All grain vs extract

Ok so i have been brewing for for 6months i learned a lot enjoy the Hobby love My Beer started a hops. Garden im in it My Question. Is best bang for the buck. Should. I go All Grain have invested. In Equipment advantages. Disadvantages any advise Would Be. Welcomed

I wish I had moved to all grain sooner. I do BIAB and love it. Very little investment over extract-all I had to get was a bigger pot, a bag, and a few water adjuncts. If you’re already doing full boils then a bigger pot is probably not necessary. I can’t list any disadvantages of doing BIAB.

Ron

You will need to make an investment in new equipment of course but the cost per batch is much less. Extract is expensive because someone else did the work. This is very helpful if you would like to make AG equipment http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

There is more work involved with AG brewing but that is part of the fun. You are doing more of the process and able to control and change it to your own liking.

One disadvantage to AG is that it takes longer. In my case, much longer. My typical brew day is the better part of a day. That does not include some of the steps days before like a yeast starter. It can be a tiring day but I also brew 20 gallons most of the time.

Nothing wrong with extract brewing. I did a couple of kits over the winter. They were on sale and we go south for the winter and I am unable to bring along my huge brewery. A small pot, bucket fermeter and the least amout of other equipment made some decent beer.

I’m debating making the switch as well. I’d need a couple hundred in new equipment for BIAB. It’s more the extra time I’m not sure about. I have 3 young kids and taking 3 hours or more to do an extract kit is already difficult. I’ve also made some damn good beer from extracts, so I’m not sure it’s worth the added work.

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I’ve got three young kids as well, and I actually find AG to be easier with them around versus extract. It makes for a longer brew day, but there’s a lot of down-time during the process where you can be doing other things. For me, brewing with extract was a good 2-3 hours of work that required pretty much constant attention. Contrast this with AG… get your water heating, walk away and do something else. Mash in, walk away and do something else. Get your lauter going, go do something else while it drains. And so on. All that down time gives you an opportunity to prep for later, such as getting your fermenter cleaned and sanitized. All that stuff still needs to be done with extract, you just have less down-time in between steps to accomplish it.

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You can make great beer with extracts. The major flaw in my early beers was time. I was to impatient and shorted fermentation and conditioning time. Temperature control has also improved since then.

Concentrating on learning something about yeast. I wish I had a laboratory type set up to do multiple yeast experiments at once. Again time between experiments is producing impatience.

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Intermediate step into AG is full wort boils. Makes great beers. Semi local BOP is extract and they crank out seriously good stuff. Crazy to imagine a few drunk guys who never brewed before having a bachelor party cranking out beers are as good as all but the best of homebrews. Expect your AG beers to take a step back in quality until you’re dialed in. AG does not automatically mean better beer and it does take some time to actually see the financial benefits with the outlay in gear but it does get cheap. Next thing you know you got 50lb sacks laying around…

I am getting better cutting AG brew day down. I am under 3 hours. I am constantly doing something and that is the key, doing 2 things at once IE: heat mash liquor and crush grain. 2 huge game changers for me were: 30m mashes and getting runnings into kettle ASAP. If all goes well I am boiling at an hour. 60 and 90m mashes are crazy talk with modern malts.

I brewed extract for 2 years before making the switch. I could brew an extract batch in about 3 hours. I was planning for an additional 2 hours when I started, now for a standard boil, I’m inside 4 hours from getting out the equipment to putting it away clean. There is a lot you can do along the way while you’re waiting for different things to complete. Typically from getting gear out to mashed in is less than half an hour, then I can walk away from the cooler for 45 mins and play with the kids. Then, by the time I have all the wort collected, temp is typically close to 200 so getting to a boil takes very little time, watch for hot break, get settled in and keep a timer for additions. Clean out the mash tun and equipment, then I have another half hour to hang with the kids around the garage or in the backyard before getting the chiller set up and finishing up the boil. Typically takes less than half hour for cleanup of everything at the end of the boil. It took me less than 5 batches to get dialed in on my system, now I enjoy it so much that I would never go back to extract.

:beers:
Rad

I’ve been extract brewing for just under a year. I have just purchased all my equipment for all grain, pretty expensive for me since I live in a condo and have to brew inside with electric, but decided to spend some of my tax return. Looking forward to my first all grain brew day May 14th, going to have another home brewer that I got into brewing to assist me.
I agree I have made some good beer with extract and would recommend to anybody to start with extract first.
My first couple all grains will be kits so I can get my process down and such, then I will look at creating my own recipes and such. I figure I’m going to do a Moose Drool clone first since my first extract was the Moose Drool clone from NB.

Sure you can make great beer doing extract. The hard part is done fore you . Buy a good clone kit, follow the recipe, good fermentation schedule and your good. More variables in all grain. If you just want to make beer extract is the way to go. If you really want to make beer you have to forget about kits and go all grain. Disclaimer, I never did an extract kit but I watched once.

Do both.

Why must it be one or the other?

Pick the process and ingredients that fit the time that you have so you can have fun with your hobby on brew day.

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I personally enjoy how much control over the brewing process you have with all grain.

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Thanks for the Input going to Start with Clone All Grain will update and ask k for advise Long the way i brew on!

I agree with smallbatchbrewer. I do bothas time allows. If I have a day where I know I can brew but want to knock it out quickly, I grab some extract and knock it out. If I have a day and want to sit around the yard and BBQ, brew, and have a few (See how I did that? I’m a poet and didn’t know it. A rhyme every time) then I will go for an all grain brew. I am fortunate that my LHBS is only 10 minutes from my house so I can do it all on impulse. But I see no reason to commit to one method or another.

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