To Go All Grain...?

[Croyzen]

I stay as far away from extract brewing as possible. Never could create a batch that blew me away. Even with partial mash. I still use dme for yeast starters but I try to decant. You only have one liver... give it all grain like it wants.

 

[planetscott]

Check Craig's List for brewing equipment such as burners and mash tuns.

 

[DurtyChemist]

Try brew in a bag. I just did a porter with 8lbs 2 row, 1 lb chocolate and 1 lb Crystal 60L. 155F mash for 75 minutes then boil. I used 7.5 gallons of water for the mash. Simple recipe to try out.


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[muels]

Extract can be done with very good results. It all depends on your process. Fermentation temp control will take you a long way. I prefer all grain because of the control and the satisfaction but I brewed a lot of tasty extract brew with simple process control. Do starters and/or rehydrate dry yeast; there are awesome stickies on here for doing both. If your house is at normal room temp (70ish) you should have no issue using a plastic recycle type bin with water and a few ice bottles. If you do it a few times you will figure out how many bottles how often to maintain a certain temp. I need 2 bottles every 12 hours to stay between 66 and 68. I can hold 60-62 with a little bit of effort. By all means go all grain, it's very rewarding. But don't feel like you can't make good beer doing extract.


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[ram5ey]

I am a biab guy but I have made some great extract batches. It's all about managing a great fermentation and using healthy yeast and the correct amount of it. I've had some very poor AG beer because all the brewer cared about was wort production and not fermentation.

 

[charliehorse]

There are a few reasons to move to all-grain brewing.

1. Cost per batch is lower.
2. More control over recipes.
3. Learning the chemistry behind brewing.
4. Bragging rights.
5. You get to convince SWMBO that you *need* that fancy equipment.

I understand that there are budgetary issues. That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with brewing from extract. Many fine beers have been made using extract kits or recipes. In fact, the best batch of beer that I've made was an extract kit (the last extract batch I made before switching to all-grain). Try as I might, I can't get the recipe dialed in quite right for it.

If I were the OP (or somebody else thinking about the switch), I would sit down and evaluate why you want to switch and what you can do to ease yourself into the transition: BIAB, Batch Sparging, Brew with a friend... If you want to make the transition, make a list of the equipment that you need (a kettle that is 30 quarts MINIMUM), a way to chill 5 gallons of wort that is in the 212* range, a way to bring 6.5 gallons of water to a boil in a reasonable time (you can do it on your electric stove, but it will take a looong time to boil, but not too long. remember, you're starting out with wort that is about 165*, so you only have to increase the temp by 47*) and something to mash your grains in.

As far as all of the calculations go... do NOT let that scare you. Download Brewtarget and look on here for some recipes and play around a bit (and perhaps do a bit of fantasizing). You'll notice that you really don't need to do a bunch of calculations. Most software will tell you what temperature your strike water should be if you want to mash at 152* and your grains are at room temperature (hint: I normally heat my strike water to 165* and adjust and use sparge water that is 170*).

When you're ready to make the jump, watch lots of YouTube videos and/or brew with some members of your local brew club or even go to the How To Brew Day at your local brew shop. Lots of brew shops have free classes (although so charge and I can't figure out why). Once you're brewing all-grain, you'll want to know more... which yeasts do what, the flavor profiles of hops, the difference between 2-row and 6-row barley (nearly none now) and you can learn a lot.

In short, if you don't think that you can afford what it takes (in your mind) to make the switch, buy a bit of equipment at a time or save up. Most of all, even if you screw up, you'll still end up with beer.

 

[VikingChrisColby]

Going all-grain can be a big decision. However, it's not that complicated. Some people make it out to me more elaborate than it is. FWIW, here's what I wrote about it a little while ago:

http://beerandwinejournal.com/go-all-grain/

Partial mashing can be a great intermediate step to all-grain brewing. At a minimum, it can take some of the mystery out of mashing. I also wrote something about that recently:

http://beerandwinejournal.com/mash-vs-steep/

Hope these links help.


Chris Colby
Editor
http://beerandwinejournal.com/

 

[Blastardius]

I made the jump this past weekend! Prior weekend I built the home depot cooler MLT lots of good instructions here and on the web ,cost:$81.00. Monday I won a 160,000 btu turkey fryer w/ 30q aluminum pot on Ebay cost :$10.50 + $33 shipping. I did a Founders Breakfast stout (semi) clone recipe I found on the stout section here on HBT (post #106) on the founders recipe thread post by Mhot55:

12lbs 2-row
2.2 lbs flaked oats (yeah, i said 2+ lbs!)
14 oz. pale chocolate
12 oz. roasted barley
8 oz. carafa III
6 oz. caramel 120L
1 oz Chinook (13%) 60 min
1 oz Willemette (5.5%) 15 min
.5 oz Willemette (5.5%) 0 min
WY 1056 ( subbed with 2x S-04)
OG 1.072 and its bubbling like crazy at 68*

I would like to express my appreciation to the members of this forum for all the help you unknowingly helped me through to/from extract to all grain!