All grain quality from extract beer?

[Papa Lazarou]

According to Wikipedia most Australian lagers use some cane sugar due to drinkers preferences.

I have made an all grain beer with 2 coopers kit yeast packets and it was not as good as an extract batch I made with a healthy liquid yeast pitch.
I think fermentation and fresh ingredients are the key to good beers.

 

[bmarshall]

The fact is that all malts start off as AG, whether we mash them ourselves or they are mashed by others and end up as LDME, Liquid Malt Extract, or Kits.

The point is that by brewing from scratch you are in control of the entire process. That allows you to manipulate things to your own desires.

Does that make better beer? Not necessarily. I've brewed AG batches I wouldn't give to my worst enemy. I've also brewed batches I rate as some of the best beer I ever want to brew or drink.
Test it for yourself by entering some competitions, and see what comments you receive in response..

As an aside, I'm friends with waggastew from this forum. He brews partials, so uses extract and some wort he mashes himself. He does very well in competitions, including an Australian champion beer in one style. Undoubtedly the skill of the brewer must have an impact.

Im close to the 300 mark of different "craft" beers ive been able to try. My kit and extract brews dont even come close to these or even VB in my oppinion. I probably need to do a full volume 60min boil of unhopped extract and chill with a propper chiller. I have read a number of times you dont need to boil lme for long at all, but dme helps to boil for 30-40 min. Im a bit uncertain of the tin cans as i associate the twang taste to being metallic ish, so breiss is my choice.

 

[manticle]

Sure, you can't do a 5 step mash schedule or a continuous ramp with extract brewing but you can't with an Esky either.

Au contraire my friend. I step mash just about every brew and I use a 26 L esky as a mash tun. No pumps, no springs, pulleys, whistles, milkmaids or horns.

Have done it with with hot water infusions and decoctions but mostly I just apply heat by stirring with an immersion element. I can and have used all three methods in the same mash.

As for the rest:

I am of the opinion that you can make great quality and crap quality beer with any method. IF all things are equal in fermentation, conditioning, sanitation, recipe design etc, THEN I think the more from scratch you get, the better the result but there are so many variables.

I'm an ex-chef and while I prefer making my own sauces, pastry, pasta, bacon, sausages, etc, I can also take more convenient pre-made bases and make something far tastier than someone with the best ingredients who doesn't know how to use them, how to combine them and has no palate. You can overcook the most superb piece of eye fillet and make it worse than a bit of budget rump and obviously someone with no pastry experience is better off buying quality pre-made puff or filo but in the hands of someone who does know - the difference is more than discernible. Selection of ingredients is also important and just like a chef might use a cheese rather than make one, a brewer might use a malted grain or malted extract made by a trusted manufacturer.

Select the best quality ingredients and put them together competently and skilfully using processes and practices that produce the best result. The more you can do well yourself the better the result in my opinion but not everyone can do everything with aplomb and knowing what you can do and what someone else is more skilled at doing is also a skill. A good chef selects ingredients grown/produced/fermented/ground/milled/dried by other people. S/he just knows which ones are best and how best to combine and process them. They don't ferment their own wine, grow their own wheat, mill it and make flour for their pastry, milk the cow and churn the butter or kill the pig. However they also don't use packet sauce, buy bread rolls or dried pasta or tinned soup or a pre-bought jar of pesto.

Find the level you're happy to be involved in based on preferred results and time vs reward.

This argument was around when I was little.