Switching from All Grain to Extract - yes you read that right!

Am I the only one? I started brewing 20 years ago with a small kettle, a plastic bucket, and a batch tub as a chiller. I graduated to a Sabco Brew Magic and brewed all grain for the past 17 years. After ignoring my system for a while, I sold it.

Now I'm about to get back to it. I reserved my Blichmann 14 gallon conical and draft setup. I have since acquired a Blichmann 20 gallon boilermaker kettle thru Craigslist, a Blichmann floor burner, and a whirlpool immersion chiller/march pump setup (jamil's).

So,you see, I'm ready to make some quality brew via extract and partial mash techniques. As silly as it sounds, can my new brothers in brew guide me to solid techniques as I "step back" in complexity? Obviously I'll be doing full wort boils, and getting to pitching temp rapidly. I'm most concerned with quality extract, proper boil time, and so on. I'll be doing ales - ipa, porter, some seasonal stuff.

Thoughts or threads to guide me to?

The extract brewing tab of this forum is awesome I actually stept up to all grain from extract but I learned tons reading there

As you say, a step back in complexity, perhaps BIAB? Something recently developed by the Australians. If not, I would think the online stores move a lot of extract and sell fresh product...good luck and have fun after the timeout...cheers!

Trade dumping extract into the boil kettle instead of mashing and everything else is exactly the same as what you've been doing for the last 20 years. As for what extract to use, that depends on what you're brewing and what you like. I preferred DME over LME when I brewed extract and I bought it in bulk to keep costs down.

wilserbrewer said:

As you say, a step back in complexity, perhaps BIAB? Something recently developed by the Australians. If not, I would think the online stores move a lot of extract and sell fresh product...good luck and have fun after the timeout...cheers!

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I now do almost all of my 5 gallon or smaller brews using BIAB instead of a mashtun. My efficiency stays in the 70+ percent range and this has shorten my brew time by 90 minutes w/o needing to sparge. This can be done very easily with just one burner.

Nothing wrong with doig all extract brews but doing BIAB is not a huge amount of extra work if you can still crush the grain.

Another gentle nudge to try full-volume, no-sparge BIAB. You get the flexibility of all-grain recipes without much additional time and labor over extract.

use dme instead of lme

I went years without doing an all grain batch, just extract for convenience but extract cost just crept up on me so I started doing big partials and recently more all grain again.

I'm intrigued by BIAB. I've heard of it but never looked into it too much. I brew 10 gallon batches and my kettle is 20 gallons. Can I do a 10 gallon BIAB batch?

Thanks everyone! I'm glad I discovered HBT!

mnmatt said:

I brew 10 gallon batches and my kettle is 20 gallons. Can I do a 10 gallon BIAB batch?

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Yes...double batch size is a good size kettle. You have the perfect set up for 10 gal BIAB.

There is nothing wrong with extract brewing if that is what you want to do. The only real "trick" is to add some/most of the extract late in the boil. It tends to darken much more than an AG batch would if you put it all in to start. Everything else is exactly the same as you are used to.

I'm sure there are people out there doing 10 gallon BIAB's, but it seems like a major pain to me. You are talking about a huge sack of hot, wet grain to be moving around.

Definitely DME over LME if you do go extract. Be warned, it's usually pricier than all grain. If going BIAB, make sure your rig is anchored solidly into a joist or stud. I imagine the grain bill for a 10gal batch would get pretty hefty.

Hmmmmm. It has been so darned long since I brewed extract. If I do, I will certainly go DME over LME for many reasons I have read about. As to "late" addition in the boil..... do you mean I don't do a one hour boil or what? I mean, if I'm doing an extract brew all I am cooking before extract addition is water? Unless, of course, I am doing a partial grain mash.....

I agree with DME over LME as well. I've made many excellent extract beers, but definitely consider doing all grain again for a few reasons:

1. It's significantly cheaper than extract
2. Much more choice in grains and flexibility in creating recipes
3. Less chance of boil overs - that powder really foams up when adding it to the kettle so it's usually best to shut off the heat. But then you have to bring it back up to temp again so it takes some extra time
4. Less messy - this is solely my opinion. Many will point to the grains all grain brewers need to dispose of but I find that easier than dealing with DME all over everything. The powder is so light even cutting open a bag with scissors sometimes throws some into the air. I used to use two 1 gallon Rubbermaid jugs to pour the DME slowly into the brew kettle but then I had to clean those after as well. Plus I had to clean the whisk I would stir it in with. Not fun I tell ya...

I had a great time doing extract and loved the beers, but I eventually found it limiting in a number of ways. Only after I switched to AG I also noticed the large cost savings as well. Either way have fun man! The Extract subforum is a great place to get advice and such.


Rev.

When I did extract I would only put about a 1/3 of the extract in at the beginning of the boil, the rest would go in at 5min before flame out. Took more of that "twang" out of the finished product. Also made the color lighter.

To do a 60 min boil for hops, make sure to add some of your extract to the boil.

I have been looking into the water I use for extract brews. If you thought your days of worrying about water chemistry were over now that you have cut out the mash, this thread may be good food for thought. Post number 25 in that thread gets into the "Colby Method" for steeping grains, which goes to greater lengths than you will find in most extract guides to avoid astringency. I think the whole thread is worth a read.

The biggest reservation I had about BIAB is raising the bag to let it drain back into the kettle. If you choose BIAB, get a stepladder that will comfortably straddle your mash vessel. Grab a 2x4 3 feet long and attach a pulley to it. place it across the top of the stepladder beneath the top platform. Tie one end of the rope to the bag (google miller's knot) and thread the other end through the pulley. Lift and tie off to the bottom of the stepladder. Drip away.

william_shakes_beer said:

The biggest reservation I had about BIAB is raising the bag to let it drain back into the kettle. If you choose BIAB, get a stepladder that will comfortably straddle your mash vessel. Grab a 2x4 3 feet long and attach a pulley to it. place it across the top of the stepladder beneath the top platform. Tie one end of the rope to the bag (google miller's knot) and thread the other end through the pulley. Lift and tie off to the bottom of the stepladder. Drip away.

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That raises so many red flags and trigger alarms to me. The likelihood of a catastrophic event happening is way too high. I'm not going to risk dumping the pot off the burner and losing that sweet wort or worse yet, burning my yarbles by straddling the pot. Whatever you want to do is none of my business, but it just seems like there are too many variables that could go wrong with this method.

wilserbrewer said:

Yes...double batch size is a good size kettle. You have the perfect set up for 10 gal BIAB.

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Out of curiosity, what is the largest grain bill you have put into one of your bags (or the largest grain bill you would recommend)?

The bag I use is just the basic voile, cut out as a circle, with a perimeter pocket sewn in for a drawstring. The most I ever put in it was 26 lbs. of grain, and I must admit I did drain a bunch of the wort into buckets before trying to lift it by hand. Some of that was to lighten my load, but some was concern about the bag ripping.

Whattawort said:

That raises so many red flags and trigger alarms to me. The likelihood of a catastrophic event happening is way too high. I'm not going to risk dumping the pot off the burner and losing that sweet wort or worse yet, burning my yarbles by straddling the pot. Whatever you want to do is none of my business, but it just seems like there are too many variables that could go wrong with this method.

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It's nothing more than a scaffold to anchor the lifting pulley to... you don't climb the ladder, you use a pulley and rope to lift and hold the grain bag. A hook in an overhead joist or rafter works well too.

The main reason I jumped right into BIAB was cost... extract is much more expensive than grains. recycle the yeast cake and save another $7.50-$15.00 per batch.

william_shakes_beer said:

The biggest reservation I had about BIAB is raising the bag to let it drain back into the kettle. If you choose BIAB, get a stepladder that will comfortably straddle your mash vessel. Grab a 2x4 3 feet long and attach a pulley to it. place it across the top of the stepladder beneath the top platform. Tie one end of the rope to the bag (google miller's knot) and thread the other end through the pulley. Lift and tie off to the bottom of the stepladder. Drip away.

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and this is easier?

acidrain said:

It's nothing more than a scaffold to anchor the lifting pulley to... you don't climb the ladder, you use a pulley and rope to lift and hold the grain bag. A hook in an overhead joist or rafter works well too.

The main reason I jumped right into BIAB was cost... extract is much more expensive than grains. recycle the yeast cake and save another $7.50-$15.00 per batch.

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My cooler conversion for my mash tun was a whopping $35 on top of the $40 I paid for the cooler itself. I had to move up to a bigger pot, but if you're doing BIAB you already have one big enough. How much did your rigging cost?

Whattawort said:

My cooler conversion for my mash tun was a whopping $35 on top of the $40 I paid for the cooler itself. I had to move up to a bigger pot, but if you're doing BIAB you already have one big enough. How much did your rigging cost?

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Are you comparing your three-pot system to a BIAB?
I have my 13 gallon pot, and a voile bag, and a hook to hang it from while I squeeze.

There is a lot you can't do with BIAB, but for downsizing, limited space, going cheap, or first AG, it's hard to beat BIAB.
Oops, did I sound like a fanboy? Sorry.

I'll forgive you this one time. Don't let it happen again...fanboy.

Ha, love it... quoted you in my sig.

Extract should be easy for you to jump into.
I'm sure you remember everything from all grain, extract is pretty much just saving steps and time.

I'm just getting ready to start all grain myself, but when I started brewing with extract and no prior brewing experience I had good results right away.
I simply listened to others and read up.
With your all grain experience you should have no problems.
You can brew some very good beer with extract.

This thread has generated a lot of great info! Gotta love HBT, I wish I had found it sooner. I went ahead and ordered a bag for my 20 gallon kettle from Jeff Omundsun. He has a great page that goes into BIAB. He, of course, sews and sells bags for $35. I know one can go DIY for less but there it is. His site is www.bagbrewer.com.
I'm all set to get back to my love of brewing! I think I'll try BIAB and see how it goes. My extra hard water is great for IPA's, and Porters - especially when blended with about 50% RO water.
I like the idea of a pulley system. Especially since I already have an 8 foot step ladder and lots of 2x4 laying around.

What do you guys think about grain bills for BIAB? With no sparging, I would think an increase of around 20% should be considered?

Good stuff brew brothers!

Rather than no sparging are you able to heat another pot with some sparge water, immerse the grain bag and stir and then pour the sparge water into your kettle? I've never done BIAB, I use a mash tun but if I did I think I'd still at least do a sparge of some sort. I hate the idea of having to buy more and leave good wort behind


Rev.

No second vessel. Also, I have to confess that I haven't done a complete study on BIAB yet. Since I have a pump for my Jamil chiller, I've thought about rigging it to do a RIMS of sorts. I have a rotating Phil's sparging arm that I have never really put to use. I suppose I could rig a wort return from the pump into the arm and let it recirculate away.....I'd get good efficiency that way- not too mention some natural filtration from the grain bed. I'm sure someone out there with BIAB experience has some thoughts.

Wait, so you have a rotating fly sparging arm and a pump but you or your wife (if you're married of course) don't have a 3 gallon pot sitting in a cabinet in the house?

I don't even cook and I have several pots. You could always stop by a home depot, Bed Bath Beyond, Sears, Macy's, etc and drop $20-$30 or so on a simple pot. Or you could borrow one for now


Rev.

Well since you put it that way....but of course. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. I found some good links to BIAB sites last night that discussed exactly how to go about this - without batch sparging. Depending on your beer style it should work well (good for ales, maybe not for lagers). Essentially one mashes in the bag with the full volume of water required to get to your net per-boil volume. It's a rather thin mash but apparently works well. When I give it a try (first couple weeks of November) I'll report back on how it works out.