What Else Do I Need?

[Soggyfoot]

Hi all.

I started brewing a couple months ago.I started with the "Brewer's Best Beer Brewing Equipment Kit." I've done a Red Ale and a Weizenbier (both done with kits that had all the ingredients needed). Both turned out well.

I'm now trying to find a recipe to start another brew but I'm having trouble figuring out what's what.
Whats the difference between All-Grain, Partial-Mash, and extract?
What other equipment, if any, is needed to the different types of recipes?

The Equipment kit i have includes:
2-6.5 gallon buckets (one with a bottling spigot), a 5 gallon glass Carboy, Hydrometer, Thermometer, Auto Siphon. It also had assorted brushes, airlocks, etc.

 

[jaycount]

Extract is the easiest kind and is probably the kits you had before. If you had any grains in the Brewers Best kits, they were "specialty grains" that you just steeped before the boil.

All grain is where you extract sugars from grains instead of using a liquid or dry malt extract. This requires special equipment (a mash tun, or brew in a bag).

Partial mash is an "in-between". You mash a small amount of grains to extract some sugars and supply the rest of the sugar with liquid or dry malt extract. Here's a great thread on easy PM brewing: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/

 

[Soggyfoot]

Thanks for the tip. I looked at the thread and it was very helpful.

 

[venquessa]

I just did a partial boil (extract + grains + hops) recipe, coming like you from a few kits.

All I needed extra was a few strainer bags to use like tea bags for the grain and hops and a large 3 gallon stock pot to boil stuff in.

 

[birvine]

Might I suggest you research BIAB (brew in a bag) as well. A very easy way to do all grain.

B

 

[jaycount]

I just did a partial boil (extract + grains + hops) recipe, coming like you from a few kits.

All I needed extra was a few strainer bags to use like tea bags for the grain and hops and a large 3 gallon stock pot to boil stuff in.

Partial boil and full boil are actually different from Extract/PM/AG.

A full boil means you have all of your wort/water collected in the boil kettle and boil the whole thing. This requires a high capacity burner to be able to bring 6-6.5 gallons to a rolling boil. The advantage to a full boil is that your wort will be a totally homogenous mixture when it goes into the fermenter and you get better hops utilization.

A partial boil is like alot of stovetop kits are setup. You boil 2-3 gallons then top off with fresh, sanitary water in the fermenter.

You can do a full boil with AG, PM, or extract kits. Almost all AG setups will be full boil (you have to collect alot of water when mashing and sparging). PM and Extract recipes don't have to be full boil, but can be.

Steeping grains isn't technically the same thing as partial mashing, we're splitting hairs here but see "diastatic power" if you want to know the details.

Now you know... the rest of the story

 

[TomSD]

Now you know... the rest of the story

Or in words another generation might recognize...

Now you know... and knowing is half the battle!

Seriously though. I would look into brew in a bag (searching on BIAB will get some good results). I just switched to it and am enjoying it. A good thread to give you a good idea how it works can be found here.

 

[venquessa]

Okay, fair enough, so what I did was a partial boil, extract recipe with BIAB speciality grains and hop additions

That better?

 

[Soggyfoot]

Update:

I've been reading The Joy of Homebrewing and have decided to go with the combo Grain/Extract for my next couple brews till i get that process down. That way I'm not taking too big a jump at one time. I also don't have to buy too much more as far as equipment goes.

 

[Stauffbier]

Okay, fair enough, so what I did was a partial boil, extract recipe with BIAB speciality grains and hop additions

That better?

Mashing grains in a bag is BIAB. Mashing gives you the sugars for fermentation instead of using an extract. Steeping grains in a steeping bag is just steeping. The types of grains used for steeping don't produce much in the way of fermentable sugars. They just produce color and flavor to go along with extracts. Usually if you are doing BIAB it's all grain brewing, and if you're steeping it's extract and specialty grains.