Extract or straight to AG?

[pvt_ak]

Didn't do kits, let alone extract brewing. If your ambition is to AG, go straight there. Direct your funds exactly where you want to be. As it is, you've learnt how to sanitise and handle yeast, so your most of the way there.

Look into BIAB with a boiler, as a start. It'll provide you with equipment that will always have a use, and you still have the ability to do an extract brew.

+1 > I went straight to Grain with BIAB and Peco. Big learning curve , but really not that difficult if you’re methodical.

 

[Horners]

+1 > I went straight to Grain with BIAB and Peco. Big learning curve , but really not that difficult if you’re methodical.

I think "if you're methodical" is part of it. And not clumsy. My first brew, like many, a Wherry kit was going brilliant until knocking the pressure barrrel off the stool it was precariously/ inadvisably balanced on as I was racking. As a third of the brew lapped its way around the underneath of the washing machine, I wept. I can only begin to imagine how distraught I would have been had I navigated a full brew day, a couple of weeks fermentation to then suffer this traumatic fate.

 

[SmallSpacesBrewing]

I can fully understand the attraction of Extract brewing because of the ease of making them.

What can put people off of All Grain brewing (I think) is the what looks like, the mathematical aspects of it, I mean, working out efficiencies, alcohol percentages, bitterness IBU's and the like. I often look at recipes and groan a little, but I still have a go, and do enjoy All Graining without paying much attention to all that.

I'm the same. Just do the efficiency (online calculator) so I can make it again if it's good.

 

[Crappyfish]

Am I missing something I do BIAB and yes it does take time but when its mashing for whatever time I sit and watch tele boil for whatever time sit and watch tele sterilise towards end of boil cool with wort chiller then put in FV job done. Obviously I check it from time to time but that's all . Maybe I am doing something wrong but it works out well. As for the original question depends what you want I like grain cos even if I did the same recipe there are so many variables it could turn out different each time which is fine with kits there are less variables so same all the time.

 

[AdeDunn]

Am I missing something I do BIAB and yes it does take time but when its mashing for whatever time I sit and watch tele boil for whatever time sit and watch tele sterilise towards end of boil cool with wort chiller then put in FV job done. Obviously I check it from time to time but that's all . Maybe I am doing something wrong but it works out well. As for the original question depends what you want I like grain cos even if I did the same recipe there are so many variables it could turn out different each time which is fine with kits there are less variables so same all the time.

Nope, I do the same. It's purely that you have to be available during that time, maybe stir once or twice. Extract or AG, you still have to clean up at the end, and that's where the real work is. lol

It's just the length of the "brew day" that's different really, as in the time slot within which you are doing your brewing. Like yesterday, I prepared my water at 7:30am (so that marked the start of my brew day), and had finished cleaning my equipment and putting it away by 5:30pm (marking the end of my brew day). The fact that during that brew day I'd watched a few episodes of a show on Netflix with my wife, and eaten lunch, well that's easy to ignore and besides the point if you really don't have a single day in which you have 6 or 7 hours where you can be available to brewing (my day was longer as I faffed more, eg. instead of lifting the BIAB bag, I drained the boiler into a clean FV, THEN raised the bag and let it drain etc, so my wife didn't have to help.)..... lol If you only have 2 or 3 hours, throwing some malt extract into water, bringing it to the boil and adding hops, well that can seem much more attractive. You've still have to prep your water at the stat though, and clean your equipment at the end.

For sure though, a HUGE proportion of an all grain brew day is spent just waiting. Waiting for water to heat up, waiting for your grain to mash, waiting for the wort to come to the boil (ok, if you don't have a built in stirry thing in your boiler, you're stirring your wort the entire time during this particular wait.... lol), waiting whilst your wort boils and until you hear the alarm for the next hop/boil addition (I use Beersmith 3 phone app)… With short spells of intense activity every now and then. Leaves me tired and achy still though.... lol

 

[RichK]

I did a few partial extract brews before deciding to go AG. I think the experience is beneficial & the costs involved were much smaller before deciding that AG was for me.