Beer Forum

I'm teaching a intro to brewing class on Dec 6 and I can't decide if i should include steeping grains in the class.

Any advise?

PA Pride

If you are advocating extract beer without steeping grains, then you might as well tell them to buy a Mr. Beer kit. Seriously. I have never made an "extract only" beer. All light malt extract and steeping grains for color and flavor is the only way to go if you are doing an extract beer.


Mylo

Wheat DME alone makes a pretty nice hefe, as long as you use 3068...






...<whisper>now that Bub is placated, WB-06 dry weizen yeast is pretty good too, and makes for a super easy brewday</whisper>

I don't want to scare them with too much info. I'm wondering who is more right, Mustafa or Homer. Mustafa thinks everyone should start all-grain and Homer thinks it should be made as simple as possible.

PA Pride

You can start with partial mashing. That's not much more work than an extract batch with steeped grains and from there to all-grain is very simple.

I agree... start with the partial mash.. then a small jump to AG

I would start with grain steeping. You want to start people as simple as possible. If you hook them with something that easy they might pursue more advanced techniques but if you overwhelm them at first they don't get it they are less likely to even start. All of us on the forum know a lot about making beer and the people we know know that we make beer and chances are we have talked about it to them a lot. But there are some people that have never even heard of homebrewing and have trouble wrapping their mind around the concept of fermentation. My LHBS starts people on pre-hopped extract kits. For your teaching I would start on extract with steeping grains.

With all due respect to Mufassa... you should start with grain steeping. I would argue that he is a "all grain snob" to a degree (ie. thinks that it is REALLY HARD to make a great extract beer). Jamil is the opposite. He has said multiple times that there are some really good quality extracts out there - and as long as your mindful of your process and sanitation - then it's not really that hard to make a great beer out of extract. He has also said that if you can't make a decent extract from your AG recipe - then you should stick to using premade extract.

I think the "jump" from PM to AG is more of a trip. You still need knowledge of mashing techniques and control of your temps - you are just only relying on the PM for a small percentage of your wort. I personally don't see ANY benefit in doing partial mash. Same amount of time and then you are still at the mercy of the extract maltster for the majority of your fermentibles.

Keep it simple. Show them extract. Steeping some grains shouldn't be considered a "more difficult" step. You want them to make the best beer possible as soon as possible so that they will continue to want to grow in the hobby.


Mylo