Why is AG brewing better than extract?

[kenny850]

Because that's how you make beer-with grains. You don't see breweries buying cans of extract.
I'd equate it to this-
Cracking one of the wrist-nice and convenient. Just like kits.
Shagging a blow up doll or a whore. Reasonable but not quite there-Extract
Having a bloody good time with a right fit bird. Proper all grain full mash heaven.

Nuff said?

guess that makes me a w*&%£"r then!

[macleanb]

Thinking

Dried Egg - Fresh Egg
Fresh Peach - Canned Peach
Fresh Asparagus - Canned Asparagus
Concentrated Orange Juice - Fresh Juice
Stock Cube, Fresh stock

You just cant dehydrate and can something without loosing a lot of "je ne sais quoi"

Agreed on the time thing though...

[Dennis King]

The smell when you open a 25kg sack of pale malt. Not the same opening a tin.

[pantsmachine]

Because it's so much fun and the lightbulb of enlightenment goes on many times during the 1st AG. 'Ah so thats what they were talking about'. I am doing my first at the mo 1/2 hour into the boil and it smells absolutely fantastic. I get it now about the difference tween the 2! Will post tomorrow on brewdays, hell i even used a Morrisons carrier bag during sparging!

[ashbyp]

nice one pants - will look forward to those pics!

nothing like a midnight brewing session!

[Vossy1]

Hope everythings gone well p

[stevezx7r]

Good man Pants, get those pics posted, I wanna see the bag in action

Re. the difference between AG vs Extract, it's the same as a jar of dolmio vs your own fresh ingredients. The end result is beer it's just that AG is better beer.

[johnh]

Re. the difference between AG vs Extract, it's the same as a jar of dolmio vs your own fresh ingredients.

Nah, Dolmio is like kit brewing, extract is like using tinned tomatoes with fresh onions and herbs. Obviously peeled fresh italian plum tomatoes are best but when time's an issue...

[stevezx7r]

Yeah, you have a point.

It's all down to how much time you have on your hands vs end result I suppose

[Prozac]

So as a newby...... how long would it be wise to wait before plunging into AG, as this is where I envisaged ending up?
Do you make a few kits and get them sorted or would I be better to dive straight in?

[adm]

So as a newby...... how long would it be wise to wait before plunging into AG, as this is where I envisaged ending up?
Do you make a few kits and get them sorted or would I be better to dive straight in?

Just dive straight in Prozac!

I did about a month ago and now have 4 AG brews in corny kegs, in my home made keg chiller. Life is sweet and the beer is really, really lovely.

Go for it - you won't regret it.

I'd recommend batch sparging to keep things simple, but it's really not difficult at all: grain plus hot water for a while, drain it, chuck some more water on, drain it, boil it all up, add hops. Cool it all down, add yeast. Wait. Drink. Repeat.....

[Prozac]

Ahh good..... just need to understand a couple of terms..... Sparging and batch sparging ...... What sort of quantities are we talking about boiling? I may need a bigger pot. I'm guessing Stainlees Steel would be vastly superior to aluminium.
What's a corny?

Am I ready for this

[adm]

Ah...sorry. My fault. I didn't mean to complicate it.

Sparging refers to running hot water through the mash to extract more of the sugars. Basically, you initially put your grain in an insulated tun with a drain (mash tun), add hot water and wait for it to convert the starches to sugar. Once that's done, you drain the water (now wort) out, but there's still more sugar left in the grains, so you need to wash that out as well. Washing it out is "sparging". There's a few ways to do it - one involves continuously adding more water while the wort flows out. This is called fly sparging.

Another way is run off the first lot of wort, then dump another load of water in and just do it again. That's batch sparging.

Fly sparging is often more efficient, but batch sparging seems to be easier (for me) and works well for homebrew.

As for "cornys" - they are just storage kegs. In this case, stainless steel kegs that used to be used for fizzy drinks syrups in pubs and restaurants. They hold 4 gallons of beer and are really easy to deal with - much easier that bottling your beer as you can easily chill them, carbonate them and serve beer direct from them as they use an insustry standard(ish) set of fittings.

[brewzone]

I've batch sparged the last four or five brews now and got aroound 75% brewhouse efficiency.

I may just fly sparge the next one to compare the results and decide which method to use thereafter.

Then again I might just try 3 equal sparges of 20 litres and see If I can better the 75% of the IRS I did last month.

[adm]

I love the batch sparging. Never tried anything else, but it just seems to work well,be simple, and make good beer. When I first read up about AG brewing, it was the fly sparging that I didn't quite get. I watched a few youtube videos on batch sparging, and it was an "Oh - so that's how you do it" moment!

My efficiency is in the high 70's, and given that the beer I make runs around 26p a pint, i don't see a need to try and get the efficiency any better. It works, it tastes good, I'm happy!