How long did it take before you swticher to all grain?

[SurlyBrew]

I understand there are some people out there who never brewed extract beer and jumped right into all grain, I applaud you. As for me, I brewed for 8 months and did 13 extract batches before jumping into all grain. How long did it take before you guys switched?

 

[HawksBrewer]

Roughly a year and a half. Though to be honest, when the pipeline gets low I'll do two batches, one AG and one extract. Saves that ever-precious time.

 

[JordanThomas]

1 Mr Beer batch and then All Grain from there on.

 

[BamaRooster]

For me it was about 7 extract batches and then 10 partial mash batches over a 4 month period and then I moved into all grain. I wanted to go earlier but could not talk my wife into letting me acquire the additional equipment.

 

[BrewerinBR]

1 Mr. Beer extract kit and then all grain for batch 2 through 52 and counting

 

[RobertRGeorge]

I still do both. When I have 14 hours to spare I do all grain. Or when I need the flavor of something special like Maris Otter or the diastatic power of 6-row. I manage 3 or 4 batches a year. Otherwise I do partial mash to save on cleanup time or specialty grains only and it takes about 4 hours, which is usually the most I can manage.

 

[Brewnoob1]

I did 14 extract batches over 9 months and then switched. I've only got 6 AG batches under my belt now at just over a year of brewing total. I'll be doing both though based on time I have. AG if time isn't an issue, extract if it is.

 

[brycelarson]

I did a ton of extract brews back about 15 years ago when I started. I took a few years off when I lived in small apartments - then jumped into all grain when I had the space and time. I've now returned to doing some partial mash batches when I don't have time to knock out an all grain batch. I'm about 10:1 - all grain to extract at this point and about 20 batches a year.

 

[xmacro]

Thinking about AG, but it's cost prohibitive for me and I don't have the room for the extra equipment. I'm focusing on a keezer set up before AG even begins to enter the picture

 

[bribo179]

2 batches of extract ...which were terrible. I wanted to make good beer and figured I might as well go all in. My first all grain batch was great and I haven't looked back.

 

[jbaysurfer]

2 batches of extract ...which were terrible. I wanted to make good beer and figured I might as well go all in. My first all grain batch was great and I haven't looked back.

Think I did 4 extract batches, with only one of them being drinkable (first one ironically, but the "extra pale ale" got awfully dark with extract scorching!) then moved to AG. My first AG batch was awesome. I was sold from then on.

 

[TyroneSweetlick]

Did extract for about 18 years then stumbled across DeathBrewer's stovetop tutorial. Been all-grain since then (1 year). I actually get compliments on my beer now.

 

[davekippen]

6 extract batches over the first 7 months, one BIAB and now 2 all grain. Been brewing only since January so 10 months.

 

[amandabab]

Maybe a year or so. I've never fully switched and not looked back. I went a few years without doing any all grain for convenience. With the price of extract now I'm about 80% partial or all grain.

 

[Yooper]

I still do both. When I have 14 hours to spare I do all grain. Or when I need the flavor of something special like Maris Otter or the diastatic power of 6-row. I manage 3 or 4 batches a year. Otherwise I do partial mash to save on cleanup time or specialty grains only and it takes about 4 hours, which is usually the most I can manage.

14 hours! How many AG batches do you do in one day? I can do an extract batch in 2 hours, an AG batch in 4 hours.

I don't remember how long it was when I went to partial mash or all-grain from extracts. It might have been a dozen or more batches.

 

[Bricks41]

Started with all grain and will continue with it. Each batch is better than the last (so far) which tells me I'm doing something right!

Batch 9 (1.095 barleywine) and 9.25 (2G - 1.054 pale from 2nd runnings) in primary bubbling away.

 

[boxofjibboo]

4 extract, and then my buddy told me he would sell me his 10g mash tun and wort chiller for 100 bucks. one of my happiest purchases ever!

 

[SurlyBrew]

Thinking about AG, but it's cost prohibitive for me and I don't have the room for the extra equipment. I'm focusing on a keezer set up before AG even begins to enter the picture

I thought it would be too expensive as well, but it turned out to not be too bad at all. I had the turkey frier setup. I couldn't quite do a full boil with that so I got a 10 gallon SS pot. After that, all I needed was a mash tun. I bought a cooler at sears and made a copper manifold and I was good to go. I have no keezer here! Just a swamp cooler that is keeping my DHF 60 min at 62 F.

 

[Brewnoob1]

14 hours! How many AG batches do you do in one day? I can do an extract batch in 2 hours, an AG batch in 4 hours.

I don't remember how long it was when I went to partial mash or all-grain from extracts. It might have been a dozen or more batches.

I was thinking the same thing! I just started AG and have only 6 batches under my belt. Even when I ran into a MAJOR problem on batch 3 it only took me roughly 5 hours to do AG from start to finish. 14 hours is redonkulous!

 

[BeerMeThatBeer]

I wanted to go earlier but could not talk my wife into letting me acquire the additional equipment.

quote of the century! luckily - it was my wife who pushed me into homebrewing, so it was an easier sell each time i said: "honey - i think i need to go buy ____". ($300 in pots/burners/fermenters/mashtun modifications later)

I did 3 extract batches; 1 good (amber ale); 1 bad (hefeweizen); and 1 awesome (dry hopped pale ale).

now i'm into all-grain (1 batch of American Brown bottle conditioning now) - and not sure i can ever go back. the freedom you are given to experiment and make just about any style you want to - - thats the big selling point to me. i'm probably in the 6 batch per year group - so i've always got time to plan my next one (and drink my last one!).

read up on here for a month - and all-grain gets significantly less intimidating.

_bmbt

 

[RobertRGeorge]

I was thinking the same thing! I just started AG and have only 6 batches under my belt. Even when I ran into a MAJOR problem on batch 3 it only took me roughly 5 hours to do AG from start to finish. 14 hours is redonkulous!

A bit of hyperbole there. But here is the rough breakdown:

Obtain grains from nearest homebrew supply store: 1 hour
Grind grains using corona mill: .5 hour
Dough in: .5 hour
Acid rest: .5 hour
Protein rest: .5 hour
Saccarification rest: 1.5 hour
Mash out: .17 hour
Transfer to lauter tun: .17 hour
Vorlauf: .33 hour
Main sparge: 1 hour
Boil: 1 hour
Chill .5 hour
Transfer to fermenter, rinse hops: .17 hour
Aerate and pitch: .17 hour
Clean up equipment and brew room, dispose of grains, etc: .75 hour

Total my time 8.26 hours
Compared to 3 hours to do an all extract recipe with specialty grain steeping.
That's how I do it. YMMV.

 

[D_Nyholm]

Did about 10 or 15 extract batches and then started biab. I've done about 8 of them but still do extract batches at times. Planning on buying a 20g pot to do 10g all grain biab and use the old 10g pot and an extra burner I have to do extract batches at the same time. Will be fun to brew 15g of beer in about 4-5 hours!

Switching to all grain wasn't really much more expensive. I just bought a mill and base grains on group buy so the mill was expensive but the grain is cheap. About $0.65 per pound. I can brew a simple batch for under $20 and a holly batch for under $30 with washed yeast. I am also a big fan of Nottingham and S-05.

 

[menerdari]

5 extract, 3 from kits 2 my own recipe. I will be doing my first AG in the form of a bastardized BIAB (instead of just mashing in the full water volume I will be mashing in a smaller volume followed by a batch sparge) it will be from a Midwest AG kit, cream stout. This does not mean I will not brew extract kits any more, plenty of choices out there.

 

[JordanThomas]

I do not understand how it could take 14 hours to do an all-grain batch. I think our longest one (first one) took about 7 hours from first set-up to last cleaned piece of equipment.

Now we knock 'em out in about 5.

1/2 hour setup
1 hour mash
1/2 hour draining/sparging
20 minutes to heat up to a boil
1 hour boil
40 minutes cooldown
1 hour cleanup