MashBag wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:58 am
Extract brewing and all grain brewing are very different.
Sorry, but I disagree: the main difference between the two is that AG has a mash stage.
I brewed Extract for a long time before moving to AG, initially I was very disappointed with AG until I honed my technique. The big advantage with AG is that you can brew with an infinite amount of grains as you mash, so you can make many styles, whereas with Extract you are limited to pale malt in the form of extract plus grains that don't require mashing, such as crystal malt. But you can still brew a lot of great beers e.g. most British ales are pale malt plus crystal and some hops.
I reckon Extract beers are 80-90% as good as AG beers, and miles better that basic kits. That's why I never felt the need to move to AG for a long time. I started with the BrewUK kits then bought my own ingredients.
You have to be a little bit careful with the terminology as it gets mixed up a bit: some kit manufacturers refer to kits as "extract brewing" and the above method "partial mash": mashing is quite a specific technique where you need to maintain a constant temp around 65C for an hour, some of these "partial mash" kits contain only grains that don't really need a mash and would produce the same result steeped in hot water with no temp control.
66°C is a enzymatic temp even for 30 mins. 
