TimothyTheGreat
New Member
I have made a few batches of extracts, I would like to transition to all-grain brewing. What would I need and about how much would it cost? I want to start making my own recipes and with extracts that is hard to do.
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For the record, those first two extract batches were the last extract batches I did. I don't have anything against it, and it was a nice way to learn the basics of brewing, but once I did an all-grain batch I was just that much more hooked on brewing. I do a modified brew-in-a-bag process, very similar to DeathBrewer's very popular guides (All-grain and Partial Mash). I have an 8 gallon pot ($30 aluminum tamale steamer from amazon) that needs two burners on my stove PLUS a heatstick I made (example instructions here) to boil 6+ gallons.
Plenty of online shops have a wide variety of liquid and dry extracts, ranging from british pale to rye to pilsen extract. My local shop though has "light, medium, and dark. you want that in liquid or dry?" haha. Moving to all-grain really opens the doors to being able to vary your base flavor as most local shops do carry a fair variety of base malts (at least an american pale, british pale, and german pilsen).
The all-grain BIAB with a batch sparge only added like an hour onto the brewing process versus the extract batches I did, and it was super satisfying and delicious! (and the all grain ingredients are less expensive as well)
To sum up and answer your "what equipment?" question, what I added to my kit between extract an all-grain were:
A big pot (mine is 8 gallons). Aluminum is cheap, light, and wonderful.
A way to heat the pot. My solution was the heatstick. Many use an outdoor propane burner.
The nylon BIAB bag. Mine is wide enough to fit over the mouth of my pot. Common are the paint strainer bags from home stores. Mine doubles as a hop bag (I dump the grains post-mash and rinse it out before my boil starts)
A better way to cool your wort. My kettle barely fits into my sink, so I set it in there and use a DIY immersion cooler in the wort that then drains into the sink cooling the outside of the kettle as well.
And that's it really. The kettle, heatstick, and cooler were all about $30 each, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm set.
I have made a few batches of extracts, I would like to transition to all-grain brewing. What would I need and about how much would it cost? I want to start making my own recipes and with extracts that is hard to do.
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