Going back to extract (for a bit)

I feel your need to shorten the brewday in order to have time for your family. However I think that for some of us this would remove some of the finer aspects of control and customization possible with all grain brewing. Specifically, style-specific water profiles would be harder to target and base malt changes would no longer be an option. I would love to taste an extract vs all grain version of the same recipe to see if this even matters.

 

“I would love to taste an extract vs all grain version of the same recipe to see if this even matters.”

As I posted previously: “At the recent NHC, Briess provided two Pilsner beers with one being brewed all grain with Briess Pilsner Malt and the other being brewed with Briess Pilsner Malt Extract. I did a side-by-side tasting of those two beers and they were very, very similar; I dare say that they were the same.”

Cheers!

 

Well, the only way to make the recipes the "same" would be to control the all grain factors to replicate the uncontrollable extract factors. Then it wouldn't matter I guess, except that the result in neither case would be tailored to style accuracy or personal preference.

 

Sure you can make beer with extract, but it isn't really brewing.*



*Don't hate; its a joke.**



**Not really.***



***Ok, chill already.

 

LOL. I would never say that it's not really brewing. Only that the shortcuts come with penalties, which may or may not be important to the brewer. But to deny that there are penalties would just be silly.

 

I'm not sure if you're are adding to what I said, or disagreeing, but just in case...

Call it what you want, but it's also reduced flexibility and control. How many posts about body, mouthfeel, dryness, harsh bitterness, dull flavors, etc. are answered by recommendations to change a mash temperature or a water profile? These are people seeking to control variables that can improve their beer.

To me, the idea that a pilsner malt extract could have the best fermentability characteristics or the best embedded water profile for every style that uses pilsner malt - that Briess or whoever somehow got it right for everything someone will brew - is ludicrous.

Again, some people don't care that they are giving up the ability to finely control the result, which is okay for them. It's their beer. Also, I do agree that it's somewhat foolproof in the sense that there are less things to screw up process-wise.

But giving up the ability to finely control the result does not equate to the potential to make the best possible beer. How could it?

 

Dam you VikMan! I'm in the middle of my first batch ever and this thread's making me want to do an all-grain brew!

 

LOLZ. Get the basics down first! FWIW, I jumped to all grain on batch #3. It wasn't about control at that point, rather about being more involved in the process.

 

What David Houseman presented at the recent NHC:

“Even beginning brewers can make great beer with kits and extract, but some knowledge and guidance will help tremendously.”


Cheers

 

Great? Maybe. That word gets used too much in this forum IMO. But best possible? I think not. Here's some data, rather than a quote with emphasis added by the quoter. Of the 2013 NHC Gold Medal winners, 22 out of 23 were all grain beers. (The one extract beer was a Berliner Weiss.) I would be pretty surprised if 2014 was much different.

 

How many entries were extract?

 

Valid question. I don't know, but I'd bet my eye teeth it was considerably more than 4% in Round 1.

 

That is ludicrous. But nobody's saying that.

What I think people are saying is that for someone who's considering a recipe that uses pils as a base malt that would be mashed at 152F and a standard water profile, pils extract can produce a beer that's going to be very close to, if not indistinguishable from AG. If you're pressed for time, that seems like a valid option. Why would this be controversial?

 

FWIW that was my experience in drinking the two Pilsners that were provided by Briess recently at the NHC.

As I posted previously: “At the recent NHC, Briess provided two Pilsner beers with one being brewed all grain with Briess Pilsner Malt and the other being brewed with Briess Pilsner Malt Extract. I did a side-by-side tasting of those two beers and they were very, very similar; I dare say that they were the same.”

Cheers!

 

What do you mean by "quality" in this context?

By using the extract, you lose the ability to adjust the water profile to make the beer you want to make. It's also not correct to say it's simply a matter of personal preference. If one water profile will accentuate the desired characteristics of a dry and crisp pilsner better than another, then using the water profile that better accentuates the desired flavor profile will produce a better tasting beer.

I don't think it is at all correct to place water profile in the realm of simple personal preference. I think a lot of brewers both amateur and professional will tell you that it is attention to water chemistry that separates the great beers from the pack.

 

I may have exaggerated that point. Someone did say that malt extract vendors know how to "properly" use mash/sparge water when they make malt extracts. As if there is one correct water profile per extract type.

What's a standard water profile? And what about mash length, and mashout (or not). And mash pH? I disagree that the results would typically be indistinguishable, unless the all grain version was intentionally designed to replicate the extract version. Or a huge amount of luck with parameters happening to line up. As I said before, if you design the AG recipe to replicate the Extract recipe, then it could be indistinguishable. But that's limiting, if your goal is to make the best possible* beer.

*You can define best possible any way you'd like, as long as there are some sort of style or preference related criteria attached that distinguish the results.

 

“Of the 2013 NHC Gold Medal winners, 22 out of 23 were all grain beers.”

Experienced brewers tend to brew all grain. They tend to brew high quality beers not only because of the all grain brewing method but because they exercise good brewing practices throughout the entire homebrewing process.

@AlCaponeJunior listed some of these aspects in another recent thread:

· fermentation temperature control

· yeast pitching temperature control

· sanitation

· yeast pitching rates / starters

· full boil

· quick cooling of hot wort (i.e. do you have a wort chiller)

· KISS methodology

It seems to me that the NHC Gold Medal winners won their medals because of their overall homebrewing prowess and these experienced homebrewers utilize all grain brewing within their overall homebrewing process.

Cheers!

 

“It's also not correct to say it's simply a matter of personal preference.” I disagree.

“If one water profile will accentuate the desired characteristics of a dry and crisp pilsner better than another, then using the water profile that better accentuates the desired flavor profile will produce a better tasting beer.” Desired flavor profile is a matter of personal preference.

Cheers!