It started for me, as it does for many brewers, with an extract kit. It didn’t take long, of course, to follow the natural arc—join a homebrew club, develop ideas with a brewing partner, and begin the long process of acquiring all the equipment necessary for all-grain brewing.
All-grain brewing expanded the types of beer we could brew, of course, but more importantly it bypassed the social stigma that seems to be perpetuated in the homebrew community that extract brewing is a shortcut (and that real brewers brew all-grain). We dove headfirst into all-grain brewing, won some medals in homebrewing contests, and really enjoyed the process, but let’s be honest—all-grain brewing took up a substantial part of the day.
Like many brewers constrained by work and family, time became a big consideration and limited my brewing, but an “aha” moment occurred after I read an article about brewing with malt extract by Glenn BurnSilver. The article described techniques that homebrewers and pro brewers alike used to make award-winning (including GABF medals) beers using malt extracts and got me thinking about how I could apply the similar techniques to my own brewing.