re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II

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Just curious, how much better is all grain vs extract? As far as taste and quality of the beer.

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It is possible to make extract beer nearly as good as all-grain. However, in my experience, going from extract to all-grain is like going from the first generation flip phones to an iphone. It simply tastes better. It tastes more like beer. My early extract batches kept me interested in brewing. All-grain turned my brewing into a hobby/passion/obsession.

Keep in mind, this is just my experience but...

1) You feel more like a legit brewer. You are doing most of the steps they do in a real brewery, though to a smaller scale.
2) You can control how your beer tastes. With extract, it's a guessing game of what you will get.
3) My early homebrews had a homebrew taste to it. You can ask my friends/guinea pigs. But when i started going all grain, my buddies couldn't tell the difference between my beer or a commercial beer. My roommate at the time, thought he was drinking Stone brewery beer. When i told him it was a homebrew, he was blown away.
4) Your brew day will get longer. You are adding more steps. But that's ok.

I'm glad i started out going extract. The learning curve was smaller, and i had a basic grasp of all the steps post mash. By the time i went to all-grain, i read up enough to get an idea of what to do. After about 2 or 3 all-grain batches it was automatic. After that, i was just trying to think of ways to shorten my brew day, which usually meant cleaning up while other steps were going on.