Your first AG

[scarer]

I originally started brewing about 12 years ago and brewed about 6 kits and 3 or 4 mini mash recipes from the BYORAAH book which I remember being quite pleased with (the mini mash that is) but through moving houses and other hobbys and interests I stopped brewing.

Having just started again after having to buy new gear and trying 3 of the more popular kits I have to say that upon drinking I was immediately reminded of the kits that I had first brewed (all were 3KG ones) which I am assuming is that "twang" that people refer to.

It's funny how smells, tastes and music can take you right back in time like that!

Anyway, now that i'm well and truly back in the fold I have gone the extra step and gone AG. I've got a 30lt boiler, an insulated mash tun, an immersion cooler and some cornie kegs and once i've finished drinking my kit brews I will start an AG recipe, don't know which one yet but half the fun is reading recipes and choosing one.

I will be sooooo happy if when I taste my first AG if it turns out as some of you have described, just as good as commercial brews if not better but most definately having eliminating that "twang".

If this is the case I can't see me ever giving up home brewing as i'll have hit the jackpot!

[booldawg]

The boiler is the largest single investment you have to make for the basic kit (which is all I have) Mine cost me 55 quid inc. delivery. This was the 50L plastic one with fitted tap and hop strainer that I fitted 2 x tesco kettle elements to.

The only thing I'd say is you can buy a manifold for your mash tun ALOT cheaper ready made than if you bought the separate copper fittings. I made my own and the fittings came to over 20 pounds, thats without the straight tubing that I got for free. You can get them ready made for 17 pounds.

The wort chiller was about 17 pounds worth of microbore copper tubing as available from any DIY store.

You can do it on the cheap just to get started - the kit does the same job, just less.....shiny

[johnh]

That homebrew taste that seems to pervade all kit brews almost put me off brewing all together. You start to wonder if all that bottle cleaning is worth it. Luckily a friend of mine lent me a copy of Palmer's book 'How to Brew' and I decided to follow the extract-with-grain procedure he gives. The improvement was dramatic and suddenly my beer was fresh and clean and the homebrew twang was gone. There is no greater compliment than when a friend tells you he prefers your beer to a commercial one. They couldn't believe I was using extract.

I have since moved to AG but contrary to what others have said it in itself didn't give me a dramatic improvement in quality over the extract (in fact initially it dipped due to the myriad of extra variables and pitfalls in the process). AG does give you access to a wider range of styles and it's definitely more fun but I still sometimes go back to extract-with-grain when time is an issue (and that, let's face it, is all too often )

[steve_flack]

My first all-grain attempt was a Duvel-clone (setting my sights a tad high I guess). It was a bit of a disaster, took hours longer than it should, used nearly every utensil in the kitchen and still was rubbish.

It took a few (3 or 4) brews before I'd got it sorted and produced something reasonable.

I probably would have had success rather quicker if this place was around then.