Who started with extract?

[Rookie]

Which of you started with extract and moved to all-grain and who stayed with extract?

[Grainherder]

Warning, fond reminiscences ahead.

I started with extract back in the early '90's, when my wife bought me an IPA kit for Christmas. I was utterly smitten from the very start. The aroma of the boil, malt and hops, watching the fermentation and finally waiting out the first bottle-conditioned pints to discover excellent beer could be made from home - well, yep, all in from that point forward. Very quickly I had 6 carboys in our little Chicago apartment above a Chinese physician's office, and when we moved out to the country I built "Ugly Betty 1," 3 converted 1/2 BBL kegs for vessels and my lousy mig welding for the frame (hence, "Ugly Betty").

I soon went all grain with a Schmidling malt mill, 512 K BTU burner capacity, and brutally cold WI winters. One of the fondest memories was getting a harebrained idea in bed late at night to do a triple decoction helles bock. Overnight. -10F. Vorlauf wouldn't clear and after something like 45 minutes I realized the lauter screen had dislodged, so I had to remove the mash, clean everything out, and start over at something like 3 am. My wife named it "Hellandback Bock." 2 months' lagering later, one of the best beers I'd brewed to date.

The only beer I ever entered in competition won 2nd in our Midwest regionals - quite by accident and no recipe design skills on my part; literally the seven malts remaining in my pantry, which I thought would make up a decent Strong Scotch Ale. Named "Seven Suns Strong Scotch Ale." Slated for the national finals in D.C., but over vacation my in-laws mistakenly drank all the samples, so thus went my competitive history.

I lost touch back in about 2018 as I set my mind to get healthy and lost something like 70 lbs. I've been really healthy ever since so though I returned some months back now, I tend to watch my intake. Unfortunately I've forgotten a lot but all more than good. A good many of your countrymen have been tremendously kind and generous in aiding this dude back in.

All my very best to your journey in this extraordinary hobby.

[nallum]

The difference these days is surprisingly marginal. It’s all ‘extract’ regardless. The main benefit of AG brewing is fine tuning recipes to personal tastes. Otherwise an equally good beer can be made from an extract kit, tinkered with or not. What I’ve found works best for me lately is simplifying recipes. I suspect I could find one or two kits to satisfy my needs and save a lot of time and money. Even the more expensive fresh wort kits now available save a lot of time and money. Perhaps there’s some valuable knowledge here, for new home brewers, who knows? It’s not supposed to be complicated. It’s only beer. But there’s a lot more to brewing than simply extracting fermentables, flavour, etc. I don’t get too hung up on ‘it’s got to be AG’. I occasionally use an extract kit then do something more interesting with the rest of my day. It’s so easy with hardly anything to clean.

[Jim]

I started with kits. Did them for many years before jumping straight to all grain.

[Brewedout]

I started brewing from kits, and brewed like this for over 15ys. I then made the move to AG after reading the wonderful Graham Wheeler book "Brew Your Own, British Ale". Building the equipment was great fun (converted coolbox, buying kettle elements and making the boiler, and using up left over copper pipe to make the cooling coil).When I think about it, my happiest brewing was with this equipment.

How about you Rookie?

[JonB]

I started with malt extract versions of the recipes in Greg Hughes book ~10 years ago.

I only moved on to AG because a lot of the recipes I wanted to brew didn't have extract options. Didn't see an appreciable change in quality but got to brew what I wanted.

I do sometimes do extract recipes when time prevents a full mash brew, but I do find extract is so expensive compared to all grain (~£20 worth of extract vs ~£6-10 worth of grain adds up over a few batches...)