Extract vs All Grain
Listened to a pod cast earlier which pitted these two together and I think I found out why a lot of people are so wholly in the All Grain camp. Freshness and kits. Sure, some love the control AG offers, but I think the importance there depends on the individual and the beer style.
I can't state this enough. Extract brewing does not mean kit brewing. You can build a recipe yourself, control the components and shape it exactly the way you like. I think a lot of people go the kit route, but those people really aren't even potential candidates for AG brewing anyway. And, many of these companies also sell all grain kits which can suffer from many of the same faults as extract kits including freshness concerns if the grains are pre-crushed.
About freshness. Simple, buy local from someone who can assure you of freshness or buy online from someone who guarantees it. Many online home brew stores will even sell their own custom kits and guarantee that ingredients are freshly prepared to order. So, even kit beers can have some assurance of quality and freshness.
The automatic assumption that every extract brew is a kit and that quality is always a gamble and that AG is the guaranteed opposite is a load of crap. As stated, you can build your own extract recipes, you can have some control over quality of ingredients and you might also get AG kits with stale grains. There is no inherent superiority of one technique over the other on these terms.
While AG still has benefits, as does extract and partial mash, when you remove those complaints over it being cookie cutter or a gamble on quality you take a lot of steam out of the arguments.
In fact, extract brewing has a lot of positives that AG brewers simply can't claim. Including reliability. Getting even reasonably reproducible results from the mash every single time is something virtually all home brewers struggle with. But, with extracts you have a foolproof, consistent, homogenous source of fermentables. Sure, you have limitations but there are ways around that and its effects are also limited by style.
An all extract recipe ONLY skips the mash step. And while grains are a component of the flavor and other aspects of brewing, depending on the style it may not even be the primary one. As I've stated before, I like hop-forward IPAs. I can control the bulk of what I care about the most during the boil. And I can use steeping grains or a partial mash if I do happen to care about what the grains offer.
If you prefer stouts you might find the lack of control over the grains less tolerable. Or if you're trying to make the perfect Amber Ale.
The AG argument also pre-supposes that you don't like the flavors imparted by the available liquid and dry malt extracts. I could easily argue that if your intent was to use AG to produce a wort the same or similar to one made with extracts that you would probably be best served by simply getting extract. A broken clock is right twice a day right? By the same token, sometimes that unchangeable extract is actually the flavor you want. And having used DME extensively, I can say it makes for some very fine beers.
Between the two, I would choose neither as the ideal though. With all of the above I would say that a partial mash is the winner. You perform all of the steps an AG brewer does, but, by using extracts for a sizeable chunk of your fermentables you still have a fairly solid foundation and you allow for more tolerance in the mashing process. Doing a significant portion of the grains using the AG process will allow you hit most styles with a lot of flexibility and results that would be hard to differentiate from a pure AG approach.
I can't state this enough. Extract brewing does not mean kit brewing. You can build a recipe yourself, control the components and shape it exactly the way you like. I think a lot of people go the kit route, but those people really aren't even potential candidates for AG brewing anyway. And, many of these companies also sell all grain kits which can suffer from many of the same faults as extract kits including freshness concerns if the grains are pre-crushed.
About freshness. Simple, buy local from someone who can assure you of freshness or buy online from someone who guarantees it. Many online home brew stores will even sell their own custom kits and guarantee that ingredients are freshly prepared to order. So, even kit beers can have some assurance of quality and freshness.
The automatic assumption that every extract brew is a kit and that quality is always a gamble and that AG is the guaranteed opposite is a load of crap. As stated, you can build your own extract recipes, you can have some control over quality of ingredients and you might also get AG kits with stale grains. There is no inherent superiority of one technique over the other on these terms.
While AG still has benefits, as does extract and partial mash, when you remove those complaints over it being cookie cutter or a gamble on quality you take a lot of steam out of the arguments.
In fact, extract brewing has a lot of positives that AG brewers simply can't claim. Including reliability. Getting even reasonably reproducible results from the mash every single time is something virtually all home brewers struggle with. But, with extracts you have a foolproof, consistent, homogenous source of fermentables. Sure, you have limitations but there are ways around that and its effects are also limited by style.
An all extract recipe ONLY skips the mash step. And while grains are a component of the flavor and other aspects of brewing, depending on the style it may not even be the primary one. As I've stated before, I like hop-forward IPAs. I can control the bulk of what I care about the most during the boil. And I can use steeping grains or a partial mash if I do happen to care about what the grains offer.
If you prefer stouts you might find the lack of control over the grains less tolerable. Or if you're trying to make the perfect Amber Ale.
The AG argument also pre-supposes that you don't like the flavors imparted by the available liquid and dry malt extracts. I could easily argue that if your intent was to use AG to produce a wort the same or similar to one made with extracts that you would probably be best served by simply getting extract. A broken clock is right twice a day right? By the same token, sometimes that unchangeable extract is actually the flavor you want. And having used DME extensively, I can say it makes for some very fine beers.
Between the two, I would choose neither as the ideal though. With all of the above I would say that a partial mash is the winner. You perform all of the steps an AG brewer does, but, by using extracts for a sizeable chunk of your fermentables you still have a fairly solid foundation and you allow for more tolerance in the mashing process. Doing a significant portion of the grains using the AG process will allow you hit most styles with a lot of flexibility and results that would be hard to differentiate from a pure AG approach.
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