What got you into All Grain?

save money, get more into the hobby, more variation. The smell too, freshly ground grain and the smell of the mash is great. That's just a little bonus I suppose

 

I just wanted to do it. I brewed an extract with grains batch, did the same one just 3.5 gallons to make it Imperial (added some brown sugar too), then created a recipe for a Belgian Golden Strong (made my first starter) that was a mini mash of the Aromatic malt, then I wanted to go AG, and I did. Used an extract recipe converted to AG for a Black IPA, then started writing my own when I got a $20 bonus at work and realized I could brew a whole batch with that (Bitter). Never looked back. I have made some duds and some studs. Doing overnight mashes has made the time constraints nearly disappear, couple that with split batch brewing, my output has nearly doubled, the cost is lower, and the time commitment isn't that much more.

 

Oh, that second part is easy, just get a boat.

I wanted lower beer costs per batch, more control, and to progress to the "next level." I still play around with 2 gallon extract batches tho (which reminds me, I need to bottle my truly oddball dark saison extract thing, can't wait to see how it comes out).

 

all of the above.
I still use DME to increase gravity if needed.

the "other" is that even if you read everything you can about how beer is made, you really do need to spend some time with grains to "get it". I enjoy the hobby and enjoy beer, so the added challenge of grain is worth the effort.

 

The groupies.

 

I voted for all choices. There should have been another option for control over processes and finished product.

Anything that is worth doing is worth doing not only well, but to the best of your ability.

I am passionate about brewing, it is something that I crave. The smells, the flavors, the effort/work, the commeraderie & friendships made around the hobby and lets not forget the BEER!

Much like cooking/backing, which I am also very passionate about, I love to challenege myself and see if I can do it better than anyone else- and then do it better than that. Not an ego or competetive thing, I just love honing skills and the creative process.

You can brew GOOD beers with extract and mini/partial mashes, but you can't brew GREAT beers until you get into AG.

Much like you can buy a bunch of finished ingredients and make a chile, stew or soup that is very good, but when you hand select (Or grow) the freshsest ingredients to fit your preferred flavor profile, you create something more than just a stew or even a beer that you threw together from other peoples labor and effort.

The amount of control I have is awesome. I control all the processes to the extent that I can/am willing to exert control over said processes.

I love recipe formulation, food and beer alike. It is so rewarding to create a beer or a good meal (Etc) that you engineered from your own experiences, knowledge and intellect. Sharing your creation with others is truly rewarding.

Conceptualizing a specific flavor you are going for and turning it into reality is petty dang cool. Not many people truly recognize ALL of what they are doing when brewing beer, it is an art form, it is a science, it is a symbiosis and to some it is a lifestyle and way of being.

To answer the question posed by the OP more directly- I got into all-grain brewing because that was the next logical step in the evolution of my brewing journey to expand my knowledge base, skills, ability and understanding of the art form that is brewing.

Sláinte

 

Well doing a partial mash helped me launch into AG but there are several reasons to do it mostly reduced costs and more wort control. But also All Grain brewing is actually what brewing is. Brewers make wort. In extract brewing someone else made your wort, you just added hops and boiled it. I don't mean to piss anyone off but extract brewing isn't really brewing. Now, I think extract is a great thing, because it allows an easier entry way into the hobby (that is rather overwhelming at times) and allows the brewer to focus on the 2 most important things 1) Sanitation and 2) Fermentation. You can also make great beer with extract along with making starters easier and getting a few extra points on high gravity brews. After you've gotten that down there's really not a good reason to not jump into All Grain.

 

My son...he introduced me to brewing...I went all-grain after 3 batches... 7 years later, he just made an all extract IPA that blew my socks off.

Edit: Drinking a FRESH Bell's Two-Hearted after a Turkey Day trip to Arizona!!!

 

I started AG when I perches this very basic IPA one gallon kit , Brew the first batch then got my grist from local brew store. The best part of my first batches was the mashing small.

 

Simple.

Control. I wanted control over the process.

That and ingredients.. There are more tools at hand when you go all grain to add to the beer that you can't really add to a strictly extract beer. If you go PM you might as well go all grain unless you just can't swing the space.

 

20 years ago I didn't know anybody else even extract-only brewing. I would almost be tempted to try an extract batch again just to see how much better it would be now that I have my technique and process firmed up. But the cost of extract brewing is outrageous so I'll stick with all grain.

 

I switched to AG mostly due to my desire to take all day to brew up a beer. There is also the idea that it would allow me to make better beer. My beers have improved over the years, but I attribute most of that to nailing down other parts of the process: better recipe formulation, full-wort boils, fermentation temperature control, better yeast management, dropping the use of a secondary, kegging rather than bottling, using modern sanitizers (instead of Chlorox), and water treatment.

 

The whole idea behind pursuing any hobby you really enjoy is to find whatever means possible to 'waste' as much time and money on it as possible and that just wasn't possible using extracts.

 

The main reason was the cost. Here in Norway, beer (and everything else) is extremely expensive. A single beer of poor to average quality will cost you from $6 to $12. (Hansa Bayer is 35 NOK, while Ægir IPA is around 60 NOK. A reasonably good beer like Nøgne Ø IPA is about 70 NOK) Imagine buying several six-packs of good beer and you get an idea of how expensive drinking can be here.

I had been doing extract and partial mashes back in the US for several years, more as a hobby than anything else. When I came to Norway, I did two extract batches and then went all-grain (cheaper than extract). I have now brewed 14 batches since I have been here, and the quality of my beers has improved immensely! On top of that, I have branched out to other beer styles that I don't normally go for (I prefer IPA's), just to see if I can do it. I have now made an excellent Wit, Abbey ale, stout and pilsner. And my cost is down below $1 per bottle, since I plan my next batch to use up any remnants from the previous one.

Living here has renewed my interest in homebrewing, and the experience has allowed me to produce some very nice beers. I'll probably keep it up when I eventually move back to Texas.

 

The desire to use more grain ingredients got me thinking about partial mashing, and when I investigated, this website made me realize I could go all the way pretty easily: http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

Additionally, something about the extract process just felt too easy, and yet, I wasn't making great beers back then. My first batch using my all grain setup was an APA, actually a partial mash. I hedged, because I wasn't sure about mash efficiency, so it was 50% DME by sugar content, less extract than typical for partials. It also had Maris Otter, 1# of biscuit malt, and 1# of Belgian Caramel Pils and used Chinook for bittering and Cascade for flavor and aroma. After having invested the effort to convert the cooler into the mash/lauter tun, I was determined to make a good beer and simultaneously got anal about sanitizing, oxygenating the wort, chilling the wort, and controlling fermentation temperature. Turns out all these things matter and I made a good beer. I probably would have quit if it didn't turn out good after that.

 

“I was determined to make a good beer and simultaneously got anal about sanitizing, oxygenating the wort, chilling the wort, and controlling fermentation temperature. Turns out all these things matter …”

I have read many stories where folks opine that brewing all grain made better beer (vs. extract). The reality is that proper process control (which typically comes with experience over multiple batches) has a HUGE impact on the resulting beer quality.

Cheers!

 

I don't dispute the 'reality' of the point you make in the second sentence. But that doesn't refute the 'stories where folks opine' in the first.

 

Alluding to what someone else mentioned, with homebrewing being a hobby, you naturally progress to the next degree of difficulty as time goes on.

For example, if you want to get into building model cars, you probably start with snap-tight plastic models. Once you get bored with those, you go to more sophisticated models with metal pieces and turning wheels. After that, you get into the world of to-scale models that require model glue and special tiny tools, and so on and so on.

Likewise, one would probably start with extract brewing and nail down their process, then itch for something more challenging. Enter grains and mashing, water chemistry, etc.

Also, I like the idea of brewing the way the pros do it. I know there are breweries that use extract, but I think that is pretty rare. This is also the reason I fly-sparged my first 30 or so all grain batches; I wanted to mimic the process of a microbrewery. A few factors caused me to change my ways on that though, but that's for a different thread.