Why All Grain?

[Nick JD]

I love kegging. It almost makes bottling a six pack of leftovers, fun. I don't see the patient quality with kegging...I like tap beer..I don't like bottling.

Beer on tap seems to legitimize your beer. No special headless tilt to avoid sediment in the bottle ending up in the glass.

The kegerator is like the perfect wife. She's just waiting at your beckon call with something wet and satisfying...24/7...even on Sunday...even when her mother is visiting and you can have it any style you wish. Once you pay for it...it gets cheaper to live with.

And you can keg extract brew too...there is no law against it.

A mate of mine bottles K&K - doesn't want to do AG "because it takes too much time". Loves to drink AG beer though!

I reckon if we both kept a timesheet, me kegging AG is probably as time-consuming as him bottling K&K.

 

[ekul]

The easiest way to keep the amount of time down is to do bigger batches! The minimum type of brew that i would would be an extract (only if i couldn't get grain ever again for some reason). Which with a hops boil is a minimum of and hour and a half 'work'.

A triple abtch will take 5 hours from start to finsh, plus 20mins when i keg and refill the fermenter. So 6 hours all up. Thats 2 hours a brew, most of which is spent looking at other recipes to brew or drinking beer.

 

[mattyra]

Never tried an All-Grain beer before but have been looking at going it to make my better beer.

I think I make decent beer with the kits, although I have great temperature control and since I started kegging I reckon it tastes a lot better.

Would love to try an All-Grain brew, but don't really know anyone that uses does it so I will have to wait and see. I do have some mates that use the kits as well, but they are normally a can of goop and a kilo of table sugar. Explains why I have to take my beer to their house when we are having a session.

 

[hughman666]

kegging with a kegerator or a fully-fledged bar with flooded font etc...either way beats the living shit out of bottling.

your beer tastes better quicker and there's less cleaning.

there's nothing not to like about that...

 

[flano]

I work from home on Fridays .
House to myself.

I crack and weigh out my grain for my little BIAB's at around 7.30am.
Heat water ect .
Drop grain into bag and pot cover with quilt ...about 30 mins there.

drop kids off to school ...maybe swing by the shops.


come home 1hr later squeeze bag , sparge if want to.
get on it the Boil . about 15 mins

do actual work while boiling for 1 hr. Have phone timer set along the way. for hop additions.

Cover with cling wrap and put into laundry tub with cold water . 5 mins
go back to work.
Evey half hour I quickly change the water in tub. 5mins.
Once it is getting sort of room temp I add about 3 old plastic coke bottles full of frozen water
Go back to work - 5 mins.

By lunch time it has cooled right down.
Give fermenter a quick clean ( I always soak mine in between brews so they are basiclly ready use )
Put wort in fermenter add water and yeast walk away. 15 mins.

job done. approx 1.5 hrs.

to keg takes me about 30 mins give or take.

I reckon to be on the safe side 3 hours is more than enough time to go from "mill to mouth" in actual labour time.'

how long does it take to clean , cap and fill 30 long necks? or however many you need per batch.

plus I am shit at brewing K&K they have all tasted the same.

 

[Truman42]

Other than the usual reasons of better tasting beer, the fun of doing an all grain brew etc, I love buying and building all manner of shiny things and electronic gadgets that you can use with AG brewing.
Then theres the thrill of hiding the purchases from the missus by making up eleborate stories so she doesnt say I spend too much on my brewing. "How much was this new 40 litre urn babe? It was only $50, the guy was practically throwing it away."

The excitement of scouring the neighbourhood at hard rubbish collection time to see what you can find thats brewery related.

Impressing your mates because you drink dark beers, know what an IPA is and use words like malt and hops, good head retention and mouth feel.

AG is like the beer equivelent of having a hot woman with an awesome rack, who serves you beer in skimpy gear and goes down on you while you watch the footy...

 

[.DJ.]

AG is like the beer equivelent of having a hot woman with an awesome rack, who serves you beer in skimpy gear and goes down on you while you watch the footy...

Beer might be alot of things... but it aint THAT good...

 

[bignath]

AG is like the beer equivelent of having a hot woman with an awesome rack, who serves you beer in skimpy gear and goes down on you while you watch the footy...

Right, that's it....








next brewday at your house.

 

[hyjak71]

I am a new AG brewer but I still bottle and will have to for the foreseeable future, why? I simply don't have anywhere to put a beer fridge in the house as it is since going from K&K to partials and now AG I have been relegated to the garage for brewing duties.

Suffice to say that going out to the garage every time I want a re-fill is not exactly appealing especially in the middle of a Tassie winter.

Why AG? Simple I wanted to get the same warm fuzzy feelings Warra48 posted on the last page plus it's fun.

 

[hsb]

Kit brewers can always just make Fresh Wort Kits from suppliers. You get to make 'All Grain' beer without needing any hot side equipment and you can still tweak hop additions/yeast types etc. to be hands on as with doing 'toucans' with steeped grains etc.
No 'twang' but no hassle either.

I don't find myself doing AG than for any other reason than the love of beer itself (rather than impressing friends, saving money, doing DIY etc. etc.)

To be honest I could have funded a year's B&B at Westvleteren with the monks helping make/drink it on what I've spent on AG to date

Spending most of your savings on travelling the world getting plastered/seeing breweries in action could be an equally valid way to reach the same outcome.

 

[Truman42]

Right, that's it....








next brewday at your house.

LOL.....

 

[sponge]

Why all grain?




...becase you're worth it!



*flicks hair and walks off*



Sponge

 

[mikec]

It won't happen overnight, but it will happen... in about 4-5 hours.

 

[Phoney]

kegging with a kegerator or a fully-fledged bar with flooded font etc...either way beats the living shit out of bottling.

your beer tastes better quicker and there's less cleaning.

there's nothing not to like about that...

It's a hell of a lot more expensive, a lot of folks dont have a spare ~$1000 lying around to setup a keg system.


That was the only factor stopping me getting into kegging for so long.

 

[sponge]

Slightly OT...

Keep an eye open on here and gumtree/ebay for keg sales.

I managed to pick up 3 kegs, large co2 bottle single tap and some disconnects for around $200 off ebay.

Second hand fridge for $50 off gumtree and a couple of new perlick taps for around $100 delivered from america.

Easy to get into kegging for under $500 with some decent online deals, and saves far too much time and hassle having to bottle.


Sponge

 

[mikec]

It's a hell of a lot more expensive, a lot of folks dont have a spare ~$1000 lying around to setup a keg system.


That was the only factor stopping me getting into kegging for so long.

It's also a lot of mucking around, and the first few legs you drink a lot of flat beer and froth. You still have to clean the kegs, lines, taps and so on.

But totally worth it.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I costed my 3 keg system and it came to around $600 - all new (well except obviously the cornies), fridge was my existing one, and I paid for proper JG fittings and made sure I had the best regulator recommended.

The big saving was the curly hosed plastic taps - great pour and a lot cheaper than perlicks or those Mario-beertaps.

Goomba

 

[donburke]

I costed my 3 keg system and it came to around $600 - all new (well except obviously the cornies), fridge was my existing one, and I paid for proper JG fittings and made sure I had the best regulator recommended.

The big saving was the curly hosed plastic taps - great pour and a lot cheaper than perlicks or those Mario-beertaps.

Goomba

what is a mario beertap ?

 

[Liam_snorkel]

I'm guessing Celli..?

 

[donburke]

I'm guessing Celli..?

ron jeremy taps ?