Newbe All Grain Question

[JasonCajda]

I brewed my first all grain beer yesterday and everyhing went great for a first time, thanks to all the knowledge here. But my wife had a question and I didn't know the answer.

Why when doing all-grain do you need to do full boils, but when you do extract you can do partial's and add water.

Thanks

 

[Erbium:YAG]

With AG the lautering process now becomes critical. The amount of sparge water you're going to use to extract every last bit of fermentable sugars from the grains is enough to bring you either up to, or nearly up to full wort volumes. When using extract, most of the fermentable sugars are already concentrated in the extract itself. Even then, if an extract brewer has a large enough brew kettle, its advisable to do a full wort boil as this increases hop utilization and lessens the likelyhood of darkening the beer.

 

[Salizar]

I haven't done my first all grain yet, but I've been doing some research to gear-up for it. One page that I found during my research (probably linked from this site) was http://www.allaboutbeer.com/homebrew/24.1-mashing.html . This page indicates that the main reason for doing a full boil is efficency but if you don't care about efficency then a full boil is not essential.

 

[sonvolt]

I haven't done my first all grain yet, but I've been doing some research to gear-up for it. One page that I found during my research (probably linked from this site) was http://www.allaboutbeer.com/homebrew/24.1-mashing.html . This page indicates that the main reason for doing a full boil is efficency but if you don't care about efficency then a full boil is not essential.

While that is true, you have to consider the sheer waste that you will encounter if you decide to do a partial boil/all grain recipe. Consider this: If it takes 5-6 gallons of sparge water to rinse the sugars from 9-11 lbs of grain to get a 1.050-1.080 beer, then think of how much grain you'd have to use in order to get enough sugars to do a partial boil. Let me provide an example.

This Tuesday, I am brewing a porter using 10 lbs of 2 row and some various specialty grains. I anticipate seeing somewhere around 1.060 (haven't run it through the recipator yet) with my system's efficiency. Of course, it is going to take nearly 7 gallons of water to wash all of that sugar from the grain.

OK . . . let's say that my brew kettle can only handle 3 gallons of wort. So, I will need to get a 1.060 wort into that for a partial boil. Well, I will still need to be able to get that much sugar from the grains. If I were to sparge with only 3-4 gallons, I would guess that I would need to double the grain bill and use 20 (or so) lbs of 2-row.

How dumb would this be? A waste of grain and money.

If you are going AG, you simple need a kettle large enough to do a full wort boil. There is simply no way around it.

 

[Walker]

let's say that my brew kettle can only handle 3 gallons of wort. So, I will need to get a 1.060 wort into that for a partial boil. Well, I will still need to be able to get that much sugar from the grains. If I were to sparge with only 3-4 gallons, I would guess that I would need to double the grain bill and use 20 (or so) lbs of 2-row.

How dumb would this be? A waste of grain and money.

If you are going AG, you simple need a kettle large enough to do a full wort boil. There is simply no way around it.

20 lbs of 2-row would still be cheaper than using extract. DME is about $3.00/lb.

 

[BigEd]

A full boil with an extract beer was already done by the extract manufacturer after grain was mashed to produce the extract. The short reason a full boil is required with an all grain is that all of the unwanted material like protein compounds need to be coagulated (this is the hot break) and the wort needs to be reduced to the expected OG. Since most of the break material was taken out by the manufacturer of the extract this is why many AG newbies are surprised/worried by the large amount of break in an AG beer.

 

[Walker]

A full boil with an extract beer was already done by the extract manufacturer after grain was mashed to produce the extract. The short reason a full boil is required with an all grain is that all of the unwanted material like protein compounds need to be coagulated (this is the hot break) and the wort needs to be reduced to the expected OG. Since most of the break material was taken out by the manufacturer of the extract this is why many AG newbies are surprised/worried by the large amount of break in an AG beer.

You still have to break the protein out of extract, too. They don't boil it at regular temps at the maltster.... they heat it under very low pressure so that the water will evaporate with out heating and caramalizing the sugars in the wort. The proteins need to reach an actual boiling temp to break out.