I am looking for a good fridge (Hope to pick one up this weekend or next), have plans to build an IC this weekend and a mash tun next weekend.
I love cooking and love drinking beer, so I think this hobby (obsession) will be a good fit.
Therein lies the rub. I would like to do an extract batch soon, then a steep/extract batch a couple weeks later. Rack the extract to a secondary (to free up the primary). When the extract batch is ready to bottle, bottle it, move the steep/extract batch to a secondary and brew an AG for the primary.
Another question occurred to me. Which is better to use for temp control for fermenting, a fridge or freezer? I have read on here that a lot of you have multiple fridges/freezers and am looking forward to the day when I will to. ;D I was thinking a freezer would have a wider temp range so it could be used for lagers and ales. Is a fridge as versatile?
A chest freezer with a temp controller is very versitile for use with fermentation and lagering. I have two 7.5cf chest freezers with Johnson controllers. I could actually use a third chest dedicated for lagering but I would need more room. If you are purchasing a chest I would go with something at least 7.5 cf. The bigger the better IMO.
I have also heard that a chest freezer works better with a temp controller (more energy efficient?). I have a 15cf chest freezer with a Johnson controller and it works great for fermenting and serving. A fridge doesn’t have as much space as a chest freezer so that would also be a deciding factor.
I agree totally. AT least two people I know started brewing all-grain from their FIRST BATCH.
As for me, I brewed extract for quite a few years, thendoing partial grain, but when I saw what grain could be had for in bulk, it was a no brainer taking the plunge to AG.
Like Denny, I read everything I could get my hands on and went in well prepared…and the very first AG batch came out really good. My reaction was much like Denny’s…" …is that all there is to it?" At that point I felt sort of dumb for not switching much earlier after hemming and hawing about it.
As far as extra equipment expense, it doesn’t have to break the bank, not by a longshot. For 20 years or more I’ve been brewing all grain with a 5 gallon round Rubbermaid/Gott cooler ($20); a false bottom for the cooler (a gift from my LHBS for referring a load of business to them); a counterflow wort chiller ($35), a home made 220V/3000W electric keggle with a false bottom (around $120)…and miscellaneous hoses, copper tubing, and other ephemera totalling no more than $40. A total of $215 over the course of a few months…totally manageable and it did the job and continues to do so.
In the music world, musicians who like an array of gizmos, FX boxes, and have to have anything that’s currently state of the art are often referred to (often by themselves) as “gear sluts”.
Brewers can be that too…so, I mean, get fancier if you can afford it and like to fuss around with the gear, but it’s absolutely unnecessary. You can make beer just as high quality with picnic coolers and other repurposed vessels as you can with a multi $K automated system.
Then you’ll be ready for that SABCO rig when your lottery ticket finally wins. ;D
+1 I moved to partial mash by my 4th batch and stayed there for a while. I now do AG but in smaller batches (3 to 4 gallon) because that’s what I can physically deal with comfortably and it keeps my equipment footprint manageable for an apartment-dweller. I would have no problem doing another partial-mash in order to do a really high-gravity beer with my existing setup.
My big step up, in retrospect, was moving from kits to recipes. Especially since I’m scaling recipes, I have to think carefully about each ingredient and its proportionate role in the overall beer. As much as I enjoy an all-grain brewing session, I think I get even more out of the planning process.
Find out what gives you joy in the process and follow that path. it’s a terrific hobby. I guarantee you will be the hit of your block party.
+1
When I was getting ready to go all-grain, the math and recipe formulation really had my brain twisted in knots too. I knew I could buy all-grain kits, where everything was all measured out for you (which I did for 2 or 3 batches), but I wanted to go all-grain to be able to experiment and make my own recipes. Once I spent $25 on BeerSmith, it all seemed so simple.
Get comfortable with the process and worry about the math and science part later.
Let me rephrase this, I was brewing AG by my third batch with no one to help me, no forums to consult and only Charlie Papazian’s book to consult. It really ain’t that hard. You will spend the next several years perfecting it, but go ahead and make the jump anytime.
I jumped right in to doing AG and didnt ever do an extract batch til I started teaching the Homebrew class we offer. I have seen people that spend the money on the equipment and then their beer doesnt come out the way they expected or find it too overwhelming and give up and sell off their equipment. Like most others have said, make sure you are ready to go to AG
I did extract brewing for years. I was always too nervous about doing all grain and postponed jumping in for way too long. I then read “How to Brew” by Palmer, listened to Brewstrong from the Brewing Network and asked way to many questions on this forum (thanks for all the support by the way). Finally I took a three session course offered through our community college and taught by one of our local brewers (from Silver Moon in Bend). The last class was a full brew day. It was incredible. I have since done three 10 gallon batches with a fourth in two weeks. The three batches came out excellent. It was much easier than anticipated. I wished I had jumped in earlier. I agree the other posts in that extract with specialty grains gave me a good base to start with. Good luck.
With all the info (books, articles, and online forums) you can figure just about everything out and make the jump as soon as you want to.
That being said, I made ~6 batches with extract before moving to AG. I thought this was about right because it gives you a feeling for what the specialty grains and hops do before you add all the variations of a mash. To put it another way, all grain introduces a lot of other parameters into brewing. For me it helped to understand by first tasting the outcome of recipe variations, so I knew how to tailor a beer’s taste before I got into the complexity/freedom of all grain.
I would like to do an extract batch soon, then a steep/extract batch a couple weeks later. Rack the extract to a secondary (to free up the primary). When the extract batch is ready to bottle, bottle it, move the steep/extract batch to a secondary and brew an AG for the primary.