The Paths to Homebrewed Beer
In case you haven’t noticed, it’s the best time in history to be a homebrewer! Not only has the craft beer industry grown exponentially in the last 30 years, but the access for homebrewing ingredients and equipment has also increased significantly. This is a great thing if you want to get into the hobby or want to level-up your brewing abilities and recipe control by moving from extract brewing to all-grain.
It was not a surprise to see the 2022 brewing survey results from the Brülosophy crew that showed that 70% of brewers started as extract brewers, but up to 95% of respondents are now all-grain brewing (https://brulosophy.com/2022/08/04/2022-general-homebrewer-survey-results). I fall into that statistic, making my first batch from a dry malt extract 1-gallon (4-L) stovetop kit, immediately falling in love with the hobby, and jumping straight into five-gallon (19-L) all-grain brewing for my second batch after binge-watching hundreds of hours of YouTube videos about it. While this article may have tips handy for those who have followed this route and are now all-grain brewing, the primary audience it is intended for is those curious about all-grain brewing or even curious about homebrewing in general. Got a friend who may enjoy the hobby? Pass this issue to them when you are done reading it!
We will cover the basics of the two brewing styles, name the equipment needed for each, and list some pros and cons. If you’re brand new to brewing I hope this is informational enough for you to decide which level to jump into the hobby. We will also go over the basics of the whole brewing process and you’ll see that the extract vs. all-grain decision will only affect the first phase of brew day: The mash.
An understanding of the basic brewing process is necessary for either brewing style. Fundamentals like cleaning and sanitation, process, and temperature control are non-negotiable parts for any brewing you’re doing. If it is your first brew day then pay close attention to your kit’s instructions for cleaning, sanitizing, and setting up to brew.
Brewing with Extract
The primary difference between extract and all-grain brewing is how we go about making the wort. Wort is the “sugar-water” that will ferment with yeast as it turns into beer. In extract brewing we make wort by adding malt extract, either dry or liquid, to water. Liquid malt extract (LME) is a syrup that usually comes in large cans, plastic jugs, or thick foil pouches. It’s added directly to the hot water you’ve prepared and you stir it until it’s completely dissolved. It’s just like dissolving honey or molasses into hot water. Aside from the potential of scorching on the bottom of the kettle (just turn off your heat source when stirring in the extract) there’s not much that can go wrong during this step, unless you’re clumsy like me and get the sticky mess on the counter/clothes/hands — this stuff can turn your kitchen into what looks like a crime scene real quick if you’re not careful. LME is made by professional maltsters who use base malts, specialty malts, and sometimes unmalted grains to a make a mash, then separate the wort from the spent grains, and then they dehydrate that wort until it’s a highly concentrated “wort in a can” that is very shelf stable and consistent. So they’ve done the mash process for you and then concentrated it so it’s easier to store and ship to you.
Dry malt extract (DME) works in almost the same way, but instead of being a molasses-like liquid, it’s dry and looks like a very finely ground flour. Adding this to your brewing water can be a bit of a clumpy mess at first, but it does dissolve into the water and gives you the same wort you’d have gotten from LME.
My recommendation for mixing in either DME or LME is to use a large whisk instead of a traditional spoon or mash paddle. It’ll help them dissolve faster and the goo won’t stick to your whisk like it will a spoon. Once you’ve created your wort you can check its pre-boil gravity to make sure you’re on the right track for the recipe you’re following. However, the extract kits that you can get nowadays are very consistent and trustworthy, so checking gravity is not required, it’s just a spot check.
Many extract-based recipes call for steeping a small amount of specialty grain, which is necessary for adding characteristics that aren’t available in extract form. Most beer styles that require crystal malts, for example, will call for steeping milled grains for 15–30 minutes in a “hop sock” or mesh bag. This step allows extract brewers to add specific flavors, colors, or mouthfeel to a recipe that has an extract base malt. If this is your first time brewing an extract kit, do not be surprised when you open the box and find a pound or two (0.45–0.9 kg) of milled grains.
A hybrid model of brewing found somewhere between extract and all-grain is called “partial mash” brewing. This method requires mashing diastatic grains akin to all-grain brewing, but also uses extract to get the majority of the fermentable sugars. This would be typical for brewing styles that require grains with unique characteristics that aren’t available in extract form but require conversion of the starch, such as dark Munich malts, aromatic malt, smoked malts, etc. Partial mash does require the traditional mashing steps that allow the starches to convert into fermentable sugars, but generally on a smaller scale so you may still be able to get away with doing these mashes in your kettle with the grains in a bag.
All-grain Mashes
Before we talk about the next step, bringing your new wort up to a boil, let’s cover the mashing phase for all-grain brewers. All-grain brewing is the method that gives the brewer full control of brew day variables. In this method the brewer is extracting the sugars, proteins, and carbohydrates from malted barley, specialty malts, and unmalted grains, instead of getting these from concentrated, pre-made wort (extract).
My typical all-grain brew day starts the night before when I mill the grains for whatever recipe I’m going to make. A typical 5-gallon (19-L) batch of beer will have anything from 6–15 lbs. (2.7–6.8 kg) of grains depending on the recipe, and generally speaking, the bigger the “grain bill” (what we call all the grains in a recipe when they’re together) the more fermentable sugar will be extracted, meaning more potential alcohol. There are exceptions to that, of course, but a good example would be a 7-lb. (3.2 kg) grain bill for a 5-gallon (19-L) batch of Munich helles (a very light lager) will yield an approximate ABV of 4.5%, whereas my DIPA recipe with a 14-lb. (6.4-kg) grain bill will get me a nice 8% ABV. Recipes generally start with a base malt like pale 2-row or Pilsner malt. The base malt delivers the majority of the sugars that the yeast will later feast on. All-grain brewing also gives the brewer access to a very wide range of specialty grains; things like crystal malts, blackened malts (think coffee and dark chocolate flavors), and a huge variety of other ingredients that will add flavor, color, mouthfeel, and aroma to the final beer. These are the same specialty grains that one may find in a partial mash extract recipe.
The first step of the mash process is to mill the grain that the grain bill calls for. This can happen either at the local homebrew shop, the warehouse of your online retailer, or at home (more on grain mills when we talk about equipment). The goal of milling is to crush the grains just enough to expose the inside of the kernels to the steeping water. You should visually see the husks separated and the grains split, but not pulverized, which would make separating the grains from the wort after mashing difficult or impossible.
The crushed grains are then added to the mash tun. Mashing can be done in a number of ways. One of the most popular these days is the “brew-in-a-bag” or “BIAB” method where you line the kettle or cooler with a large nylon mesh bag, add the grains to the mash water that is held between 148–155 °F (64–68 °C) for approximately an hour. The grains can be stirred occasionally and at the end of the mash the bag can be removed like a giant tea bag, leaving behind the new sweet wort. You now technically have the same product that you had after stirring in the LME or DME when extract brewing.
Another mashing method can either use a false bottom, which is a steel slotted base that goes under the grains, or a slotted manifold. Both allow the liquid to flow through the grain bed and recirculate back over the top of the mash. This is basically a homebrew-size mash vessel that imitates the method used in professional brewing. This method allows the grain bed itself to act as a filter as it settles at the end of the mash. It is more efficient than BIAB, but is also more time-consuming and requires additional equipment. The kettles and false bottoms are also heavier and often take more time to clean than the
BIAB method.
More recently has come the innovation of electric all-in-one systems that allow us to mash, recirculate wort during the mash, and then boil all in the same kettle. Just a bit of research and you’ll see the specs that make these systems available from numerous manufacturers all a bit unique (BYO did a roundup of these products in the October 2021 issue, which digital members can find online at https://byo.com/article/electric-countertop-brew-systems/). The all-in-one systems are large enough to hold the mash water and the grain bill. At the end of the mash, we lift out the malt pipe (cylinder with a false bottom), BIAB, or basket from the wort and that will allow the grains to drain before we discard the spent grains. Some of these systems do require the addition of sparge (rinsing) water once the grains are lifted out because they can’t hold the full volume of water and grains.
Where Extract and All-Grain Converge
Once the grains are removed, we move to the boil step of brew day. This is the same for both extract and all-grain brewers. For 5-gallon (19-L) batch sizes, the most common homebrewing volume, we have two main methods of reaching and maintaining a boil: Gas or electric. Either way, we get the wort up to a boil and then follow the recipe’s directions on adding hops and possibly other ingredients. The recipe will dictate how much hops, which varieties, and when to add them. A typical boil lasts one hour and most styles call for an early hop addition for bitterness and aroma hops added later in the boil or even after the boil is complete but prior to cooling.
The last step on brew day is to chill the wort to proper yeast-pitching temperatures and add the yeast. As we like to say, brewers make wort, and yeast makes beer! Pitching is just an industry term for adding the yeast. This can be dry yeast or liquid yeast, and the style of beer you’re making will dictate which of the many available strains of yeast to use. For a typical ale you’ll want your wort to be at or below 75 °F (24 °C), ideally 68 °F (20 °C), but each yeast comes with a recommended temperature range for fermentation. Lager yeasts will require temperatures in the mid-50s °F (11–14 °C), which may take more gear than the beginning brewer has at the start of their hobby. There are multiple ways of getting your wort down to fermentation temperature, but the basic 5-gallon (19-L) homebrewing kit will likely include an immersion chiller that circulates hose or tap water through a copper or stainless coil that sits in your wort. It doesn’t require other gear like pumps, and it is a very effective method to use. For smaller 1-gallon (4-L) batches it’s easy enough to set your pot into an ice bath in a sink or tub. One note at this phase is that everything that touches the wort after it’s done boiling has to be clean and sanitized: The fermenter, stirring spoons, tubing, and everything else.
Once you’ve moved the chilled wort and transferred to the sanitized fermenter you can store it in a dark closet, spare bathroom, or other space where the temperature is as close to the desired fermentation temperature as possible with little fluctuation throughout the day. Direct light can have an adverse affect, so dark spaces or wrapping a blanket around the carboy is recommended if using a glass fermenter. Fermentation can take anywhere from five days to a couple of weeks. Most kits will recommend the full two weeks. Your homebrew starter kit will come with either an airlock or a blow-off hose that will lock into the lid so that the CO2 created during fermentation will be able to escape while no bugs or outside air can get into the fermenter.
Bottling day is next. You’re on the home stretch and just a few short weeks away from enjoying your new beer! Follow the instructions in your brewing kit on how to use a bottling cane to rack (transfer) your beer into the sanitized bottles. Some kits recommend transferring your new beer to a secondary fermenter, but doing so adds chances for oxidation or infection. While transferring to a secondary fermenter used to be common practice a decade ago, many homebrewers skip this step or only do it in highly hopped beers in order to separate the beer from the massive hop matter at the bottom of the primary fermenter before packaging. If you skip transferring to a secondary fermenter, instead, just add the recommended dosage of priming sugar directly to the primary fermenter and keep your siphon above the trub (hop matter, yeast, and other particles that sink to the bottom of the fermenter) when bottling. The key in this phase is to be as gentle as possible with the beer, not splashing or stirring, because you want to reduce the amount of oxygen exposure as much as possible. Oxidation is likely the most common fault for homebrewers and strips the beer of flavor while adding a Sherry-like taste. As you advance in the hobby, you’ll find that there are tools and techniques that allow us to reduce or remove oxygen exposure completely.
You’ll cap the bottles and the beer will referment a little more because of the priming sugar that was added, which is how the beer will carbonate. The CO2 produced during this refermentation is trapped in the bottle and is absorbed in the beer.
After two weeks of storing the new beer in the same temperature-controlled and dark place that it first fermented, you can chill them in the fridge and now you get to enjoy your creation. You did it!
So, Which Method is Better for You?
With the primer on brewing methods behind us, let’s now consider which approach may be better for you. The answer is not necessarily the same for everybody. As you’ve read, the differences are all on the mash-side. The boil, cooling, fermentation, and bottling processes are all the same whether brewing all-grain or starting with extract.
The pros of using malt extracts for making your wort are significant:
1. Ease. The learning curve is much smaller when brewing with extract. Think of this method as similar to making brownies from a box where you just add a couple of ingredients, mix, and bake. Much of the hardest work has been done for you.
2. Equipment investment. You don’t need the equipment for mashing. A 5-gallon (19-L) batch of beer can be done in a kettle as small as 3-gallons (11.5-L) if doing a partial boil (where the remainder of the water is added just prior to fermentation). If brewing all-grain batches, you must either add a mash tun to your equipment list or a kettle that is at least 8 gallons (30 L) if doing BIAB batches so it can fit the grain and water to mash in the kettle. In addition, once you get into all-grain brewing there are many other pieces of equipment that may not be required, but make the hobby easier, such as a grain mill.
3. Consistency. There are less variables to make mistakes when LME/DME manufacturers do the quality control for you.
4. Time. As mentioned, you get to skip the mashing and lautering steps, reducing the brew day length by two hours or so, depending on the all-grain method used.
5. Less equipment cost and less cleaning. Great for the beginner who may not be ready to dive into a new hobby with 100% certainty.
The cons of extract brewing:
1. Less flexibility in the recipe. There are limitations to what you can do with extract, and even when adding steeping grains or doing partial mashes, it is not the same level of flexibility that all-grain brewing allows.
2. The cost of extract is greater than grains. This is the pay-off for having the maltster do the work for you.
3. Less hands-on. One of the reasons many all-grain brewers say they prefer that method is because it feels more personalized. They are doing all of the work required to make that wort, and there is a sense of pride
in that.
Recipe in Action
Let’s put the information discussed up to this point into a recipe to help further illustrate the differences between extract and all-grain brewing. See the recipe below for a simple brown ale that I’ve brewed and enjoyed many times, with step by step instructions for each method.
Conclusion
If you are already doing extract brewing and making beer that you like, it may be a fun next step to jump into all-grain brewing, but it’s certainly not necessary to make high-quality homebrew. If you are brand new to brewing then consider the pros and cons listed earlier and decide which approach better fits your desires for the hobby. As someone who quickly went from extract to all-grain brewing, I often recommend to people who believe they will really get into the hobby to jump right into it with all-grain and a setup that suits your needs. The flexibility to do any beer style and to access all available variables in the brewing process makes all-grain brewing more rewarding to me. However, if you’re looking for a fun, more low-key hobby that won’t consume the 4+ hours each brew day, then extract batches will likely be more convenient for you. The choice is yours, and either way you choose to make beer, the end result is going to be delicious.
Related Links:
We purposely simplified many parts of the brewing process in this article. If you want to learn more about some of the technical aspects that were touched on, check out these links that are all free to read online:
• BIAB is a great way to get into all-grain brewing. Learn more about this technique: https://byo.com/article/brew-in-a-bag-techniques/
• Lautering is the process by which the brewer separates the liquid sweet wort that will go on to the boil from the solid spent grain once the mash is complete: https://byo.com/article/lautering/
• New to the hobby? Check out our “New to Brew” page with all you need to know about ingredients, gear, techniques, and more to start homebrewing: https://byo.com/newbrew/
Beppy’s Brown
(5 gallon/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.051 FG = 1.012
IBU = 40 SRM = 14 ABV = 5.1%
This simple brown ale recipe illustrates the differences between brewing all-grain batches and extract batches of beer with extract replacing one malt in the ingredients and different techniques to get your wort in the boil kettle.
Ingredients
10.5 lbs. (4.8 kg) 2-row pale malt
4 oz. (113 g) Carafa® Special I malt
4 oz. (113 g) caramel malt (60 °L)
4 oz. (113 g) brown malt
4.5 AAU East Kent Golding hops (60 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 4.5% alpha acids)
5 AAU Willamette hops (45 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 5% alpha acids)
5 AAU Willamette hops (15 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 5% alpha acids)
Whirlfloc tablet (10 min.)
Imperial Yeast A10 (Darkness), White Labs WLP005 (British Ale), or LalBrew Nottingham yeast
¾ cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by step
Heat 3 gallons (11.5 L) of strike water up to 165 °F (74 °C). Stir in the crushed grains, making sure no dough balls remain. The goal is that the mash temperature stabilizes between 150–152 °F (66–67 °C), but don’t worry too much as long as you are within 5 °F (2.5 °C) of this target. After 60 minutes, the mash is complete. You will want to sparge with about 5 gallons (19 L) of hot water at about 180 °F (82 °C). You should target about 6.5 gallons (24.6 L) of wort in the kettle at the end of sparging.
Boil the wort for 60 minutes, adding hops at times indicated and Whirlfloc at 10 minutes remaining. At the end of the boil give the wort a long stir to create a brisk whirlpool then let settle for 10 minutes. Cool to 68 °F (20 °C) and transfer to your fermenter. Aerate the wort (if you can) if using a liquid yeast strain.
Hold the temperature between 68–74 °F (20–23 °C) during fermentation. When fermentation is complete, rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and
force carbonate.
Beppy’s Brown
(5 gallon/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.051 FG = 1.012
IBU = 40 SRM = 14 ABV = 5.1%
Ingredients
7 lbs. (3.2 kg) pale liquid malt extract
4 oz. (113 g) Carafa® Special I malt
4 oz. (113 g) caramel malt (60 °L)
4 oz. (113 g) brown malt
4.5 AAU East Kent Golding hops (60 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 4.5% alpha acids)
5 AAU Willamette hops (45 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 5% alpha acids)
5 AAU Willamette hops (15 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 5% alpha acids)
Whirlfloc tablet (10 min.)
Imperial Yeast A10 (Darkness), White Labs WLP005 (British Ale), or LalBrew Nottingham yeast
¾ cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by step
Heat 6 gallons (23 L) of water up to 150 °F (66 °C). Place crushed grains in a hop sock or mesh bag that allows wort to flow freely through the grains. Submerge in water and maintain this temperature for half an hour. Remove bag and then bring the wort to a boil. Remove kettle from heat and stir in the malt extract until fully dissolved. Return kettle to burner and boil wort and boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at times indicated and Whirfloc at 10 minutes remaining. At the end of the boil give the wort a long stir in a circular direction to create a brisk whirlpool then let settle for 10 minutes.
Cool to 68 °F (20 °C) and transfer to your fermenter. Aerate the wort (if you can) if using a liquid yeast strain. Top fermenter up to 5.25 gallons (20 L) with cold water. Hold the temperature between 68–74 °F (20–23 °C) during fermentation for two weeks. When fermentation is complete, rack the beer, prime and bottle condition, or keg and force carbonate.
