A Newbie To The Homebrew World

Hello,

I would like to start off by introducing myself, my name Is Mark & I live in the North Hills area of Pittsburgh. I have always wanted to brew my own beer but was to scared to do it for only but one reason. I tasted a friend of mines homebrew and it was so bad that I spit it out right in front of him. Not only did I feel bad for doing that to him but I don't think he tried making anymore. But to be completely honest! "IT WAS BAD TASTING"

So I related this story to Don & Ruth, the owners of my local homebrew shop, "Porter House Brew Shop" in Portersville PA. and they gave me some samples of the most heavenly homebrew I have ever tasted, and YES I was hooked! This was a month ago. Since I had bought my deluxe homebrew kit and have started my first batch of an Irish Red. Two days ago I transfered my wort from my primary to my secondary, all I got to say is "OMG" what a flavor!!!! I can't wait to taste after I add my corn sugar and bottle it. I will let you all know how it comes out.

In the mean time though, I have a question!

I have been looking at a lot of the recipes here on Homebrew Talk and I have noticed that many of them are an "ALL GRAIN" recipe, and that the malt used is the actuall grain, is there a conversion chart avalible to convert the grain to an extract?

I hope that I haven't offended the "The True & Pure Home Brewers" with this question. I would just like to know.

Thanks for any information that you can help me with.

Mark

Welcome to the obsession! You'll find that most of the people here are more than happy to help those who are nwe to the hobby.

All Grain is a much more involved and therefore can be a more rewarding process than simple extract brewing...You have more control over everything and therefore have the potential to make even better brews than with extract or extract with grains, or partial mashing....

Since it's more complex it takes a little more equipment and more techniques than the other ways....I like to say it has the POTENTIAL to make better beer depending on the process and skills of the brewer (I've tasted some algrain from people that tasted like crap, and I've had extract only beers that tasted amazing)-

So in my opinion, it's more a matter of perfecting your technique than just whether or not it is an AG or an Extract Batch....

My recomenndation is to start with a few kit batches, paying attention and improving your processes, and as your skills improve you can move up to AG if you can....Do to my space requirments I can't do full Allgrain (I don't have a backyard where I can do the full volume boils required for all grain) I do extract, extract with grain, and Partial Mashes (where you extract a few gallons of wort from the grains, and add extract and water), depending on the recipe.

Some people are allgrain purists and will tell you that's the only way to go....But I think having a good brewing process, no matter how you brew makes for superior beer (Like I said, I've had allgrain batches from people who had all the bells and whistles who's brewing process sucked, and so did their beers. And I've tasted people's extract beers who were meticulus in their brewing and sanitization processes and their beer were amazing)...TO me this is a Craft, it is a mixture of art and science...

Welcome to your new Obsession!!!

A good refrence (besides this forum) is the book (which you can read online) How to Brew which you can read here....http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html and Charlie Papazian's "bible" The Complete Joy of Home Brewing

ALso look at the the various "stickies" in the different sections of this forum...they cover all the basic info, and my save you from starting an "Is my beer ruined?" thread....

Enjoy!!!!

Welcome to HBT!

Most all-grain recipes can easily be converted to extract. One of us would be happy to do it for you, or you can buy some software (Beersmith and Promash are good and I think both have free trials) to help with the conversion.

Brewing beer becomes an obsession- watch out!