What do the pros do?

[GoodRatsBrew]

Just an off-beat random question... Do many (or any) professional brewers use extract or is it considered a major sin to not be an all grain professional brewhouse? I could see plusses and minusses both ways but was wondering what you guys thought...

 

[Ace_Club]

There are professional brewers that use extract to make good (and award winning) beer. BYO did an article about some just last year.

 

[ToddO]

I would think extract would be way more expensive for pros to use.. Surprised to hear that they even do. Wondered the same thing about hop extract.

 

[DannPM]

I can't see giving up the precision all-grain offers on the professional level, but as Ace Club mentioned above, it does exist.

 

[BeerWars]

No waste.

 

[freakshow10mm]

The Beer Network podcast had a guest on from a brewery that did all extract brewing back in 2005. Said the reason was they didn't have the space required for all grain and they can make more beer in the same amount of time. Commercial brewing isn't 100% all grain.

 

[earwig]

Can anyone name some that use extract that I may have heard of?

 

[sudbuster]

Can anyone name some that use extract that I may have heard of?

Thread killah............

 

[Mongrel]

Thread killah............

lol, no ****

 

[superjunior]

there's a brew pub here in ne Ohio that does partials. a lot of my recipes are based from this place and they're damn good. anyone in the ne Ohio area are welcome to come taste my house IPA, you won't be disappointed

 

[Ace_Club]

Can anyone name some that use extract that I may have heard of?

I don't know if they sell bottles, but here's the brewery that was featured in the article in BYO:

http://www.pacificcoastbrewing.com/beers.htm

 

[ajwillys]

I believe they often do it because they don't have large enough equipment to do what they want with all malt. I'm not sure many breweries do extract for all their base grain, mostly as a supplement. I can also imagine breweries that don't use extract at all except for the rare barleywine or something similar where they need huge OG's. The only other option would be making a smaller batch just for the mash tun size, but that would make all the other equipment oversized, hence inefficient.

Really, the only two drawbacks of extract that I see is its price and it limits creativity/recipe formulation.

 

[remilard]

I would think extract would be way more expensive for pros to use.. Surprised to hear that they even do. Wondered the same thing about hop extract.

Hop extract is cheaper (at least if you buy it directly, maybe not if you pay Norther Brewer to fill syringes with it, but then that is around the same price as hops for the same IBU potential).