All grain or partial mash pros and cons

[Banjo-guy]

After reading "Brewing Classic Styles " by Zainasheff and Palmer" I am wondering if there is any advantage to brewing all grain if the base grain can reproduced with dme or lme.

In that book every recipe is presented in extract and all grain form.

Is it usually true that the base grain of recipes can be duplicated in an extract?

[philm00x]

Extracts are made with either 100% base grain (2-row usually, pilsner if it's pilsen extract), or a combination of mostly base grain with some specialty grains for color, flavor, and head retention. Most websites list the grains that comprise the extracts, so it's definitely possible to replicate an all grain recipe using extract by knowing the percentages in the extract. Brewing with all grains is particularly a much cheaper way to make beer since grains are cheaper than extract, but the process to make the beer is longer. If you really want to control every attribute of your beer, all-grain is the way to do it. That isn't to say that you can't make really good beer using extract, because you can, and people do all the time.

[jimjohson]

yeah w/a partial mash to include any grains not included in the dme/lme(ume). i.e. i have a brew in both extract and ag versions. w/o a partial they taste differant 'cause the ag version has rye in it extract don't, so the ag is more tart. but it takes just as long to do a partial as it takes to do a whole batch and grain is cheaper than UMEs.

[russki]

After reading "Brewing Classic Styles " by Zainasheff and Palmer" I am wondering if there is any advantage to brewing all grain if the base grain can reproduced with dme or lme.

In that book every recipe is presented in extract and all grain form.

Is it usually true that the base grain of recipes can be duplicated in an extract?

Actually, not all recipes in that book can be made with extract. Some call for very obscure extracts (like Rauch LME), or partial mashes due to the fact that specialty grains in those recipes cannot be steeped. However, it is true that most styles can be made as extract or extract + steeping grains. Taste-wise, a well made extract beer is going to be just as tasty as AG (for most styles).

There are certain benefits to AG brewing though - these are the ones that come to mind:

- Cost: grain is much cheaper than extract, especially when purchased in bulk
- Wort fermentability control: by mashing at different temperatures, you can control the fermentability
- Ability to brew with grains that are unavailable as extracts: i.e. Vienna, Golden Promise, Optic, etc.
- Ability to brew SMaSH beers (most extracts are blends, so if you want to brew a 100% Munich beer, for example, you cannot do it with extract).

[Brewbirds]

I think that most of the references I've seen comparing the two have been either issues of space or equipment.
Some will say that all grain makes a better beer but that is also frequently countered that the brewer makes the beer what is not whether it is all grain or partial mash.
Partial mash and all grain take a lot more time than extracts w/steeping grains and if time is the issue you can still make great beers without a long mash and a long boil.
There really is no either or you can do all three as time, space and equipment allow and you will make beer.

[mashani]

> There really is no either or you can do all three as time, space and equipment allow and you will make beer.

This. I do any of the above as time allows. I make good beer no matter how I do it. I can make a more accurate representation of certain types of beers if I do AG or do a PM, so I tend to reserve those types of beers for days where I have time to do so.

[FedoraDave]

Good points, all.

For me, the primary difference in the final product is that I have more control with AG brewing. I can play with the numbers to a ridiculous degree to get the exact taste/texture I want. Even the best extracts can't do that. Steeping grains or PM can help make up the difference, but tailoring a recipe is one of the things that makes this hobby fun for me.

That being said, half the beer in my pipeline is extract-based, for reasons of time.