Extract vs All grain

[polski]

What about Prego?

[linuxelf]

I think not.

[BDogD]

All grain is more fun, IMO.

[driftwood]

I usually end up below 1.020 FG with extract brewing and partial mashing using Northern Brewer kits. In the past few months:

honey brown ale OG 1.054 FG 1.010
schwartzbier lager OG 1.055 FG 1.013
oktoberfest (marzen) lager OG 1.054 FG 1.026

The first two were typical in my experience and came down well below 1.020. The marzen just never fermented that well, it should have come down a lot more. From a quick tasting during bottling I think the schwartzbier will end up as the best tasting of the three. The oktoberfest was pretty sweet-- I hope it's still drinkable and not too CLOYING.

[Pseudolus]

What about Prego?

If you're Prego, you probably shouldn't be drinking.

[Shiney_McShine]

Equipment is an issue as well. Extract brewing requires far less equipment to get a decent brew.

[bubbabrewer]

I recently have been sucking at AG. Don't know if it's the grain(LHBS) or if it's my technique or because Daniela left, but extract always is drinkable, gravity is right and it's so much easier.

[Pseudolus]

Extract brewing requires far less equipment to get a decent brew.

That's not absolutely true. I made the jump from extract + steeping to a mostly-mash partial mash system (up to 7 lbs) and the total amount of new equipment I purchased was... one nylon mesh bag. I mash in my 5-gallon brew kettle in the oven, dump that into the mesh bag fastened over my bottling bucket, spoon back into the kettle, add some more water for a half-assed "batch sparge", stir, dump back through the mesh bag, rinse the brew kettle, drain the bottling bucket contents into the kettle, and proceed with the boil. Almost as easy as it is cheap. (Just like I like my women. But that's for another thread.) And now I can use any grain I want to make any kind of beer I want. Session-strength beers I can make 5 gallons of all grain, a couple-three pounds of DME gets me up into IPA territory. And I can still boil on my kitchen stove (which is nice since I do most of my brewing in the wee small hours).