What Has Or What Is Stopping You From Going All Grain?

[MarkBastard]

M^B - slightly OT, but how do you adjust your bittering for no chill? And does no-chill increased bittering for you mean a decrease in flavour or aroma (that I'm assuming it would)?

I didn't adjust (partly just because I wanted to see what it did), and found my last batch very bitter. No biggie, I'll just leave it sit to mellow out, but I'm assuming no-chill means that 60 minutes might act like 90 min boil, 15 as 30, flameout as 15. Am I right? And how do your aroma additions.

Goomba

Basically I cube hop a lot which gives a really good flavour addition, and IBU wise I work out as about a 10 minute addition. I let the wort steep and I whirlpool it for at least 10 minutes after 'flame out'.

I reckon cube hopping gives great flavour and some aroma.

I dry hop in the fermenter sometimes and I dry hop in the keg sometimes. I find fermenter dry hopping doesn't give any of that resinous mouth feel you get from keg hopping. Sometimes I want that sometimes I don't. I also have experimented with the french press hop tea method but it didn't work very well because it was 50g of hops and the boiling water just soaked into the hops and even with pouring more and more boiling water in I still couldn't extract much.

It's only really a problem for me with Pale Ales and IPAs and I love dry hopping characteristics with those styles so not a big deal.

I'd use a chiller but my tap water is never cold enough.

 

[nzefactor]

1. Cost of equipment + stocking up on AG ingredients.
2. Brew space

I found the stovetop biab thread, plus a few other noob AHB threads, made brewing your first AG less daunting. Plus the fact it's so easy on the wallet helps. Eventually though you need (want?) bigger brewing equipment. Depending on your chosen method the cost of piecing together your brewgear can put a halt on proceedings...if only for a little while.

I envy the lucky bastards with entire sheds/basements/garages to brew in without being bothered!

 

[Ross]

The "elitism" exhibited by many 3v brewers
Put me off for ages.

This is something I often see guys bitch about, but in all my years of brewing I've never met a single AG brewer that's shown any signs of "elitism" infact quite the opposite.
Intrigued by what you are reffering to as "elitism" & how this put you off?


Cheers Ross

 

[pk.sax]

Procastrination and cost of equipment. Still, doing what I can with whats on hand and enjoying it

 

[Nick JD]

This is something I often see guys bitch about, but in all my years of brewing I've never met a single AG brewer that's shown any signs of "elitism" infact quite the opposite.
Intrigued by what you are reffering to as "elitism" & how this put you off?


Cheers Ross

If I may offer my opinion on this - I think "elitism" mightn't be the correct term. I would side with "clique", in its positive sense, and add the phrase "blinded with science".

Like any complex hobby, AG brewing is littered with nomenclature rendering the inexperienced dumbfounded. One needs a few days of hardcore immersion just to fit the terminology to the practice.

And it's almost impossible (in a nice way) for the AG experienced to forget what they've learnt and address the noob with simple information that doesn't lead astray (when other experts become involved) the person merely wanting to know what the flip grist means. No one likes to be seen the dummy and there's a lot of flippancy thrown about by experts when a dumb question is asked - it happens everywhere with exasperated experts. Can't blame them for forgetting that they too knew squat.

A simple question on a web forum asked by a noob more often than not snowballs into a brewing term jungle, and the noob thinks, "**** this, I'll buy a can of goop."

Complication is the brick wall between the Kits and AG - and IM sometimes HO it's not a very high wall, but many think it is.

I reckon the last 5% of beer quality comes with 95% of the knowledge needed to make AG beer. Slaphappy AG brewing makes awesome beer and many people don't believe this until they try it, but they don't try it because they don't know the meaning of the words everyone uses.

 

[Fourstar]

Ignorance.... "too hard, too many complicated words/terms.... ohh science!"

End thread.

 

[DU99]

i have seen AG made at Westgate Brewers Open days..so i know what goes into the process's...just a matter of getting some equipment and recipes to start with ..just some of those AG people that are bit snarly have to remember how they got there start..

 

[boriskane]

i just moved up to biab and it was always the plan for it to be a progression, and one day in the long long future i plan on getting a 3V. i did a couple of kits, half a dozen extracts, one partial, then couldnt wait any longer and was happy with it all to move to biab.

what was stopping me from going to AG straight away was that i felt that i had to learn the method properly (no infections+stable fermentation temps to begin with), take baby steps, and produce half decent beers before making the jump to all grain.

and being able to do a biab on a 20L pot that only costs $20 from bigw was the clincher, couldnt afford to outlay $200 on a large pot/urn.

 

[pk.sax]

i have seen AG made at Westgate Brewers Open days..so i know what goes into the process's...just a matter of getting some equipment and recipes to start with ..just some of those AG people that are bit snarly have to remember how they got there start..

+1 I have to westgate brewers were exactly the opposite of the alleged "elitists". Happy to share info and discuss stuff even if they do things differently.
I haven't met sneery brewers yet, n hope I don't.

 

[tavas]

A lack of understanding of what was involved and what equipment was needed.

Love him or hate him, Nick JD's thread about moving to AG for $30 and his second one about 20l Stovetop thread was a real eyeopener for me. So much so that I figured if I'm going to steep some specs grains for partials, I may as well mash the whole bloody lot. And while my first AG beers taste like ****, it got me hooked into finding out why and what am I doing wrong. All I needed was a big pot and a bag, although that soon grew to lots of other stuff, but the point is, I could do AG with only minimal outlay.

And yeah, lots of reading on here. There's all the information you ever need on this forum, you just have to look for it. I don't get hung up on cliques or people getting angry at each other etc. After a few days you soon know who's talking crap vs who knows what they're doing. The other stuff just adds to the entertainment.

 

[aussiechucka]

After many years of K&K and then finally breaking my AG cherry this year. I don't think there would be any going back. I didn't have any second thoughts about going from K&K to Ag after tasting a mates AG his first. Plus now I can do a whole lot of other styles I never thought I could make.
A big thanks has to go out to all of the people on this site for all the little bits of advice that makes brewing easier.
Cheers
Chucka

 

[MarkBastard]

If I may offer my opinion on this - I think "elitism" mightn't be the correct term. I would side with "clique", in its positive sense, and add the phrase "blinded with science".

Like any complex hobby, AG brewing is littered with nomenclature rendering the inexperienced dumbfounded. One needs a few days of hardcore immersion just to fit the terminology to the practice.

And it's almost impossible (in a nice way) for the AG experienced to forget what they've learnt and address the noob with simple information that doesn't lead astray (when other experts become involved) the person merely wanting to know what the flip grist means. No one likes to be seen the dummy and there's a lot of flippancy thrown about by experts when a dumb question is asked - it happens everywhere with exasperated experts. Can't blame them for forgetting that they too knew squat.

A simple question on a web forum asked by a noob more often than not snowballs into a brewing term jungle, and the noob thinks, "**** this, I'll buy a can of goop."

Complication is the brick wall between the Kits and AG - and IM sometimes HO it's not a very high wall, but many think it is.

I reckon the last 5% of beer quality comes with 95% of the knowledge needed to make AG beer. Slaphappy AG brewing makes awesome beer and many people don't believe this until they try it, but they don't try it because they don't know the meaning of the words everyone uses.

I agree with all of this 100%.

And I reckon part of the reason why Nick JD cops some abuse here (part of the reason) is because he's upset some hierarchy of home brewing scientists with his down to earth explanations of what really only need to be simple concepts to new brewers.

The other part of the reason is because he deliberately trolls from time to time but I don't blame him :icon_cheers:

When I first started brewing I was going to make a thread sort of like JD's one but never got around to it. The hardest part of learning AG was sifting through the terminology and opinions etc. The actual process itself, especially BIAB, is piss easy.

Heat water to 70 degrees
Plonk bag in
Plong grain in
Mash it around a bit.
Go away for 60 minutes and don't touch it.

If you're about to tell me the brewer should be monitoring the mash temperature you're already complicating it way too much. The worst that can happen is a brew doesn't turn out perfect. Who cares? The detailed approach makes people not even attempt an AG brew in the first place.

 

[Hatchy]

This is something I often see guys bitch about, but in all my years of brewing I've never met a single AG brewer that's shown any signs of "elitism" infact quite the opposite.
Intrigued by what you are reffering to as "elitism" & how this put you off?


Cheers Ross

I'll vouch for this. When I 1st signed up on here, Philip invited me to his place for a brewday so I could see the process & wasn't at all condescending about the kit beers I took round for feedback, yesterday when I had all of my AG gear together he was happy for me to bring it round to brew at his place in case I needed any help (which I did at times).

The same goes for all of the brewers I've met, full of encouragement & enthusiasm, no snobbery or elitism. I haven't met every brewer in the country but the ones I've met are top blokes.

 

[peaky]

Nothing stopped me from moving to AG after 2 kits and 2 partials. The only reason I did the kits etc was because I was still building the frame for my 3 tier gravity system and I was just dying to ferment something!

4 brews before going to AG was nowhere near long enough for me to work out exactly what I was getting myself into! Steep learning curve

 

[Nick JD]

This is something I often see guys bitch about, but in all my years of brewing I've never met a single AG brewer that's shown any signs of "elitism" infact quite the opposite.
Intrigued by what you are reffering to as "elitism" & how this put you off?


Cheers Ross

Since I have already offered a cordial explaination, I suppose I could offer another, less-oblique explaination.

After attempting to help new brewers move to AG, and recieving a lot of good feedback, a member of the Elite Group of Brewers who don't exist posted this:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=615854

Have a read of this post. Be honest - is this the kind of thing you think doesn't exist?

He goes on to politically retract his statement and post a detailed explaination of how he was completely wrong (which I'm still not sure about - he was pretty plain and lucid in his scathing remarks) ... be fair, Ross but don't be an ostrich. It rears its ugly head more often than you'd think.

 

[Bribie G]

Nick, I read your original report of the brew day that you posted and, on a smaller scale than my 40L urn method, it's basically the same. I know PP personally and I can't understand why he called your method "an abomination"... maybe the sparge in a green (must be green ) bucket perhaps. :blink: Possibly having a bad hair day, as I did today and off to the barbers tomorrow. I sparge in a virginally white bucket if required

I know you cop some crap because you are a crazy bastard brewer :beerbang: who goes out onto limbs and you often make a rod for your very broad, I'm sure, back. I think what was being discussed here was the welcome or otherwise given to beginning brewers trying to get into AG, whom you have certainly helped with your threads.

 

[Shed101]

I'm teetering on the edge of a form of AG at the moment, having witnessed a couple of fellow 'inmates' efforts.

What's stopping me:

Time
Money
Space - both physical and mental (too many potential extract recipes in my head to get onto anything else!)
Concern my life will become 100% wedded to beer.


I am sure I will get to a 20l stovetop type effort in time, although I'm kind of romanced by this pommy bloke's efforts

 

[haysie]

Looks like another mine is bigger than yours thread
vrs


What happened to the football season? Are all the beer egsperts unemployed reading and posting on beer web forums or is it my imagination. <_<

 

[felten]

The fact that pp completely retracted his statement, said he misinterpreted everything, and nick accept his apology, makes nicks point there kind of moot. Not to say I haven't seen some elitism before, but its never something I've looked at and taken seriously, some people are just douche bags.

 

[sama]

It all seemed a little complex and a bit daunting but i found the best thing to overcome these issues was the purchase of john palmers book "how to brew".