Extract vs. All Grain in competitions

[homebrewer_99]

after all it IS a hobby... LOL

Right!! All about personal preference.

It's like when painting model cars...somewhere I heard: "if the car seat is already black (plastic) then why do I have to paint it black?"

 

[rcreveli]

I am on my fifth batch and still doing partial boil extract due to a combination of time, experience and equipment. Someday I may do all grain but not in the next 12 months. However I get complements on my beers from friends and other homebrewers and might even enter a competition someday. Am I not a "real brewer" if I can't afford to set up an awesome AG rig? <Sarcasm>

It's funny because I think brewers are a lot more forgiving of things than in other hobbies like photography. I remember the

It's not real unless you shoot slide film
It's not real if you digitally manipulate
It's not real if you shoot color negs
It's not real unless you print in your own Darkroom

Debates.

I make beer I like, I make beer my friends like, If I can win a comp with that then I will win.

 

[passedpawn]

should be just based on taste.

Yea, but don't you think the brewer needs to actually brew the beer? Define "brew the beer". I find it hard to identify beer making without a mash.

What if you could buy a kit that included wort, in liquid form, and all you had to do was add yeast. Is that brewing?

Imagine it was the same scenario, but instead of liquid form, it was a powder and you just added water. Call the powder DME.

 

[AnOldUR]

If I'm racing Indy cars, do I have to know how to rebuild my engine to be considered for a pole position? Nope. Does it help to know how to do so?

Damn, that's a really poor metaphor. Kind of like relating knowing how to build a grain mill to knowing how to brew. The Indy racer is a driver, not a mechanic. We call ourselves brewers. Brewing is not growing or grinding grain. It&#8217;s not cultivating yeast. It&#8217;s not even developing recipes. I think it's safe to generalize that brewing is mashing, boiling and fermenting. Can you skip one or more of those steps and still be called a brewer? The BJCP say "yes" and since they&#8217;re the ones governing the competitions, that&#8217;s all that matters.

 

[AnOldUR]

What if you could buy a kit that included wort, in liquid form, and all you had to do was add yeast. Is that brewing?

Wonder if they could sell a refridgerated bucket of boiled and chilled wort with the yeast already in it.
Bring it home. Warm it up. Wait for beer. Hey, I'm a brewer.






Ducking the flames . . . :cross:

 

[passedpawn]

ducking the flames . . . :cross:

incoming.......

 

[Bobby_M]

If competition is going to include points for difficulty or authenticity, you would have to take it further than AG vs. extract. What about partial mash? Somewhere in the middle. What if you made the recipe from scratch without using software or reading someone elses as a basis? Do you automatically win if you show up with a beer made from grain you grew and malted yourself, hops you grew, and corn sugar made from corn you grew yourself? Oh yeah, I mine my own silica to melt into bottles.

 

[Revvy]

Oh yeah, I mine my own silica to melt into bottles.

So when will we see the youtube videos?

 

[passedpawn]

Oh yeah, I mine my own silica to melt into bottles.

Which of the following are the parts of "brewing" that can be left out:

1. growing your own barley / hops
2. malting
3. milling
4. mashing/sparging
5. boiling
6. pitching yeast
7. fermenting / temp control
8. bottling / kegging.

I got started brewing by doing no-boil extracts. That bypasses most of the beginning steps. Was that brewing?

How many of these steps get bypassed before it is not brewing anymore?

 

[pacebrew]

1-3 although it would be cool to do them all... lol

 

[AnOldUR]

How many of these steps get bypassed before it is not brewing anymore?

So, you actually believe that to be a chef you have to grow your own produce and raise your own meat and dairy products?

Oh yeah, I mine my own silica to melt into bottles.

How did the earth that the silica was mined from come about. Big Bang or creation? Following this logic we have to be Gods to brew beer.









It&#8217;s fun to dabble in the absurd, but I think we can manage to narrow down the definition of brewing just a bit.

 

[SteveM]

If competition is going to include points for difficulty or authenticity, you would have to take it further than AG vs. extract. What about partial mash? Somewhere in the middle. What if you made the recipe from scratch without using software or reading someone elses as a basis? Do you automatically win if you show up with a beer made from grain you grew and malted yourself, hops you grew, and corn sugar made from corn you grew yourself? Oh yeah, I mine my own silica to melt into bottles.

Hey, if my system is flexible enough to allow for people who just want to take the labels off of commercial beers and relabel and cap them as their own, it is flexible enough to provide extra points for glass blowers! :cross:

 

[AnOldUR]

We mash and boil to produce what is the foundation of our beer. Using malt extract sidesteps this part of brewing. Some people compare malt extract to using a cake mix, but it&#8217;s beyond that. It&#8217;s using a cake mix and having someone else bake it. (In our case, malt extract is pre-boiled wort.) Sure, you could layer that cake with your secret recipe for filling, put homemade icing on it and decorate it to make it your own wonderful creation. That doesn&#8217;t change the fact that someone else baked the cake that is the foundation of what you produced, but that also doesn&#8217;t take away from the quality of an end product that is uniquely your own. It is what it is.

I was watching a cake-making contest on The Food Network last night. This beer competition argument can be compared to that. It would be like those contestants going to a bakery and buying the cake that is used as the foundation of their elaborate creation. If the rules of the event allowed this, it would be a great time saver and a portion of the entries would be created this way. The BJCP allows the use of extract. If you think you can do better without it, you have that choice.





Edit: How'm I doing at straddling the fence?

 

[passedpawn]

So, you actually believe that to be a chef you have to grow your own produce and raise your own meat and dairy products?

No, not at all. I was just trying to make a complete list to start with.

 

[SteveM]

We mash and boil to produce what is the foundation of our beer. Using malt extract sidesteps this part of brewing. Some people compare malt extract to using a cake mix, but it&#8217;s beyond that. It&#8217;s using a cake mix and having someone else bake it. (In our case, malt extract is pre-boiled wort.) Sure, you could layer that cake with your secret recipe for filling, put homemade icing on it and decorate it to make it your own wonderful creation. That doesn&#8217;t change the fact that someone else baked the cake that is the foundation of what you produced and that also doesn&#8217;t take away from the quality of an end product that is uniquely your own. It is what it is.

I was watching a cake-making contest on The Food Network last night. This beer competition argument can be compared to that. It would be like those contestants going to a bakery and buying the cake that is used as the foundation of their elaborate creation. If the rules of the event allowed this, it would be a great time saver and a portion of the entries would be created this way. The BJCP allows the use of extract. If you think you can do better without it, you have that choice.





Edit: How'm I doing at straddling the fence?

Not great, really - you have one whole paragraph, plus three out of four sentences of another on one side of the issue. You only hit the other side with one sentence.

On the other hand, that one sentence is the trump card.

 

[AnOldUR]

No, not at all. I was just trying to make a complete list to start with.

But that's the point. Growing grain doesn't belong on a list of the brewing process anymore than raising cattle belongs on a list of what it takes to prepare a meal. There was a time when all of these jobs may have been done by one person, but they are seperate jobs. To bring them into the argument only clouds the issue. A brewer is not a farmer. A brewer is not a maltster. And no, a brewer does not blow glass.

But I think you knew that.

 

[mmb]

Is it beer? Yes/No.

It's a beer competition, not a brewing competition. The better beer wins. That an extract batch can win might make an AG brewer cry in his grist but who cares? Then that AG brewer needs to brew a better beer.

 

[AnOldUR]

It's a beer competition, not a brewing competition.

Actually they're called "Homebrew Competitions", in other words, contests of beers brewed at home. What constitutes brewing seems to be the point of discussion.




Can Wikipedia settle this?

Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains) in water and then fermenting with yeast.

Edit: No, I didn't think so either.

 

[goose1873]

I love this HOBBY! I moved through the progression just like most of the AG brewers on here. I will say one of the best beers I have ever made were at the end of my extract days...

Most would probably move to AG if money/space/time were not an issue...but it is for many and was for me at a time. I will say that I feel like AG brewing "feels" more like making beer but thats not to say extract brewing doesn't/didn't.

This is subjective; but IMO making beer in any form is brewing.

BUT:

If I had to draw the line on when the process becomes complete I only look at a brewmasters job at a major brewery....

All major brewmasters order their grain and hops, mill, mash, boil, ferment, package...although they do QC on the ingredients, hey leave the bottle making, hops growing, and malting to professionals in their respective fields...

Again, I brew for fun (mash or no mash), but I think the line is fairly apparent. Thats not to say we can't stop before or after it...

All that being said, the day I set the pot on the stove and dumped in the coopers kit, I was brewing

cheers

 

[Holycrepe]

Its a fairly accepted terminology to call it "Extract Brewing" and "All-Grain Brewing"

Extract Brewing is the gateway to AG Brewing for most brewers, if you couldn' do extract to get hooked into the process and enjoy making the beer for the lower costs/ease associated with starting with extract, the majority of brewers would possibly of never started.

If that were the case, then this whole hobby would not be where it is today. So instead of deriding Extract brewing as not brewing, it should be realized as what it really is, begining brewing/low cost brewing/time saving brewing, but it is STILL brewing.

I am an extract brewer, My Wife and I have been brewing less than 2 months, and have learned alot, we are still kit brewers, which we realize is the bottom rung of the brewing ladder.

Next week we will be modifying our first kit brew, by adding some blueberries into a secondary to make our first "original" brew. We know come the cool weather of fall, we will be brewing more "original" brews, and working our way up the ladder of difficulty.

By next spring i would bet we are doing all grain, but we know as well, that we will still do extract brews as well, as sometimes time constraints will make it difficult to do the all grain.

In the end, if the beer is good, no matter how you make it, its a winner, and your a brewer.

 

[stevedasleeve]

It was/is a stupid question. How is any judge able to distinguish one brewing process from another? One hot-rod super tech brewery is judged against a plastic pail and aluminum stock pot and who wins? The best beer not the process or the equipment of even the know how.

I'd be willing to bet a fair amount that the poster for this topic is either under 25 or a troll or an idiot. Not that these are synonymous but they do implicate a certain marketing gullibility.

No offense man but what a dumb post!

YMMV and WTF,
Steve da sleeve

 

[Bobby_M]

The question was a matter of credit or weight being given to the "how" in addition to the "what" that is currently judged. My argument was that it is a slippery slope of complexity. In the current state, a beer that is fermented from a prehopped extract COULD place higher than the same basic beer that was completely crafted from all grain brewing. Frankly, if you can beat my beer with prehopped kits, more power to you. You'll need to sprinkle some crack in it for that to happen ;-)

On the other hand, if you need extra credit to win just because your process is harder, it's a sad state of affairs. You should be able to justify the added difficulty by how much better the end result is. If not, why make it harder?

 

[AnOldUR]

It was/is a stupid question. How is any judge able to distinguish one brewing process from another? . . .I'd be willing to bet a fair amount that the poster for this topic is either under 25 or a troll or an idiot . . . No offense man but what a dumb post!

The OP&#8217;s question, "Why do they still combine extract and all grain beers in competitions?" isn&#8217;t stupid. It's pretty obvious that a judge wouldn't even know if you entered a commercial beer as your own. These are amateur competitions run for the entertainment of the contestants. We enter under the honor system. Sure there will be cheats, but they&#8217;re only cheating themselves.

As the hobby grows, dividing the competition into categories by brewing method may very well become a reality. Your name calling and post content is not only out of place, but it shows your own ignorance.







Edit:
Bobby. I don't think anyone is asking for extra credit for using a harder method, but there&#8217;s nothing wrong with the idea of a level playing field. Both methods can make great beer, but they are different. Judging them separately and moving the top beers to a BOS is not all that far fetched.

 

[Homercidal]

The point of the OP's discussion seems to be whether or not AG and Extract should be judged together in a competition. His assertion is that AG is inherently more difficult, therefore someone who brews using extract has an advantage over someone who mashes.

I disagree. My main point of contention is that I don't think it's difficult to brew AG. The mash process is not hard at all. Yes it requires another piece or two of equipment. Lots of beginner AG brewers don't really understand the process very well, but they can follow a recipe just fine. As long as you hit the volume and temperature in the mash tun, you will be fine. Yes it really is as easy as heating up the proper amount of water to the proper temp and mixing with some crushed grains.

Most AG brewers use software to dial in their recipe, and the actual mash step is not hard. There is still plenty of brewing steps following the creation of wort that can get screwed up, or can play a role just as important as the wort creation.

Either type of brewer can still ferment 10 degrees too high and ruin what might have been an award winning beer.

 

[gtpro]

Well with that added level of difficulty comes an added level of freedom to create different and more complex styles, so if you're good at all grain, it should yield an advantage.

 

[BioBeing]

Wonder if they could sell a refridgerated bucket of boiled and chilled wort with the yeast already in it.
Bring it home. Warm it up. Wait for beer. Hey, I'm a brewer.

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[passedpawn]

Never heard of Festa Brew?


[/LIST]

Now that's a horse of a different color. I didn't know that existed.

Is that brewing?

 

[SteveM]

Bobby. I don't think anyone is asking for extra credit for using a harder method, but there’s nothing wrong with the idea of a level playing field. Both methods can make great beer, but they are different. Judging them separately and moving the top beers to a BOS is not all that far fetched.

I think this is a reference to a tongue in cheek comment I made several pages back (and to which I referred again a few pages later) suggesting the use of "degree of difficulty" multipliers. No one should have taken it seriously. :rockin:

 

[homebrewer_99]

GROUP HUG!!!! :rockin: