All grain to extract--some questions

BetterSense · 12-30-2011, 01:49 AM

Due to less time than money I'm considering transitioning from all-grain to extract.

I brew all-grain with my own recipes so I know that much. I guess you reconstitute the malt extract and basically you have wort, just like if you mashed grain.

So do you dissolve it in cool water and just boil all the extract with the hops for an hour?

Why not boil the hops in water and add the extract near the end?

Why do you have to boil it for a whole hour (does extract have DMS)?

The LHBS basically just has light, medium, wheat and dark LME and DME; Can you make good beer by just using one type of malt extract and hops or is there more too it?

jdrowell15 · 12-30-2011, 02:12 AM

Extract will dissolve a lot better in hot water. If using only extract, bring the water to a boil, turn off the heat, add the extract and stir till dissolved, then turn the heat back on and bring to boil. Tip: let can of extract sit in a sink full of hot water to make it easier to pour out of can.

Hop utilization(level of bitterness) changes depending on the gravity of the wort. So no, you don't want to boil in water.

You are pretty limited if using extract only, but if you add steeping grains you open up a lot more options. Best thing to do would be to find some recipes for extract with steeping grains. Tip: make sure your extract is fresh, makes a huge difference. If more then say 3 or 4 months old, go with dry malt extract.

Hanso · 12-30-2011, 04:18 AM

Please explain how LME younger than a few months makes a huge difference.

Weizenwerks · 12-30-2011, 04:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanso

Please explain how LME younger than a few months makes a huge difference.

Crap in crap out. Do you want quality extract or whatever has been on the shelf in a warehouse for 3 years?

Use DME wherever possible. It's the purest form of extract. When LME is made, they boil most of the water out and leave some in the extract. That means whatever water chemistry is in the malting company's water is now in your water in the kettle and they can change the beer drastically. DME is hot wort sprayed into a large room that is heated. The water evaporates and the extract falls to the bottom as powder. There is almost no water in it. DME is also very precise to measure.

Indian_villager · 12-30-2011, 05:22 AM

If the water is evaporated wouldn't that leave the salts and minerals present in their water supply but now in solid form?

Weizenwerks · 12-30-2011, 06:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Indian_villager

If the water is evaporated wouldn't that leave the salts and minerals present in their water supply but now in solid form?

From my understanding, not in quantities that matter as there is other reactions going on when water evaporates (it also can bring other molecules with it). LME is 20% water, DME is 2% water. Someone with a better chemical background may chime in here.

**weirdboy** · 12-30-2011, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weizenwerks

From my understanding, not in quantities that matter as there is other reactions going on when water evaporates (it also can bring other molecules with it). LME is 20% water, DME is 2% water. Someone with a better chemical background may chime in here.

Evaporation does not "bring other molecules with it". This is basic chemistry that you learn in grade school. Maybe they have a special way of removing those minerals/salts from the rest of the wort, but generally speaking whatever minerals were there, are still there when you add water back into it.

The reason I prefer DME to LME is threefold. One is that LME does not store or age well. There is no telling how long some LME has been sitting on a shelf in the LHBS or before that, in a warehouse at some distributor or manufacturer waiting to be shipped. DME is inherently less susceptible to these kinds of storage issues. Second is that, at least in my experience, LME is quite a bit darker than light (or extra light) DME, so if you are doing a light-colored beer, you will generally have much better luck with DME. Finally, DME is much easier to measure out and store at home for recipes than LME. It's quite easy for me to scoop out a bit of DME into a bowl on the scale at home, whereas with LME they are generally packaged such that it's hard to control the quantity, and I tend to end up with a huge sticky mess when trying to use less than a full container/package of LME in a recipe. It is for this reason that whenever I am designing a recipe with LME in it, I always strive to use multiples of the quantities commonly sold in homebrew shops (e.g. 3.3 lbs).

**RM-MN** · 12-30-2011, 11:49 AM

Since you already have been doing all grain and mostly want to shorten your brew day why don't you spend a little time reading about BIAB. I found that I could have the advantages of all grain and only add about half an hour to maybe one hour to the brew day over going all extract, with much of that time involving chilling a full volume of wort.

BetterSense · 12-30-2011, 01:04 PM

I already do BIAB. Any way you look at it, it takes me a good hour and a half for the mash before I even start to boil.

Although I do see your point that I will still have to boil for an hour and cool for an hour (because I have no chiller). I should really go partial boil or no-chill to save even more time.

Jdslep · 12-30-2011, 03:12 PM

Brewing books and posters here say to use the lightest extract possible to substitute for your all grain base malt; get your color from steeping grains, not dark extracts.