considering going all grain

[xbabyboy4021x]

ive recently started brewing beer, ive brewed four 5gal batches using my brewers best starter kit using all extract pre-made brewers best recipe kits. after reading up a little bit on all grain brewing ive decided i might want to give it a try sometime soon but i have a few questions and im sorry if theese are answered somewhere else but ive looked around and cant seem the find the answers..

1.what are the main benefits that AG has over extract brewing? i assume its cheaper and can produce a higher quality beer

2.about how much cheaper would it be to go to AG? right now im paying around $35 per extract kit to brew 5gal batches

3. how much extra money am i looking at spending on equipment and stuff like that to start AG brewing? i have everything i need to easily brew extract kits and was wondering what else is ABSOLUTELY necessary for switching to AG

thanks for the help guys

 

[Revvy]

You know this is one of the most asked questions on here...and it has been answered several times over...

Here's the threads I dug up from Searching...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/search.php?searchid=2956470

 

[xbabyboy4021x]

sorry guess i just didnt search enough...and also would you guys recommend getting a few more batches under my belt before switching to all grain? or do u think 4 batches is enough to have the process down well enough to make the switch

 

[brown_dog_us]

I'd do a partial mash first. It's like a baby step.

 

[ak47clown]

As far as price is concerned-consider this: yesterday i went to my LHBS and spent $36.00 on DME alone (7lbs). Since i was making an IPA it was an additional $20+ for the hops and then then another few bucks for crystal 40 and yeast. Taking a look online, grain costs not much more than $1/lb and most recipes call for between 10-12lbs of grain. Right there you are cutting cost by a significant number. I'm pretty sure that after my second batch, i'm going to switch to all grain brewing. I know that I'll need an additional kettle but the cost of that will essentially pay for itself after another 2 or 3 brews.

 

[Revvy]

Well you will get AG people jumping on saying go for it...Me I take a different tack to that answer, you can find it here...

http://blogs.homebrewtalk.com/Revvy/Why_cant_we_all_get_along/

I tend to be the guy answering the "is my beer ruined threads" and it sometimes bugs me when the all grain questions are NOT all grain specific but have more to do with basic brewing process...Like if you have to be told that airlock activity means nothing and to use your hydrometer, or to wait three weeks to see if the bottles are carb...then personally I don't think the person is ready...

Are you still brewing kits or have you started working with other peoples recipes or formulating your own? You can make great beer with extract and a great recipe...just like you can make lousy allgrain with bad recipes.

If you feel like you have challenged yourself all you can with extract or that you make great beer with extract then yeah...if you can't answer that yet, then maybe playing around with tweaking recipes or doing partial mashes, or going full extract boils..or dialing in your process some more...You are the only one who can tell yourself that...no one else can no matter how much someone evangelizes you to their belief.

You are the only one who can tell you if you have done enough to dial in your process...

If you do it becasue you THINK your first batch will be Perfect and that all grain is the holy grail, then no..that's not the truth..as my blog says.

If you are doing it becasue you wanna make cool gear, and challenge yourself beyond what you are doing now, then Hell Yeah!!!

I brew all methods, I don't call myself an all grainer...there's some recipes that I have after all this time, that are easier and less time consuming to do as extract, and these recipes are dialed in so good that they taste great either as extract or AG. and some still don't taste as good all grain as extract so they need to be refined....Or if there's a time constraint I brew it as extract. I call myself a Home Brewer instead..I cover all bases..

 

[Yooper]

Going AG is cheaper (for malt) but there are some other costs, too. Like a big enough pot to boil 6.5 gallons of wort, as well as a burner to cook it on. Also, you can make a MLT pretty cheaply, but there are some costs involved with that, too. You can use your old brewpot (if it's at least 5 gallons) to heat sparge water, but if you don't have a second large pot, it's a pain to put the runnings into a bucket and then wait until the brewpot is empty. So, even though it can be done without spending a fortune, it may be costly.

If you think this is the direction you want to go, I'd suggest doing somethings now to get there, but doing it gradually. For example, get a turkey fryer or other pot/burner set up and start doing full boils now. Then, when you go AG, you'll have the pot and burner. In addition, the beer will be improved from a full boil, so you have "instant" gratification as well. You can also do PM brews now- that will help get you where you're going. When I first started with PM, I used my bottling bucket lined with a grain bag for my mash, then wrapped it in a sleeping bag. It worked good enough for me to know that I wanted to go further along in the process.

For AG, you'll also need some sort of mashtun (there are many different ones, but most of us use a converted cooler). That's really about all the equipment you'll need that I can think of.

 

[Moonshae]

You're also more likely to have higher quality beer by controlling your fermentation temps than by going to AG. If you're fermenting too warm (not such a problem in the winter, but come summer...), your beer is likely to end up substandard whether it's AG or extract, unless it's one of the *few* brews that benefit from a higher ferm temp.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

I'd do a partial mash first. It's like a baby step.

NO!!!!!!!

Unless you are hampered by lack of space or something like that, just go to the AG. You're going through the same motions anyway.

 

[Revvy]

You're also more likely to have higher quality beer by controlling your fermentation temps than by going to AG. If you're fermenting too warm (not such a problem in the winter, but come summer...), your beer is likely to end up substandard whether it's AG or extract, unless it's one of the *few* brews that benefit from a higher ferm temp.

Great answer!!!

There's a lot of stuff that you can do to improve your brewing and add more variables whether you are brewing AG or Extract, and dialing in your fermentation temp controls is one of them...

Even in terms of cost...you can build up a hop suppl, ordering online or shopping around...

You can also yeast was and yeast harvest...even ranching yeast from bottle conditioned beers.

Hops and yeast can add up..especially if you use liquid..but if you build up a yeast and hop bank..there's a few bucks of your lhbs bill regardless of the method you brew.

 

[snailsongs]

Great answer!!!

There's a lot of stuff that you can do to improve your brewing and add more variables whether you are brewing AG or Extract, and dialing in your fermentation temp controls is one of them...

Even in terms of cost...you can build up a hop suppl, ordering online or shopping around...

You can also yeast was and yeast harvest...even ranching yeast from bottle conditioned beers.

Hops and yeast can add up..especially if you use liquid..but if you build up a yeast and hop bank..there's a few bucks of your lhbs bill regardless of the method you brew.

I just put a lc-thermometer on my fermentor for the first time this week....and for the first time I am concerned about the temperature of my beer. So Revvy, what temps do you like to ferment your standard ales at, and do you ever raise temps toward the end of fermentation to encourage the yeast or do you just leave them at a steady level? I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I am curious.

 

[snailsongs]

I recently found a decent deal on 40lbs of maris otter extract seconds ($79 for 40lbs from Williams Brewing co (don't know if this is still available). I plan on cutting my teeth on this 40lbs and then moving to all grain from there. I will also be doing some partial mashes to get a feel for the process and how my set-up works while still making drinkable beer. In the end I think that all-grain will be the way to go too. I will be using the extract as a kind of safety net while I develop a decent technique before making an investment in the larger brew kettle necessary. If you have only brewed a couple of times, I would recommend that you get comfortable brewing, before you worry too much about all grain......and Revvy is right, shopping around online is a good way to build up your supplies cheaply (I'm going to try the yeast washing in a couple weeks when my fermentors get emptied)....my LHBS is nearly twice as expensive as most net-shops, though it is good when I need something same day.

 

[Revvy]

I just put a lc-thermometer on my fermentor for the first time this week....and for the first time I am concerned about the temperature of my beer. So Revvy, what temps do you like to ferment your standard ales at, and do you ever raise temps toward the end of fermentation to encourage the yeast or do you just leave them at a steady level? I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I am curious.

I have terrible temp control problems living in my loft, and not having the space for a dedicated fridge to do it at...In the summer I use a swamp cooler and try to get the temp strip on my bucket as close to 60 as possible, if not lower, knowing that fermentation is exothermic and that it may actually be warmer in the center of the fermenter...so I fill the cooler with ice water (frozen water bottles) and put a t-shirt on each of them.

I usually only worry about it for the first 24-48 hours of fermentation knowing that it is less crucial later in the process.

I was proud this summer that at the height of August I managed to get the strip to read in the mid 50's, figuring I was in the low 60's in actuality.

It's a different issue now than it is summer...My winter loft temps are in the low 60's....though I still want to get an aquarium heater to ferment in a water bath as well and keep it at a constant temp...And bottle conditioning? Forget three weeks at 70. I can't hit 70...so I'm using athinsulate sleeping bag that I can stack 3-4 beer cases in and try to raise the temp in.

I decided to do a Beligian last week and the ambient temp was actually too low to get the yeasties jumping, and I wanted some of the funkiness from the warmer temps, so I ended up pointing a ceramic heater at the carboy overnight.

I have storage in my lofts inside garage and it's in the low 50's right now...so I amdtrying for the first time to do some ghetto lagering of some things.

See there's always something to work at no matter what method you brew...I'm still trying to dial in temp control in my brewing environment all year round...I'm trying to tweak and fiddle all the time.

 

[snailsongs]

I have terrible temp control problems living in my loft, and not having the space for a dedicated fridge to do it at...In the summer I use a swamp cooler and try to get the temp strip on my bucket as close to 60 as possible, if not lower, knowing that fermentation is exothermic and that it may actually be warmer in the center of the fermenter...so I fill the cooler with ice water (frozen water bottles) and put a t-shirt on each of them.

I usually only worry about it for the first 24-48 hours of fermentation knowing that it is less crucial later in the process.

I was proud this summer that at the height of August I managed to get the strip to read in the mid 50's, figuring I was in the low 60's in actuality.

It's a different issue now than it is summer...My winter loft temps are in the low 60's....though I still want to get an aquarium heater to ferment in a water bath as well and keep it at a constant temp...And bottle conditioning? Forget three weeks at 70. I can't hit 70...so I'm using athinsulate sleeping bag that I can stack 3-4 beer cases in and try to raise the temp in.

I decided to do a Beligian last week and the ambient temp was actually too low to get the yeasties jumping, and I wanted some of the funkiness from the warmer temps, so I ended up pointing a ceramic heater at the carboy overnight.

I have storage in my lofts inside garage and it's in the low 50's right now...so I amdtrying for the first time to do some ghetto lagering of some things.

See there's always something to work at no matter what method you brew...I'm still trying to dial in temp control in my brewing environment all year round...I'm trying to tweak and fiddle all the time.

That's funny. This is exactly the kind of improvised creative solutions I have been playing around with, only I've been taking the readings at face value...

....since I am trying to give one beer a Diacetyl rest, I actually wrapped a large seedling heating pad around one bucket and placed a coat halfway around the other side to help contain heat. It's in front of a heat vent too...

....what your saying tells me that my closet, which produces a reading of 60F, is probably just about right....as for ghetto lagering, I could do that in my basement, and if I put a carboy up next to one of the windows I could probably get it to 40.....because this is frigid Wisconsin!

 

[brown_dog_us]

NO!!!!!!!

Unless you are hampered by lack of space or something like that, just go to the AG. You're going through the same motions anyway.

Just my opinion but...

You can do partial mashes with very little new equiptment (see DB's stove top method). Since the OP is just starting out, I assumed he didn't have all the goodies yet. Also, if something goes wrong with your mash, when you partial mash the extract will help get the OG and flavor profile closer to what you were expecting.

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

maybe you should try mash/extract a few times to at least make a beer using some actual grains instead of all syrup. this would give you a glimpse at mashing and sparging. i find new ways to refine my process every time i brew, even after ten years. i am not the smartest or most organized guy, but i still have not ventured into the AG mode (although my next brew will be AG, as soon as i make my wort chiller!) also, doesn't AG take 2-3 times longer than extract?

 

[Gonefishing]

AG absolutely takes more time. Consider that with extract you heat your water and add the extract (simplistically). With AG you heat water to a specific temp, put that in the cooler, add grains, stir, monitor to maintain temp for a specified time, drain, sparge, collect the wort and bring that to a boil. At that point you're on step one of an extract brew and you're probably 2 hours in to it. Because you can clean the equipment you've used up to that point while the boil is going the time for this step will be the same until the boil is done as an extract brew would be. If you've not been doing full boils the post boil time will also be longer because you've got to spend some time cooling it down, which can vary from about 10 minutes to a whole lot longer than that.