opinions on moving from extract to all grain

[RM-MN]

It's been a while since you mentioned the 4 minute mash

Any mash takes longer than extract. Steep your grain as it heats, remove it at 155, add some extract at 60 and the rest at 15 or 10. Shake out grains and rinse bag. Never pause for mash or sparge.

Extract is faster than mashing because it's been mashed.

Since you didn't figure it out and are sure that extract is faster than all grain let me lay it out for you. Notice that I said that I can do an all grain as fast as extract with steeping grains if you follow the instructions. The instructions will have you steeping the grain for 30 minutes. Fine, I mash for 30 minutes so that comes out the same. I mill the grains while the water is heating so that doesn't take extra time. So far the mash and extract are taking the same time. Now add your extract. That takes time too but it is done while doing the hour long boil. I've learned that the hour long boil is to isomerize the hop oils for bittering but that 90% of that happens in the first 30 minutes. Why spend more time boiling? Because it reduces the water and drives off DMS! OK, I start with less water so I don't have so much to boil off and.....I haven't found DMS even with the short boil. YMMV Chilling does take longer because I have to chill the full volume of wort instead of just the partial that you would have with an extract batch but not a half hour longer.

Note: If you want to try the short mash period, you must have the grains milled very fine. If not, you will not get complete conversion of starch which may leave you with a starch haze in your beer and for sure will reduce the efficiency.

 

[jan_b19]

I don't know if I'd say there's a lot more equipment needed. I have a cube igloo cooler w/ a ball-valve fitted, a torpedo screen, and that's my mash tun. Probably, what, $60-80 or thereabouts? I also have a mash paddle, but I think I'd need one for BIAB as well.

That's it. I doubt the cleaning is much different than cleaning the bag. I dump out the spent grain, spray the mash tun out, and I'm done.

There's always been one element of BIAB I don't fully understand since I don't do BIAB, and that's sparging. I know some do the no-sparge method, but that leaves sugar behind. I don't like that. I want all that sugar in my wort.

OR you use 20% more grain and still have all the sugars you need after mashing.
I saw this article on BYO and never sparged again.

 

[PADave]

OR you use 20% more grain and still have all the sugars you need after mashing.
I saw this article on BYO and never sparged again.

OR crush your grains nice and fine for BIAB, do a full volume mash, get great efficiency and either reduce the amount of grains used, or use more water and make a slightly bigger batch.

 

[motosapiens]

I have a theory that some new brewers might be put off because certain parties are leading them to believe, for whatever reason, that they need an expensive, complicated AG setup to make excellent beer and that's not the case.

Agree 100%. I was certainly one of those brewers for many years that didn't want to spend the money, or learn about ph and chemistry and yadda yadda. Then one day we decided to actually steep our grains at mash temperature, and found out that the mash happens even if you don't know what you are doing, even in a pot on the stove with whatever water comes out of your tap!

It turned out to be a LOT less work and money than I ever imagined, and once you start mashing, you can learn other things incrementally and keep making your beer better.

 

[jan_b19]

OR crush your grains nice and fine for BIAB, do a full volume mash, get great efficiency and either reduce the amount of grains used, or use more water and make a slightly bigger batch.

You're not supposed to make flour you know xD
But I know what you mean. Usually I crush my grain pretty well and use my first runnings to sparge a bit. However, when you're switching from extract to grain, like the OP, I think it's plausible (well it's just a fact) that your efficiency won't be all that great on your first few runs. So, for those just starting all grain it's better to increase the grain bill slightly instead of counting on a great efficiency.
+ If you overshoot your OG it's easier to correct then when you undershoot it. Reducing your grain bill or increasing the amount of water will do just that if your efficiency is all wrong. So for those just starting BIAB I would strongly suggest to just increase your grist to water ratio a bit.

Alternatively you could sparge by removing the bag and placing it in another kettle with 160ish°F water(the sparge volume in the recipe) and do a second mash. Still ain't sparging but it works. Done it in the past with great results.

 

[NSMikeD]

I don't know if I'd say there's a lot more equipment needed. I have a cube igloo cooler w/ a ball-valve fitted, a torpedo screen, and that's my mash tun. Probably, what, $60-80 or thereabouts? I also have a mash paddle, but I think I'd need one for BIAB as well.

That's it. I doubt the cleaning is much different than cleaning the bag. I dump out the spent grain, spray the mash tun out, and I'm done.

There's always been one element of BIAB I don't fully understand since I don't do BIAB, and that's sparging. I know some do the no-sparge method, but that leaves sugar behind. I don't like that. I want all that sugar in my wort.

not sure if this was answered. BIAB is a sparging method. In a full volume mash, the mash is exposed to the strike water so all your grain should be mashing and normal conversion happening for a single step (temperature) mash. When you lift the bag and let it drain, that is your sparge. The bag filters the grain so there is no need to trickle water over the grain to help keep the wort clear.

 

[NSMikeD]

You're not supposed to make flour you know xD
But I know what you mean. Usually I crush my grain pretty well and use my first runnings to sparge a bit. However, when you're switching from extract to grain, like the OP, I think it's plausible (well it's just a fact) that your efficiency won't be all that great on your first few runs. So, for those just starting all grain it's better to increase the grain bill slightly instead of counting on a great efficiency.
+ If you overshoot your OG it's easier to correct then when you undershoot it. Reducing your grain bill or increasing the amount of water will do just that if your efficiency is all wrong. So for those just starting BIAB I would strongly suggest to just increase your grist to water ratio a bit.

Alternatively you could sparge by removing the bag and placing it in another kettle with 160ish°F water(the sparge volume in the recipe) and do a second mash. Still ain't sparging but it works. Done it in the past with great results.

these do work and it will take a few batches to find the right milling. I would add that for new BIAB brewers, to focus on a constant procedure and use a software that can truly calculate for real life BIAB.

It's important to nail down evaporation rates, absorption rates and holding your mash temperature so you can truly calculate your efficiencies and then adjust the milling (for me it was simply to have my HBS double mill).

I would come up short and my software would easily calculate how much DME I needed to add after taking a reading at pitching to fix the batch. A fairly easy fix for a low conversion. Meanwhile I could do things like look at my actual evaporation rates and grain absorption rates to see if the software defaults were good or if I needed to change them.

Now I can be pretty confident in plugging in a recipe and, so long as I don't mess up executing, hitting the numbers.

 

[ericbw]

Since you didn't figure it out and are sure that extract is faster than all grain let me lay it out for you. Notice that I said that I can do an all grain as fast as extract with steeping grains if you follow the instructions. The instructions will have you steeping the grain for 30 minutes. Fine, I mash for 30 minutes so that comes out the same. I mill the grains while the water is heating so that doesn't take extra time. So far the mash and extract are taking the same time. Now add your extract. That takes time too but it is done while doing the hour long boil. I've learned that the hour long boil is to isomerize the hop oils for bittering but that 90% of that happens in the first 30 minutes. Why spend more time boiling? Because it reduces the water and drives off DMS! OK, I start with less water so I don't have so much to boil off and.....I haven't found DMS even with the short boil. YMMV Chilling does take longer because I have to chill the full volume of wort instead of just the partial that you would have with an extract batch but not a half hour longer.



Note: If you want to try the short mash period, you must have the grains milled very fine. If not, you will not get complete conversion of starch which may leave you with a starch haze in your beer and for sure will reduce the efficiency.

Again, steep while it heats, add extract. Mash time = 0. You can't do it any faster than that.

While you're weighing your grains to mill, I'm already steeping. I'm boiling while you're mashing. Done chilling while you're boiling.

I like AG, but it's not faster.

 

[jan_b19]

these do work and it will take a few batches to find the right milling. I would add that for new BIAB brewers, to focus on a constant procedure and use a software that can truly calculate for real life BIAB.

It's important to nail down evaporation rates, absorption rates and holding your mash temperature so you can truly calculate your efficiencies and then adjust the milling (for me it was simply to have my HBS double mill).

I would come up short and my software would easily calculate how much DME I needed to add after taking a reading at pitching to fix the batch. A fairly easy fix for a low conversion. Meanwhile I could do things like look at my actual evaporation rates and grain absorption rates to see if the software defaults were good or if I needed to change them.

Now I can be pretty confident in plugging in a recipe and, so long as I don't mess up executing, hitting the numbers.

I totally agree, and because I undershot my OG because of inefficiency quite frequently when I started brewing all grain my solution was to add a bit more grain to reach it. I'm not saying it's the best method but until I figured out how to increase my efficiency it worked quite well.

But as you said in the end it might be better to stick to the recipe and see where you mess up or why your efficiency is too low. we're basically saying the same thing. The only difference is I solved the issue by adding a bit of grain to my grain bill and you solved it by adding some DME. I'm sure that in the end both of our beers were quite drinkable

Oh, btw what brewing software do you use?

 

[NSMikeD]

BIABacus. I'm setting up BeerSmith for my next brew to compare since I like the idea of the cloud letting me leave the laptop out of the kitchen.