All grain - starter question

[ineednfnname]

I've been brewing per kits for 9 months. I want to get into all grain brewing but don't know where to start.

The brew supply store here in town has all sorts of grains etc for sale, but how do you know what to get and in what quantities for your brew?
Also, some of the kits I've tried have grains in them to steep, but also come with LME or DME. I guess I'm confused, with all grain brewing, do you use extracts (dry and/or liquid) ?

I'm usually more of a 'follow a recipe' type of guy, but this is something I've been wanting to try.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

 

[aidan]

With all-grain brewing you don't use any pre-prepared extract.

I'd suggest trying a partial mash for your next brew, it's a good intermediate step between extract brewing and all grain brewing. Basically you do a mash on a smaller scale so you don't need much in the way of equipment, then you use some extract to make up the difference. You can potentially get results just as good as all-grain with this method.

I've documented my extract brewing, partial mash and BIAB all-grain processes on my blog so if you have a look at that you'll see what's similar and what's different between the processes. See http://brewinmyown.com/category/home-brewing-instructions/

 

[yeahfairly]

Hey Grand Junction.... been there many times..... Love the place! With the kits you have been using, the extract is basically concentrated wort that someone has already mashed out for you and it's been boiled down into a concentrate. The grains you get with the kit that you steep before the boil are specialty grains that you use to add color, flavor and so on.

In all-grain you would not normally use Dry Malt Extract or liquid Malt Extract. As far as building recipes, there are numerous excellent ones in the recipe section at the top of the page. They list all the ingredients you need, the mash times and mash temps and the amount of hops and hop addition times. In addition... You can buy all grain recipe kits online or from your LHBS that contain everything you will need other than the equipment. There is also free software out there that will help you build your own recipes.

I highly recommend that you go to the "New to Home Brew" and "All Grain brewing" sections on HBT and read up on the topic of All Grain Brewing. It's really not that much more difficult that extract. The equipment requirements are greater and there are way more opportunities for you to screw up when you go all grain.... but the ability to have total control of your beer and the gratification you get from it are well worth the extra effort!