My Thoughts on Extract or All Grain Brewing for Beginners

My First Beer Brewing Kit!

So you want to start home brewing your own beer but you're not sure which method will be best or easiest for you in the beginning. Maybe you've read somewhere that beginners should start with extract brewing and step up to all grain when they've mastered the fermentation and sanitation? Or maybe you haven't and you like me, pretty much just started googling beer brewing kits and made your decision without any external influence. Either way, most of us eventually come across the idea that beginners should always start with extract kits so they can get used to fermenting and sanitation before they add in the complexity of mashing, sparging and boiling. But my first big issue with this idea is this. Neither of these processes are in my humble opinion all that hard that someone has to focus just on them so they can become a better brewer long term! The cleaning and sanitation side of things is pretty simple, you just have to make sure that you always clean anything dirty straight away, and don't leave it for days to go rancid and moldy. Make sure that you observe the guidelines for all cleaning and sanitation products you use, including operating temperatures and mixing percentages in water for the best performance and make sure you follow any exposure time and rinsing guidelines. Some cleaners have maximum exposure times depending on the type of thing your cleaning, for example plastic buckets and bottles should only have alkaline cleaners in them for short periods or you risk damage. Seriously, cleaning and sanitation isn't hard, it just takes discipline to make sure your always on top of it and careful reading of instructions so you always use your products as recommended. Oh and if you're using bottles, make sure you rinse them as soon as they are empty so they don't have any material in them which can attract nasties over time! Basic :-) 

Next we have fermentation and I will go out on a limb here and say that this also is pretty basic! I know its almost brewing heresy for me to say such things but it's honestly true. The basics of fermentation are this; Maintain the ideal pitching rate and ideal fermenting temperature for the correct amount of time for the beer you are brewing and you should be good! Then if you want to get more in depth with your yeast you should read all the info you can on the yeast strain you are using to ferment from the manufacturer so you know what to expect from its performance. Read up on and understand what the relative terms mean when talking about yeast performance which are; Pitching rate and Pitching Temperature, which is the amount of yeast required to ferment a beer of a specific original gravity and the ideal temperature range to ferment with the yeast strain for optimal performance. Attenuation, which is the percentage of sugars that the yeast can theoretically convert to C02 and alcohol under ideal conditions. Flocculation which is a measurement of how much the yeast will drop out of suspension when the usable sugars are depleted and the yeast goes to sleep. Sedimentation which is the measurements of how quickly the yeast will drop out of suspension. Esters, which are the fruity chemical compounds produced by most yeasts, and these are usually measured as either high, medium or low and affect the beers perceived "cleanness" or "fruitiness". Then read as much as you can from experienced brewers who've used the strain you are using to see how it performs in the real world. You can never know enough when it comes to fermentation.

Coopers Kit I Purchased For My Second Batch

So if you want to go straight to all grain brewing I would say do it, you've got this! There's no reason why you cant start with all grain brewing and get the hang of it in no time. For me my very first home brew beer was an all grain pale ale I got with a 5 litre small batch brewing kit and I have to admit that starting with only 5 litres really did help as I was able to do it on my stove top in my kitchen with some items i already had. And before I brewed that beer I watched plenty of videos on the process and I learned as much as i could. But guess what? I made some small mistakes, like putting the wrong hops in at the wrong time, but overall it was a great experience and the beer turned out pretty damn good in the end! In fact it was one of only two batches in my first ten that were as good as shop bought beer, and the other one was also a small batch all grain kit. So where did I go wrong? My mistake was to go out and buy an extract brewing kit by Coopers after my first brew in the mistaken idea that I could brew the same quality beer but only more of it in the larger vessel, but that didn't turn out too well! The coopers kit definitely made more beer, but the extract lager that came with the kit was more like goat urine in comparison to the all grain beer I had made only a few weeks before. I then decided to try and rectify that by buying a brewing kettle to brew larger all grain batches with the BIAB method, and well to cut a long story short it took several months an about 16 beers of various styles and methods before I really started to get the hang of it. I had become more caught up in trying to get the right setup than actually picking one, using it and mastering the processes. So whichever way you go, make sure you stick to it, brew the same or very similar beers the first few times so you can iron out any wrinkles and you will be good in no time.

The one big thing though that stops people from going all grain from the start is the initial outlay. Your going to need something to mash and boil in and if you plan on starting with anything more than say 15 litre batches of beer you are going to need to get a larger setup which can potentially cost you hundreds of dollars. But there are some ways around this. The first was is to start with a small batch kit like I did. This kit produced 4-5 litres of beer which isn't much beer, but it's also doable on your kitchen stove and most people can fit a 10-15 litre pot in their laundry sink for cooling after the boil. The second way to do it if your adamant you want to start with 15 litres or more of all grain batches but don't want the huge initial outlay cost is to brew in a bag in a single vessel. Luckily for us most home brew suppliers sell large 30 litre hot water urns which are design to be hot liquor tanks to heat hot water for a separate boil kettle. These urns are easily used as a single vessel system themselves with the addition of a bag and or a false bottom. I have one of these myself that I now brew all my large all grain batches in and it works perfectly and saved me about $300. But you may also want to just save up and get that amazing single vessel all in one system! If that's you then my suggestion would be to watch as many videos as you can of people using that system so that on day one you can hit the ground with your feet running!

Now if you want to start brewing with an extract kit my advice for you would be this, buy the kit and put down your first can of extract brew or as they call it, kit and kilo, and get a feel for how it all works. Then spend a bit more money, buy an 8-15 litre pot that will boil water on your kitchen stove top and experiment with adding some extra steeping grains to your next can brew. Your local home brew store should be able to help you with ideas, and most of them sell kits that come with the cans and the grains. Adding steeped grains or even mini-mashed grains is a great way of making great tasting beer with the minimum of equipment and it gives you plenty of practice with using real malt so if and when you do want to get a fancy all grain system you already understand precisely what you are doing and why! This is one of the things that I have also done in my first 25 beers and it has helped me a lot and I kind of wish that this was how I had started in the beginning as i'd probably be a lot better at brewing now if I had.

Now before I end I want to talk about one more thing that the beginner brewer will find frustrating and it's to do with fermentation itself. No matter which way you decide to start brewing, whether all grain or extract kit and kilo, you are going to find there is one thing that you will struggle to control and that is fermentation temperature. Everything else you can learn and master and every beer kit out there comes with everything you need to make a batch of beer and you will get beer in bottles or kegs. But your beer will only be as good as your ability to control the temperature of your fermentation and unfortunately glycol temperature control units are very expensive! I started brewing in winter and my first purchase after my first beer kit included a heat belt! Heat belts do the job but they are always on or off so my next purchase was a cheap power point timer! This worked okay for the first few brews, even though the heating was a bit hit and miss, but then summer hit and the weather heated up and suddenly I needed to cool my beer instead of heat it. To cut a long story short I had purchased my first second hand fridge off Gumtree within the first six months of brewing and add to that a temperature controller, and the difference those made to my beer was profound. I'll leave it there by saying that the single biggest reason why commercial beer is consistently good apart from good ingredients and yeast control is temperature control! Being able to consistently hold your beer at the correct temperature will give you the ability to control how the yeast ferments and what esters if any you get in your beer and once you've tasted a nice pale ale that sat dead on 18.5c for 5 days during primary ferment you'll understand why!

Anyway I thinks that's as good a place as any to leave off. I hope you got some helpful advice about where to start brewing as a beginner and if you need any more advice I've got plent of it in my blogs with more weekly helpings to follow. Thanks again for reading.

Happy Brewing!