Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Thinking Out Loud – All Grain Brewing

My re-entry to the home brewing hobby has come with a lot of reading and studying concepts.  When I brewed in the past, I always made malt extract recipes and used some minor grains by steeping them for 30 minutes or so before the boil.  I never challenged myself to consider all-grain brewing.  I think I had convinced myself that extract brewing was good enough, and didn't care to spend the extra time and effort to work with all-grain recipes.  Extract brewing does make excellent beers, but I'm beginning to realize that truly fantastic beers can be made by all-grain brewing.  I have been trying to come up with a pros and cons list of moving into all-grain brewing, and here is what I have come up with so far:

Cons:

• Additional time involved to mash grains (setup / mash / tear down / cleanup)
• Additional equipment costs (mash tun / grain mill)

Pros:

• Total control over flavor and details of the beer and the ability to create flavors and styles of beer that aren't easily achieved with extracts
• Creating an on-hand inventory of grains that can be crushed and used at any time
• Satisfaction of creating beer from raw ingredients rather than manufactured extracts

I don't currently have all the equipment I would need for all-grain brewing.  In fact, I haven't completely acquired everything I really want to have for extract brewing.  To complete my basic brewing kit, I need to build my immersion chiller and I need to buy at least one, and preferably two propane tanks to round off the complete brewing kit.  The parts to build the immersion chiller and to get a filled propane tanks is going to be roughly $120.  The cost of building a mash tun like I want and getting a Barley Crusher grain mill is going to be another $170.  This is not really a lot of money, but it's more than I can spend today.  I'll have to get it in pieces until I have everything I need.  The propane tank and immersion chiller are highest priority at the moment.  I hope to get those taken care of in February.  Maybe March will allow me to get the rest.  I also haven't searched Ebay yet for a used Barley Crusher...

When I get these materials together, I'll be rather complete in my equipment for home brewing.  I don't have any additional needs.  Home brewing is definitely a cheaper hobby than my photography hobby!