petep1980

Recipes 

Are there any killer recipes out there, or styles which lend themselves well to extract brewing. AG is kicking my ass. The beers turn out better than imagined, and I have all the equipment, but 5 hours start to finish is a bit much.

Schnitzengiggle

Recipes 

IMHO. Stouts make great extract brews and there are a ton of recipes for them. Belgian Dubbels in my opinion also make a good extract brew, the steeping grain bills are usually simple and the yeast lend most of the flavor characteristics. I know it is hard te make a true Witbier with extract, but there are some really good Witbier recipes that are worthy.

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SteveM

Recipes 

My default brew is always a hoppy pale ale - they always come out great and are easy to do.

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Beernik

Recipes 

I've done creme ales, scottish ales, a pLambic, stouts, bitters, grand cru, and hefe. Almost all turned out excellent. I had a ginger brown ale that was not terrific and a GF beer that got infected.

petep1980

Recipes 

Basically as long as you're not looking for a complex malt profile I should be able to swing this? Such as an American Amber ale? That should be a piece of cake extract right?

Yooper

Recipes 

In my opinion, it's not the style of recipe that makes or breaks a good extract beer. It's the age and quality of the extract.

Even some brewpubs only brew with extract. There are some homebrewers who only brew with extract that have won first place in competitions.

A couple of keys: use only the freshest and lightest extract you can. Get color and flavor from freshly crushed steeping grains. If doing a partial boil, add the extract later in the boil, to avoid malliard reactions that will cause an extract-y taste. Boil the largest amount of wort that you can. A full boil tends to be better tasting.

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RBlagojevich

Recipes 

what yooper said.

for what it's worth, i've more or less specialized in making extract tripels.

ZooBrew

Recipes 

I'm into Belgians right now and have brewed AG (BIAB), all DME, all LME, steep soup-to-nuts. From counting the pages in my log book I have 46 batches under my belt of various lagers and ales, kits and scratch. I'd say Belgians are the easiest and the hardest. (From scratch) Easy to make a Dubbel, hard to make a trippel; even harder to make a strong ale (like Duvel).

But, the Dubbels are soooooo good.