Brewing Demo: Opinion Wanted

[Pat Casey]

I have not done any brewing demonstrations for a while. The next will be on Saturday May 29 at Absolute Homebrew, St Marys, NSW.

However, for anyone intending to come what would be the more useful for your brewing, all grain or a partial? For a partial it would be a 1.7 kg can kit plus 2.5 kg of grain done as a brew in the bag. Here are some partial mash recipes as examples.

With past all grain demonstrations I have found that unless someone has already decided they want to brew all grain, then most people find an all grain demonstration not that relevent to their own brewing. They want to develop their brewing, but all grain is too big a step up. They are not in a postion to commit the extra time, or the money for the equipment. They want a smaller step.

An all grain demonstration is also quite time consuming. Even taking short-cuts there is still a lot of hanging around.

As for beer quality goes, a well produced wort that is 50% grain and which is then properly fermented gives a far better beer than a poorly produced all grain wort which has a dried yeast thrown at it. It is also a lot easier to brew.

So opinions please, all grain or partial? Maybe say something about where you are with your brewing.

Pat

Absolute Homebrew
Casey's Beer

 

[dgilks]

I think that that for me the AG demo would be more useful but if your point is to try and upgrade and upsell current K&B brewers, go for the partial. If you demo can use mostly parts that people have in their kitchen I think it can be very successful. I'd even consider using unhopped extract instead of a kit to further demonstrate options.

 

[Pat Casey]

I think that that for me the AG demo would be more useful but if your point is to try and upgrade and upsell current K&B brewers, go for the partial. If you demo can use mostly parts that people have in their kitchen I think it can be very successful. I'd even consider using unhopped extract instead of a kit to further demonstrate options.

The routine is to mash 2.5 kg of grain in a bag in a large stock pot , I sell 18 litre pots funnily enough, as a brew in a bag. Cool the wort in a water bath and then mix it with either a can kit or tinned malt extract in the fermenter and top up with chilled water and pitch a good yeast. Even using bittering hops, to do a bitter style in a short boil length you lose a lot of wort to spent hops. So using a can kit provides the base bittering with plenty of room to add flavour and aroma hops. Plain extract is OK for a wheat beer but not for a pilsner or IPA.

Pat
Absolute Homebrew
Casey's Beer

 

[Bribie G]

Depending on the style, some very presentable partials can be made on kits. My favourite was my "Bribie Bitter" which was a lager can, 2K of pilsener malt mashed in a woolies Decor container sitting in a water bath in an esky and strained / sparged into a stockpot through a $4 kitchen strainer from GoLo, some aroma hops and US-05. And 500 of dex for a bit of bite.

Lets face it, everyone has an esky and a strainer of some sort, the only ask is the stockpot. Personally I wouldn't even complicate it with the bag.

 

[Wolfy]

An all grain demonstration is also quite time consuming. Even taking short-cuts there is still a lot of hanging around.

As for beer quality goes, a well produced wort that is 50% grain and which is then properly fermented gives a far better beer than a poorly produced all grain wort which has a dried yeast thrown at it. It is also a lot easier to brew.

So opinions please, all grain or partial? Maybe say something about where you are with your brewing.

What you've said is true, but I very much doubt too many AG brewers go to all the effort only to throw dry yeast at it when it comes to yeast selection.

However from a retailer's perspective, I think there would be more value demonstrating a partial-mash.
In addition given your distaste of dried yeast, a partial-mash would also provide a chance to introduce customers to 'better quality' yeasts than what they'd encounter with kits.

 

[MarkBastard]

As for beer quality goes, a well produced wort that is 50% grain and which is then properly fermented gives a far better beer than a poorly produced all grain wort which has a dried yeast thrown at it. It is also a lot easier to brew.

Partials with LME are good but not as good as AG, but I really disagree with your above quote. Are you implying that using any form of dry yeast, including the Safale range, takes an all grain below the quality of something that has a kit as a base? With all the iso hop glory of a kit can? I seriously doubt that.

 

[Nick JD]

I depends what you want to sell to these people. What do you make most profit off?

Showcase something that'll make them have to buy what you want them to buy. That's how retail works.

EDIT: that said, I think you should detail 18L AG stovetop brewing because it's simple.

 

[Cortez The Killer]

Why not have both on the go?

Cheers

 

[Pennywise]

I reckon AG, if some of the people who attend only want to go partials in the future and some AG then all will be happy. After all a partial is pretty much the same process, except you wont be adding bittering hops and there's less grain. You'll still be doing the same thing with it

 

[schooey]

... I very much doubt too many AG brewers go to all the effort only to throw dry yeast at it when it comes to yeast selection.

I'd disagree with that. I know quite a lot of brewers who will do full AG brews and pitch a dry yeast. I'm one of them. It comes down to what beer you are brewing and knowing what flavour profile (or lack of) the yeast you are using will throw at the temperature you are choosing to ferment at.

Some dry yeasts are much maligned, but with a little thought and some experience you can achieve very very good results

 

[MarkBastard]

I was under the impression that dry yeasts would be the most popular choice, especially US05 for pale ales etc and Nottingham as the UK equivalent, with people using liquid yeasts when doing more specific or obscure styles, and then some people using chemistry sets to manage their own yeast storage etc whether it originally comes from a dry yeast packet or liquid smack pack.

This needs a poll.

 

[Northside Novice]

I have not done any brewing demonstrations for a while. The next will be on Saturday May 29 at Absolute Homebrew, St Marys, NSW.

However, for anyone intending to come what would be the more useful for your brewing, all grain or a partial? For a partial it would be a 1.7 kg can kit plus 2.5 kg of grain done as a brew in the bag. Here are some partial mash recipes as examples.

With past all grain demonstrations I have found that unless someone has already decided they want to brew all grain, then most people find an all grain demonstration not that relevent to their own brewing. They want to develop their brewing, but all grain is too big a step up. They are not in a postion to commit the extra time, or the money for the equipment. They want a smaller step.

An all grain demonstration is also quite time consuming. Even taking short-cuts there is still a lot of hanging around.

As for beer quality goes, a well produced wort that is 50% grain and which is then properly fermented gives a far better beer than a poorly produced all grain wort which has a dried yeast thrown at it. It is also a lot easier to brew.

So opinions please, all grain or partial? Maybe say something about where you are with your brewing.

Pat

Absolute Homebrew
Casey's Beer

Maybe have both options on hand and just ask all what they would prefer?
I would be keen on both options aslong as there is a nice brew at the end of it....
or stage over two weekends? start partial then lead into all grain?
dry yeast or not, alot of us need a bit of direction and good ol hands on experience is priceless.
a picture tells a thousand words as they say
opps just read your whole thread , not attending me
novice h34r:

 

[Scruffy]

There are some crackin liquids around at the moment...

1764 & 1882 to name a couple... (they're both in the fermenters ATM)

They're about to release 5151 (Brett!)

Dry's - I used to use nottingham/munich/windsor/04/05 - you can even get Weihenstephan in dry form!

 

[Pollux]

Not sure how you are for equipment, but could you run both??

Mash in the AG, then while it's resting turn your attention to the partial mash then perform the mashout and sparge on the AG, get it boiling away and then back to the partial and get it boiling....

 

[poppa joe]

I would nominate ...
No 1.Day... A partial....Take a vote off who turns up...
As to what they would like to try next.
Gives everyone a chance to to make up their mind...For the next time..
Cheers
PJ

 

[manticle]

NSW is a bit far for me to come but if you're interested in the opinions of outsiders who fairly recently made the transition from kits to extract to partial to AG, I would agree with some of the above suggestions that both would be great. However it might be a bit much to organise on one weekend so maybe split it?

I'm also curious why mashing 2.5 kg of grain, sparging and bpoiling with hops would take less time than mashing 5kg of grain, sparging and boiling with hops (grain cracking excluded but I assume that's pretty quick for you).

I even think a demo on extract brewing with spec grains would be useful for a lot of kit brewers wanting to make the next step. Weekend 1 - extract/spec, weekend 2 partial, weekend 3 AG.

 

[Pat Casey]

Interesting. I was hoping for more responses from people looking to upgrade their brewing and what they would benefit from. If you are already all grain brewing and think I should do an all grain demo, please keep it to yourself because strong opinions about all grain brewing does make people not at that level of brewing feel a bit shy. I get quite a few comments in the shop from people about this.

Couple of things. Firstly I should have expressed myself better. A well produced half grain half extract beer, or similar, which is properly fermented will be much better than a poorly produced all grain wort which is then poorly fermented. Does that sound better? There is nothing wrong with dried yeasts as such, although they can be a bit boring. The Muntons Gold is nice for English beers.

The number one reason people produce bad all grain worts is they are trying to brew more than what their equipment will allow. This is perhaps most people's experiences with their first all grain brews. And because the whole thing becomes a fight it takes all day and at the end of it all the exhausted brewer can do is throw a dried yeast at it. You want to be in charge of wort production, not it in charge of you. Different story when you have your gear and routines worked out.

With an all grain brew there are long periods where not much happens. I have to entertain however many people in those periods. I can amuse them with some beer but there is only so much they can drink, especially if they are driving.

For Manticle: How can I do a partial mash brew quickly? Easy. Thin brew-in-a-bag mash (2 to 2.5 kg in 15 litres) will convert in 30 minutes, do a 45 minute boil with a recommendation to do 60, force cool with an immersion cooler but telling people a water bath is fine, mix the 13 or 14 litres of wort in the fermenter with a can kit or tin of liquid malt extract, top up with pre-chilled water, pitch yeast and aerate. Two hours and a bit. Extract brewing I think is a relic of the 1970s - there is no benefit boiling a contemporary good quality malt extract except for the sake of the hops. You can put specialty grain with a kit. If you are going to start boiling things then why not mash? Also all malt extract beers tend to be overly sweet, even more so with excessive amounts of caramel malts.

On the retail side of it all, it's about the beer. My marketing is the beer my customers brew. More customers brewing better beer is good for me, it brings in more customers. Focusing on margins and up-selling is very short sighted. As well, most all grain set ups are idiosyncratic. With my standard set up the only things I sell are the burner and hand held element. I sell bits and pieces from which you can assemble a system, but for the partial the gear is easy - 18 litre stock pot, big drawstring grain bag and 300 mm glass thermometer $70 as a package and away you go.

Pat
Absolute Homebrew
Casey's Beer

 

[Hatchy]

I'd say AG. For the average noob home brewer AG is scary because it seems tough to make beer from a can, who wants to complicate matters. If you brew an AG batch then blokes will see that it's not scary or hard, if you brew a partial then I personally would wonder why you'd bother with grain when there's still the same can of goo going in the fermenter.

I also like Manticle's idea of the 3 week beginner course, if you can teach yr customers how to brew well then they'll keep coming back to the shop (hopefully). I love the fact that owners of shops are now taking an interest in their customers beers rather than (as well as) the shops sales. When I first started brewing I'd go to the LHBS with an idea of what I wanted to brew & what I'd need to brew it. I'd leave with a can of something, a bag of some sort of a (brewcraft) "brew enhancer" & a puzzled look on my face. I now drive past my LHBS to go to a less local HBS because my beer used to taste like arse & now it doesn't.

I'd also suggest that basing yr decision on anything I post is a poor idea given that Manticle already said he's not going & I was relying on him for a lift.

 

[Wolfy]

Interesting. I was hoping for more responses from people looking to upgrade their brewing and what they would benefit from. If you are already all grain brewing and think I should do an all grain demo, please keep it to yourself because strong opinions about all grain brewing does make people not at that level of brewing feel a bit shy. I get quite a few comments in the shop from people about this.

This is an open forum with as many posts in the Kits as the AG forum, I read posts every week from people looking to 'upgrade' from kits to a partial mash, so there is no reason anyone should feel shy about posting what they think. The only reason for forum-shyness is that many of the kit/upgrade people are newer, so may be more hesitant, rather than to do with wort production method.

Couple of things. Firstly I should have expressed myself better. A well produced half grain half extract beer, or similar, which is properly fermented will be much better than a poorly produced all grain wort which is then poorly fermented. Does that sound better?

I don't think anyone disagrees, but one would have to assume that the fermentation process would be the same for the same brewer no matter what process he uses to produce the wort. One would assume he'd use the same yeast, the same temperature and other controls no matter how the wort was produced, which leaves only comparison between kit and partial or full AG.

The number one reason people produce bad all grain worts is they are trying to brew more than what their equipment will allow. This is perhaps most people's experiences with their first all grain brews. And because the whole thing becomes a fight it takes all day and at the end of it all the exhausted brewer can do is throw a dried yeast at it. You want to be in charge of wort production, not it in charge of you. Different story when you have your gear and routines worked out.

Yes AG brewing can be a long, tedious, and painful process but if its been a day-long fight, the brewer is more likely to spend a few more moments to pitch the correct yeast in the correct manner. Not many brewers have a shop inventory on hand on brew-day, so things like yeast have to be planned and purchased in advance.
If a brewer is using a liquid yeast they either open the vial and pitch directly into the wort, which is easier than dehydrating dry yeast. Or if they are prepared and plan ahead they'll activate the smack-pack a day or two in advance and/or build up a starter, neither procedure adds more time and effort on brew day regardless of what method has been used to produce the wort.

What I think is getting confused here is that AG brewers will tend to go 'all out' they will often use liquid yeasts, they will often have temperature controlled fridges, they will often pay close and pedantic attention to every step of the way. If that's true then maybe the demonstration should be about how fermentation and yeast can improve the quality of beer, either kit, partial or AG; yeast selection, temperature control, fermentation processes and the like - unfortunately I can't imagine it being as exciting as either a partial or full mash demo.

 

[jiesu]

As much as you dislike the Steeping of grains without actually doing a mash I think that is what is going to be most appealing to a Kit brewer. It is a fair upgrade from the can and It is also alot more forgiving then doing a partial or AG brew. I would quest to say that alot of Kit brewers don't even boil their wort. It will give them a good introduction in to actually using grain and the process of creating real beer from scratch without the difficulty of dealing with large quantities of grain and hitting specific gravities.

If their is the introduction you could quite easily go to All grain the following weekend and explain to them that their is an in between step called partial mashing.

Just my 2.3C