What is the "category" of beer I'm doing?

Hello!

I've been reading a LOT of post, especially the one for the newbie like me. I really appreciate the time a lot of people here take to help us understand the art of making beer.

I'm currently doing my second beer, a mexican cerveza (not that it's my favorite type of beer but summer is approaching it's going to be my water haha). Just before that, I have done a Red Ale which was a very nice first experience. The aging in the bottle is also giving it a very nice taste.

Anyway, my question is that I want to know what type of brewing I am doing. Since I'm speaking french as my first language, I'm kind of mixed up with all the terms. I'm using the "BrewHouse" kits from Spagnols. No boiling is needed and it comes with everything needed to do the beer (except the water)

On the package, it written "all grain" brewing. The "all grain" is really between quotes on the package so I guess it's not really all grain since there is no grain in the package! What type of brewing am I doing? My friend is doing his beer with a Cooper kit, what is the difference?

Also, what could be the next step after I will have done a couple of batch with BrewHouse? Should I try to modify a brewhouse recipe (for example, to add some herbs or spice) or should I go and try something else (I've read about "extract" and "All grain").

My goal is to go slowly and have fun, but I want to always get better.

Thanks for your advice!

You are doing "pre-hopped extract brewing". It is a form of "extract brewing".

Extract Brewing includes these different methods:

• Using extracts that have had hops and/or flavors added to them (called Hopped Malt Extracts or HME) and adding water. This is what you are doing.
• Using HME but modifying them by adding flavors or hops or mixing different extracts together or...
• Using extracts that haven't been flavored or hopped. Extracts are either syrup (Liquid Malt Extract or LME) or powdered (Dry Malt Extract or DME). You then add hops.
• Using LME and/or DME and steeping "specialty grains" (for flavor) and then adding hops. This is commonly what is referred to as "extract brewing" but the other forms are extract brewing as well.

You can do extract brewing by buying an "ingredient kit" which will include all the ingredients (the extracts, the specialty grains, and the hops) you need in one package.

Or you can find a recipe and buy the ingredients separately.

All-Grain Brewing doesn't use any extract because you get all your fermentable sugars from "base grains" by "mashing" the base grains yourself. Once you mash the sugar water out of the grains, you boil and add hops just like extract brewing. The big difference though is with extract you get the sugar water by adding extracts and with all-grain you get them out of the grains themselves.

Mashing is basically soaking and draining the grains. It's more complicated than that, but that's the one-sentence explanation. You can mash in several different ways.

• You can use a specialized piece of equipment called a mash tun.
• You can do it in a kettle or stockpot although it's usually hard to do large batches as a 5-gallon batch of beer will require 8 to 10 lbs of grain and 7.5 gallons of water.
• BIAB. (Boil in a Bag) [my favorite] where you soak the grains in a bag sieve them out.

An in-between intermediate type of brewing is called Partial Brewing or Mini-Mash. This is a combination where you mash a small amount of base grains (maybe enough for half of your batch) and use extract to make up the rest of it. Then you boil and add hops as usual.

I hope this helps. (And I hope it's accurate; I'm still pretty new to this myself.)

DarkJaff said:

On the package, it written "all grain" brewing. The "all grain" is really between quotes on the package so I guess it's not really all grain since there is no grain in the package!

Click to expand...

I think what they mean is they made the flavored syrup using the "all-grain" method, instead of using extracts to make the syrup (which itself is an extract; a flavored extract with hops).

It's misleading because you are right; "all-grain" usually means *you* are using all grains.

My friend is doing his beer with a Cooper kit, what is the difference?

Click to expand...

It's the same thing. Just a brand name. (I think.)

Should I try to modify a brewhouse recipe (for example, to add some herbs or spice) or should I go and try something else (I've read about "extract" and "All grain").

Click to expand...

You could continue with Brewhouse (or Cooper) kits and add you own flavors and hops to modify. But I'd suggest you get into the "next" level of extract brewing: Using the unflavored LMEs and DMEs and adding steeped specialty grains and hops.

If you want to "go slowly" than you probably want to stick with extract brewing for a while before you get into all-grain or partial-mash.

Wow! Thanks a lot for all this information. There is a lot to learn and this will help me get a basic idea where I am. I will look into the unflavored LMEs and DMEs.

Have a nice day!

They're simply called LME and DME. I only referred to them as "unflavored" to distinguish them from the "instant beer" extracts you are used to. The flavored hopped extracts are the exception to the norm.

The LMEs and DMEs come in a different range of darkness (light, amber, dark, etc.) Basically, when you read an extract recipe it boils done to listing ingredients as:

• Malt Extracts: Usually five to eight lbs of LME and/or DME
• Specialty grains: usually 1/2 lb to 1 lb of grains (there's a huge variety but there are some very common standards) that get steeped like a tea.
• Hops: usually two or three different types. Sometimes all the same type. You boil your mixture (called wort) for an hour and at different times you toss in the different hops. The hops effect the beer in different ways depending on when during the hour long boil you toss them in.

And that's basically it. See https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/beginner-extract-brewing-howto-99139/ for details.