy crap amazing answers! Lucky newb! At least add some BIAB grains so your wort has the slightest character.

I have made beers that I enjoyed with extract. All grain gives you more details to tinker with. You can control the fermentability of the wort and the body of the beer with the temperature of the mash. You can try a decoction with all grain and get wonderful mailard flavors.

That said, I do think about doing an extract batch now and then as I think I could brew more often because it does not take as much time.

All grain or extract, you're a brewer either way.

I'll start by saying I do both.

That being said: all grain is a much purer beer, usually has better mouth feel, and gives you some sick satisfaction that you can brew like a champ.

Extract on the other hand is easy, quick, and with a bit of trial and error, can compete with some of the best all grain brews, as long as you add some specialty grains to your boil. (They release tannins and compounds that are lost in the extraction process). I do not mean to bash any all grain purists out there, but I have competed with my extract and partial mash brews against all grain and have won before.

I asked myself a long time ago whether to start all grain right away, or invest in a good home keggerator. the keggerator won (pics below).

some things to think about if you want to stay with extract. add anywhere from 1-2lbs of specialty grains to the boil, they make a WORLD of difference to the finished mouth feel and malty characters in the beer. Also, stay away from DME. I use only good quality, unhopped, fresh LME from my local brewpub or LHBS store. Use 3 litres (9.9lbs) as opposed to the 6.6lbs most recipes ask for and omit the sugar all together, it will treat you better in the long run and only costs an extra $3-$5. Use fresh pellet hops and make sure you get a good cold break after your boil and this should mitigate a lot of off flavors.

Another thing to consider is your yeast choice. A good yeast will make or break a great beer. To start off with, for ales try Nottingham ale yeast (if you can ferment at or just below 20C/69F). For wheat beer, use white labs heffeweizen IV ale yeast, and safeale US04 or US05 work fantastic for IPA's.

hope this helps. If I can answer any questions just give me a shout.

btw, when it comes to Kegging, you will never go back to bottling again. If you are even considdering it, go for that first.

Extract is a great place to learn how to care for yeast. If you abuse yeast you can get really crappy beer. If you are getting off flavors in your extract beer, work on learning to care for the yeast first.

After that, brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) is a great next step and is easy and fun. You can do partial or entire mashes with BIAB (if your bag is big enough).

It really is a spectrum. If you're coming out of all-extract, maybe make your next brew something with extract and steeping grains. See what that adds. Get comfortable with calculators for hop additions; the differences between bitttering, flavor, and aroma hops. Gradually up your amount of grain and reduce your amount of extract. You'll learn about mashing along the way.

I'm a partial masher, mostly because I am still practicing and my biggest pot can only take about 7 lbs of grain, so I need some extract to round up the gravity. You can keep incrementing up the grain until the change to all-grain is natural.

It is possible for an excited newbie to go whole-hog and buy an all grain rig and churn out nothing but bad beer. I'd say work your way up in increments, but don't be a snob either. Good beer can be made with extracts and partial mashes; don't shun them because they aren't all grain.

Great answers.

My opinion, worth price charged: If you do not brew 5 gallons at least once per month, extract may be less costly and more encouraging. As ThunderChicken stated very well, there are many ways AG can turn out wrong. I've checked off quite a few. Small batch partial mash and BIAB are ways to ease into 3-vessel AG. I stopped at BIAB and am very happy with that process. I have a bunch of extract on order to go back and try that method.

However you make good beer is the correct method for you.

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If you also start threads on bottling vs kegging, carboys vs. brightly colored buckets, and dry vs liquid yeasts, you will have covered most of the flame wars. Oh, and how large a kettle and burner. Those'll go up like California in a drought.

Epimetheus said:

Great answers.

My opinion, worth price charged: If you do not brew 5 gallons at least once per month, extract may be less costly and more encouraging. As ThunderChicken stated very well, there are many ways AG can turn out wrong. I've checked off quite a few. Small batch partial mash and BIAB are ways to ease into 3-vessel AG. I stopped at BIAB and am very happy with that process. I have a bunch of extract on order to go back and try that method.

However you make good beer is the correct method for you.

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Agreed. Practice makes a difference too. If you brew the same recipe a few times in a row, the last batch will likely be cleaner and better than the first. Just getting comfortable with your personal brewing gear is important. Extract is helpful and forgiving when you don't brew very often and you forget some details.

I brew 5 gallon all grain batches and only have one 8 gallon boil kettle, and a 10 gallon cooler mash tun. Been doing it this way for over a year. All grain is not near as hard as it seems. I still achieve around 75% efficiency with my setup. So you can brew all grain on the cheap, and not need a tierd system or a bunch of pumps and dumps. I don't do All Grain BIAB either... so no need for huge pots and a crane system to get the 40 pound bag of wet grains out of the kettle.

Of course... to each their own, and I am currently happy with my set up. When time and space allow, I will go to a better setup than what I have now. What I do now, makes great beer, but there are better ways to do it.

Bonus... the cost of my brewing ingredients is around $25 bucks a batch, as compared to around $45 bucks a batch when I was doing extract with steeping grains.

Gary

barkingtreefrog said:

At the risk of starting a flame war I'll go ahead and ask a question that seems to have a different answer for as many brewers on this forum. I'm currently about 5 batches into extract brewing. I've been reading up a little (verry little) on all grain brews. Other than the street cred that comes with it, are there any more solid advantages to spending all that cash to get a decent all grain setup going? Thanks for all the advice, I love this forum!

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https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/being-extract-brewer-such-bad-thing-437316/

I barely spent anything to go to 5gal BIAB, and my batches cost less than half what they used to. I don't think it's an interim step for me on the way to a $3k all grain system either -- the process I use is so easy, and makes much consistently good beer, I don't want to change anything. I do think my all grain batches are better than my extract beers were, although the first half dozen were worse! I was beginning to wonder if there was much point in having switched, but now I can make good, repeatable beer for cheap.

Another advantage I never hear about: when I hit the LBS, I get my 50 lb sack of 2 row and an assortment of crystal and roasted malts. It just sits there waiting off me to have some time, and I brew on the spur of the moment, coming up with a recipe half an hour before I start brewing. With extract, I always had to plan things out better.

The biggest advantage to all grain for me (and I do both...all grain most of the year and extract batches in the kitchen in winter) is control over mash temp and the control that gives me over fermentability. I think most of the comments here are right on. You can definitely make good beer with extract, especially with a lot of the specialty extracts (Marris Otter, rye, etc) that are available now.

I will disagree with one poster above on a minor point. Fresh LME is ideal, but there's nothing wrong with DME, which has a much longer shelf life. You won't find the same variety in general, and it does require some gentle handling.

As you noted

a question that seems to have a different answer for as many brewers on this forum

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That's because there isn't a right or wrong answer. The decision between extract, partial mash, and all-grain is often made based on the eloquence of the arguer.

DrWill said:

The biggest advantage to all grain for me (and I do both...all grain most of the year and extract batches in the kitchen in winter) is control over mash temp and the control that gives me over fermentability. I think most of the comments here are right on. You can definitely make good beer with extract, especially with a lot of the specialty extracts (Marris Otter, rye, etc) that are available now.

I will disagree with one poster above on a minor point. Fresh LME is ideal, but there's nothing wrong with DME, which has a much longer shelf life. You won't find the same variety in general, and it does require some gentle handling.

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It's true, I agree with that too. I just meant it was ideal to use fresh LME if you have the chance.

Astralus said:

It's true, I agree with that too. I just meant it was ideal to use fresh LME if you have the chance.

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Sorry about that; I most likely over-read your comment. I completely agree. For extract nothing beats fresh LME.

I use both LME and DME. Usually I'll boil a pound of DME and add the 5-10 lbs of LME at flameout. My experienced BJCP beer judge said he can't tell that they're extract beers at all and gave my most recent IIPA a 42. He's been very honest and critical in the past so I believe him now.

The last IIPA was 1lb pilsen DME boiled for 60minutes and 8 lbs extra pale LME added at flameout. I also added 1.5lbs dex on the 3rd day. Went from 1.084 to 1.010 so I think I got some great attenuation using us05. Temperature control, knowing when to add the extract and sanitation are the biggest keys to making great extract beer!

barkingtreefrog said:

At the risk of starting a flame war I'll go ahead and ask a question that seems to have a different answer for as many brewers on this forum. I'm currently about 5 batches into extract brewing. I've been reading up a little (verry little) on all grain brews. Other than the street cred that comes with it, are there any more solid advantages to spending all that cash to get a decent all grain setup going? Thanks for all the advice, I love this forum!

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In addition to all the other responses, try a BIAB and do a small 3 gallon batch. The difference in taste between AG & Extract can be leaps and bounds.

I'd like to add another perspective... Thing is, brewers don't really make beer, they make wort. The yeast are what make the beer. So if you use extract, which is really just concentrated wort, what did you actually make? You added water and some hops to wort someone else made. It can absolutely turn out a tasty brew, but falls short on delivering the pride of knowing you made something from scratch.

No right or wrong here but extract is more expensive and limiting. I started AG and have never done extract and never plan to. I have had some amazing extract beers through but love what I am able to do with AG.

I also do small batches so there was literally no investment in equipment to start...just used the pots I had at my house. Even now, everything I have bought for AG I would have for extract: Ferm chamber, brew kettle, bottling bucket, auto-siphon, etc.

I travel a lot for work and don't have much free time when home so the shorter process of extract with speciality grains works great for me. I have made beers that are tasty enough for me, never entered any competitions though. I have been happy with the results and my infrequent brew days (once every few months) are well suited to the easier process of extract brewing. That all being said, eventually I would like to go all grain once I have the knowledge and time.

Demus said:

I'd like to add another perspective... Thing is, brewers don't really make beer, they make wort. The yeast are what make the beer.

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By that logic, brewers don't make wort, either. The enzymes do that. There's something to be said for starting from simpler ingredients, or growing your own ingredients, sure, but the end result is what really matters. Making great beer comes from knowing your ingredients and processes well, and using quality ingredients, whatever those ingredients might be.

Extract can be an ingredient in great beer, but it takes someone who knows how to use it well. It's not necessarily an inferior ingredient, or a foolproof ingredient; use of extract has its own set of techniques which is just different than grains.

I started extract then went to AG a handful of batches later. I actually just did an extract batch last Sunday while watching football. Now a days, ingredients are so fresh and high quality that you can make any great beer using AG or extract. I think the difference between AG and extract is time and money. Do you have 5 hours to brew AG...no, then do extract. Extract will save you 2 hours. Do you have money to buy more equipment...no, then do extract. Going from partial boil extract to full boil AG does cost some money. You can get away with not spending a lot but it will still cost you. Also, do you have the room. Extract is easier to do in smaller spaces (I feel anyway).

I like doing AG when it is warm because I do it outside with a burner. When it is getting cold or those days I want to brew but have other stuff to do, I will do extract.

Trying some partial mash recipes are a great way to get into All Grain without investing in much more equipment.

GuldTuborg said:

By that logic, brewers don't make wort, either. The enzymes do that. There's something to be said for starting from simpler ingredients, or growing your own ingredients, sure, but the end result is what really matters. Making great beer comes from knowing your ingredients and processes well, and using quality ingredients, whatever those ingredients might be. Extract can be an ingredient in great beer, but it takes someone who knows how to use it well. It's not necessarily an inferior ingredient, or a foolproof ingredient; use of extract has its own set of techniques which is just different than grains.

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Brewers make wort and yeast make beer is a pretty common saying in the brewing world. And I never said extract was inferior, simply that it is in fact pre-made, concentrated wort. It is what it is, regardless of quality opinions...

Demus said:

Brewers make wort and yeast make beer is a pretty common saying in the brewing world.

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I understand what the saying means, but to non-brewers, or even new brewers, it confuses the process, as far as I'm concerned. I'm tempted to say it's a silly saying, but I'll hold back.

Demus said:

And I never said extract was inferior, simply that it is in fact pre-made, concentrated wort. It is what it is, regardless of quality opinions...

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But the implication is (and you stated this explicitly) there is less pride to be had in extract beer. That's what I called into question. I'm asking what the crucial difference is between someone malting your grain for you, and mashing and concentrating wort for you. If the end product is just as good, why is there less pride to be had in the making?

GuldTuborg said:

I'm asking what the crucial difference is between someone malting your grain for you, and mashing and concentrating wort for you. If the end product is just as good, why is there less pride to be had in the making?

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I won't hold back. It is a silly saying.

But as homebrewers we are doing what professional brewers do only at home. Most of them do not malt their own grains. So that comparison is silly also.

If I take frozen DiGiorno pizza out of the oven and throw some fresh garlic and grilled chicken on, it will turn out pretty good. Will I be proud of it? Sure, but not as proud as I would have been if I'd made it from scratch.

JustLooking said:

If I take frozen DiGiorno pizza out of the oven and throw some fresh garlic and grilled chicken on, it will turn out pretty good. Will I be proud of it? Sure, but not as proud as I would have been if I'd made it from scratch.

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Couldn't have said it better myself. It's not that there's no pride in an extract brew, there's simply more in all grain. If I had a farm and grew the grain and hops, I imagine there would be even more!

Thunder_Chicken said:

Extract is a great place to learn how to care for yeast. If you abuse yeast you can get really crappy beer. If you are getting off flavors in your extract beer, work on learning to care for the yeast first.

After that, brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) is a great next step and is easy and fun. You can do partial or entire mashes with BIAB (if your bag is big enough).

It really is a spectrum. If you're coming out of all-extract, maybe make your next brew something with extract and steeping grains. See what that adds. Get comfortable with calculators for hop additions; the differences between bitttering, flavor, and aroma hops. Gradually up your amount of grain and reduce your amount of extract. You'll learn about mashing along the way.

I'm a partial masher, mostly because I am still practicing and my biggest pot can only take about 7 lbs of grain, so I need some extract to round up the gravity. You can keep incrementing up the grain until the change to all-grain is natural.

It is possible for an excited newbie to go whole-hog and buy an all grain rig and churn out nothing but bad beer. I'd say work your way up in increments, but don't be a snob either. Good beer can be made with extracts and partial mashes; don't shun them because they aren't all grain.

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:rockin: The road to greatness has to start somewhere!

I will add my two cents' worth by saying this: if you have room for a fermentation chamber, setting that up should be your first priority. The next priority is getting your wort cooled more quickly, preferably with a wort chiller if you can buy or make one. Next after that is ensuring that you are oxygenating the chilled wort sufficiently, whether by shaking the fermentation vessel hard for several minutes, or using an aeration stone, or some other method, so long as the yeast have plenty of oxygen to work with when the start reproducing. Next is setting yourself up to make yeast starters, with a stir plate and flasks, at least if you are using liquid yeast cultures. Only once you've got those things in place and have done several AE and partial mash batches should you look to all-grain.

I should know; I went in practically the reverse order, and have had to learn from those mistakes. I still need to set up a decent fermentation chamber, in fact. But if you start with the FC, you will be in a better position than 99% of homebrewers when they move to AG.

If you look around, you may find that you already have the equipment for a 1 gallon BIAB in your house. I used a 5L pot, the kitchen stove and a laundry mesh bag and did three small BIABs, then went back to extract for one more batch. Now I got a 5 gallon AG setup, as I noticed that the differences that I got in the beers (extract beers taste much drier to me) make my taste buds prefer AG.

You may find that it's the opposite for you, who knows? I would suggest to try a small batch if you can, it costs you next to nothing in equipment and you can always go back if it's not your thing.

I started with extract because it was simple and required half the work.

Then I moved to all grain, and never looked back.

If I feel lazy, I'll do a BIAB because it's still fun and so simple.

But the real reason for switching was because All Grain seemed more fun, the ingredients were cheaper AND it was a lot of fun building stuff.

As often mentioned, so many things in home brewing are neither right nor wrong. Many decisions are based on what strokes the personal satisfaction of the individual. The discord begins when someone, through eloquence of argument, attempts to convince others that "MY way is the only way, and any other way is dumb and/or wrong.", which often comes across as condescending.

For me, biscuits are a good example. The biscuits I make with Bis-Quick taste as good as the ones I make from scratch. But the ones I make from scratch stroke my personal satisfaction, so that's the way I go. So if I'm in your house and you offer me a biscuit, and it tastes good, I don't care where it came from !

All grain gives me the same satisfaction. (and that's my testimony )

HBngNOK said:

For me, biscuits are a good example. The biscuits I make with Bis-Quick taste as good as the ones I make from scratch.

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Bis-quick? BIS-QUICK? What sort of twisted perversions are you trying to spread here? Clearly you are not only wrong, but morally degenerate. You are a threat to brewers and small children alike. Better to isolate you someplace where you can do no further damage and scientists can dissect your brain to find out just what went wrong so that we can spare future generations similar indignity. Bis-quick indeed. Have you no shame, man??!

Ahem. Sorry. You're totally right.

Not that it matters but what I recommend to new brewers is:

1. Learn & get comfortable with how beer is made - start simple with Mr. Beer or Extract on stove
2. Take the next step to improve the quality control of your beer by embracing yeast health - proper pitching rates through starters, etc
3. Ratchet up your quality again by investing in fermentation temperature controls
4. Master homebrewing by going all grain (including BIAB), never fearing to brew extract or partials when you feel like it

Here's my 2 cents.

I started with extract.....Mr. Beer extract, and I thought what I made was better than what I was drinking at the time. I quickly moved to extract with steeping grains and made probably 10 batches and they all turned out pretty good and I had fun making them. As I was doing more research on AG I found that the cost was significantly cheaper per batch, I purchased a turkey fryer with a 7.5 gallon pot and bought a pack of paint strainer bags and was making AG beer with the BIAB method. And as far as time goes everyone said extract was faster, for me it was the same time for a 5 gallon batch, 3.5 hours. For me price was really the driving factor to move to AG and after I made some of my extract batches with AG and I could really taste the difference between each way I was glad I made the move. I now have a 3 tier converted keg system and make 10 gallon batches and I can't be happier with the beers I make.

Epimetheus said:

--- edit ---
If you also start threads on bottling vs kegging, carboys vs. brightly colored buckets, and dry vs liquid yeasts, you will have covered most of the flame wars. Oh, and how large a kettle and burner. Those'll go up like California in a drought.

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Nice edit. I still bottle just to keep the keggers agitated.