AG vs. Extract Brewing

[Yooper]

The equipment may be minimal, but the space to brew AG can be very expensive as I don't know of many places that sell garages with the land to put them for cheap.

Well, again, it depends on what you can get away with! Here's my "sculpture" and brewing area:

I mean, I'd love to have a three tier sculpture and a place to use it! But I don't. I have a huge yard, but it's COLD here and I'm too much of a wimp to even try it. Really, I could do extract, partial mash, or all-grain right here in my kitchen!

Notice the classy pink nail polish marks at each gallon level!

 

[z987k]

yeah I'll have to take a pic of my brew day. It's not nearly as expensive or as much shinny metal as these pics, but it works the same... assuming batch sparge. I think I spent a little over $100 to go from extract to AG.

 

[Couevas]

Find someone close by that brews AG and "help" him out one day. This will work wonders on your concerns and you will be brewing AG in no time.

My old LHBS (before I moved to the desert) used to have brew lessons once a month and taught people how to brew AG with cheap and sometimes homemade equipment. That de-mystified it for me and got me building and brewing my own for REAL.

 

[springer]

it wasnt that expensive to go from extract to All grain in my case. 2 10 gallon Gott coolers 32 bucks one keggle 130 . Already had the turkey fryer and my sculpture I already had.....

 

[MVKTR2]

I for one am currently in the process of going AG, it's a slow process for me due to $ and wanting more experience as a brewer. I detest bottling (rather the cleaning of bottles) so I'm trying to save coin up for a kegging setup (lucky me already has the spare fridge). I've got my MLT built, am buying kits and adding grains too them doing partial mash's. I need a keggle, wort chiller (homemade, dang copper prices), and burner to go AG. Soon.... soon!

The biggest pros I see are:
1 eliminating the extract twang
2 MUCH improved basemalt control and flavor (biggest impact I hypothesize)
3 cost savings
4 more involved/scientific process
5 gets me out of the house/out of work/out of the way for longer periods of time
6 control over mash temps etc. gives the brewer extra input on the final product.

Cons
Cost to get started
intimidating process to start on your own (best advice find an AG friend/watch you tube vids)

Schlante,
Phillip

 

[chemist308]

Forgive any typos as I'm having a reall off day here. Migrane this morning and insomnia tonight...

I'm a new brewer with only 3 extract brews under my belt and only 1 all grain brew. Here is what I've learned.

You have infinitely more control with all grain, but that may not be good thing if you're inexperienced. Sometime more control = more @$#% that goes wrong. The point is, extract is much harder to screw up, and much easier to do indoors. Also brewing all grain almost has to be done on a turkey freyer outdoors--I'm not putting that much weight on my nice stove, and while my electric stove fries burgers, and makes spaghetti I sure don't trust my stove for a decent boil on 8 gallons.

Also, I have to wonder if that extract twang thing doesn't go away with time. I gave a few of my second all extract brew to a friend at work. It had just spend about two weeks in the bottles and he reported that it wasn't bad. Then about 2 months later, he had the last one that he'd been saving. He tells me that last one was REAL good. Makes me think that extract twang is a sugary taste that eventially ferments out...

That said, I feel that going to all grain batches is sort of a natural progression from your very first extract brew. It's sort like study mathematics in high school then going to college and declaring a math minor or major. Some will do it, most won't.

It's more expensive to go all grain, but with a little handiwork, you can offset that. I doubt you have choice on getting an outdoor burner. Cooler conversions are cheap, and you don't need a pot with a spigot. If you don't like to drill into a pot to install a spigot, do what I did and buy some silicone tubing (not vinyl!) and siphon to you're mash tun--just dip it into the hot wort and hold your thumb over the tubing until quickli slipping it over the cooler inlet tube. The grain crusher is an investment I chose to make, but by LHBS will crush for me. I still think going AG is worth it, but I'm thinking one should not expect a usable batch the first 1 or 2 brews...

PS: You do need a wort chiller, but that's nice to have anyway. I made mine with about 25' of 3/8" copper tubing and some compression fittings from local hardware store. Not much to it. Was lucky enough to have my copper tubing laying in the garage from previous job, further cutting the costs.

 

[morrighu]

OOO,

How about this? No extract twang!!! And frankly, if you can make iced tea, you can do a decoction mash. It's exactly the same concept. I see so many people who are intimidated by brewing grain. Yet these are the same people who eat oat meal/malt-o-meal/grits for breakfast and drink tea. If you can make any of the above, you can do a decoction mash.

HTH,

M.

 

[O'Haggerty]

I still think going AG is worth it, but I'm thinking one should not expect a usable batch the first 1 or 2 brews...

While IMO most of your post was accurate, I totally disagree here. My first AG weekend was a clover honey nut brown ale and a homemade farmhouse ale recipe (attempt at WI New Glarus "Spotted Cow"). Both 10g batches turned out to be absolutely amazing. Now I have 4 Cornies full of AG premium homebrew at $0.15 per 12 oz.

In my opinion, the key is DO YOUR HOMEWORK before attempting an AG brew day. You are sitting upon a wealth of knowledge here at HBT. Take advantage of other's experience. Check out Yuri's AG videos(don't feel intimidated by his technical jargin the first time around /poke) as well as the numerous other HBT/youtube AG videos. I personally spent over two months of daily forum-browsing research before I started chipping away at my desired equipment and brewday routine.

Look for good deals on equipment over time, don't just sit down and buy everything at once. I suspect most of the guys around here pieced their rigs together over the length of their brewing careers as they stumbled across deals. I personally love DIY projects, and was able to save some serious $$ by making all of my own equipment from scratch. Check out the How-To project threads. Keep an eye on www.morebeer.com for their Deal of the Day. If you're lucky like me you'll snag a $230 15gal SS brewpot for $100 (free shipping).

As long as you do a mental run-through of the brew schedule and make sure you have the necessary equipment cleaned and ready - you should be fine. The depth and multi-layered flavors created from mixing your own malts is VERY rewarding and worth the effort. All in all going AG was extremely exciting for me, friends and family were a little overwhelmed by my nonstop talking about the upcoming brewday. The feeling of accomplishment is easily 100 fold over extract brewing for me.

Like I said, do your research. If you get the AG bug... you'll know. It will start to consume you like it has most of the AG brewers around. Brewing is one of those hobbies that can be as complex or as simple as you make it. Do what feels right and Don't be afraid to try new things!! That's what this is all about

I hope this helps. Cheers!

 

[vfinch]

If you do your research and read everything you can, any fears about AG brewing being difficult go out the window. I spent about three weeks reading tons of information and listening to brewing podcasts, and in the end I decided to jump past extract and go straight for AG. I did two 1gal batches to start off with, which turned out great (though the 2nd batch didn't have as much body as I wanted), then jumped up to a 5gal setup. I've done a batch a week since I started 3 1/2 weeks ago (2x1gal, 2x5gal)... now I think I'll have to let my drinking catch up to my brewing
I love the process and feel pride in knowing that I'm brewing the very best beer I can, right from scratch.

PS. You can brew an AG batch on a weeknight... though you need to prep a bit before hand. Today I started at 5 and finished everything at 9:30 tonight.

 

[Mustangfreak]

I want to do AG so freaking bad, but I live in a apartment, so I'm stuck with doing extract.

 

[EamusCatuli]

What is the "twang," is this the generic effing taste from extract that i despise so so so so much???????

 

[couplebeers]

Geesh...is extract brewing ok? I'm a newbie and have only brewed extract, with steeping grains. My beers have all been tasty ( 7 batches), but I'll admit I do notice the twang sometimes. I've heard that using DME with partial mashing is the way to go for extract brewers. Thoughts?

This is my first post and hello from Massachusetts, this forum is great.