Thinking about next step

[Brew Askew]

I just started brewing and have brewed a few batches. I am doing extract and steeping specialty grains and doing full boil. I am making yeast starters.

Trying to decide if next equipment puchases should be to do kegging or all grain.

Thoughts?

[Deathrider]

Personally, I think that a kegging system would make you happier at this point. It will shorten the time you spend cleaning and even more important, your beer will be ready in a few days not weeks!!
You can still bottle a few for your friends or family straight from the keg/tap. Build yourself a kegerator from a small chest freezer, put a couple of taps on there and your garage will be transformed.

[Bugeater]

Mufasa would say otherwise, but I would say go to kegging first. That will take a majority of the drudgery out of brewing and make it even more enjoyable. All grain is no big deal if you keep it simple like this: http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/ With the gear you already have, especially if you have a picnic cooler around you don't use, you can get into all grain for under$40 if you buy your grain already crushed. Buying your own mill will run you a bunch more, but your grain cost will drop significantly if you buy in bulk.

Wayne

[Jbug]

Do both! I think you could go all grain for pretty cheap!
Here's a link a read the other day on how to go AG http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

It's show how to convert an ice chest into a mash tun and some other need to know stuff...
Also if you keg once you'll never want to bottle ever again! And it's not hard to bottle from a keg if you wanna share some or for comps!


Josh

[PSUHomebrewer]

Go with kegging. It is much nicer to keg than clean all the bottles. The only problem with kegging is once you keg your first beer, you'll be buying more and more kegs.

Ag is a nice upgrade, but it also comes with alot of extras that are not needed, but would make the day easier.

[Cliff]

I say go grain
Grainiacs are happy people

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

Washing 50 bottles at a time sux. Get kegs.

[Desertbrewin]

Would go with the consensus of kegging. But would agree with Jbug that as long as you don’t change your batch size, it’s probably well within you range to do both.
Kegging was the single best decision I made in my brewing process, because the time and frustration it saved motivated me to brew more often and practice makes perfect… errr better.