Switching from lme to dme

I have a recipe that I've been doing for a while with liquid malt extract, and I want to try it with dry malt extract.

I've been using the Mutons Fison Lager kit and Mutons Fison Canadian style beer kit.
Does anybody know what dme's I could use as substitutes?
I'm off of work today, and I'd like to hit the brew store before traffic gets ridiculous, so a speedy response would be great.

Aren't those both hopped liquid extracts?

Yes, they are. That's why I don't know what to substitute for them.

I don't think anyone makes hopped dry extract. You're going to have to buy hops and malt extract separately and find an actual recipe to use.

Yeah, I kinda figured as much. I was more wondering what type of extract I would need to get the same flavor(eg dark, amber, whatever)

If you're leaving the kits behind, you'll need to find or develop an actual recipe. This means (for extract brewing) DME, hops, and yeast at the minimum. You may also want to consider a steeping grain (such as crystal malt) or two to add some flavor.

I've never brewed with those kits, but I would suggest getting light DME, as it's the most versitile in general and it's going to be the right stuff for a lager. Your process will differ a bit from the kits as well, as you're going to have to determine your hop addition schedule, and possibly steep grains.

I would look around the site a bit and try to find a simple DME recipe to get started with, and not plan on trying to replicate a kit, which probably has a combination of flavors that you won't easily be able to replicate.

Hope this helps.

We already have a recipe for the beer. The kits are just used as two of the ingredients in it. We also add perle and cascade hops and...something else...I don't have the recipe with me at the moment. Really, I'm not sure why this recipe calls for kits instead of just the syrups like our other recipes.

Also, I was looking around, and muntons does make a hopped dry extract.

I was kinda thinking I would get some combination of the light(only one I could find already hopped) and amber dme

I'm a bit confused about what you're trying to accomplish then...

Are you trying to clone a recipe that calls for a kit?

Most kits are a combination of flavors and without knowing exactly what's in them, or having the experience to figure it out, you're not going to easily replicate them.

If you have a recipe that you like and want to have again, then your best bet is to use the kit. If you're looking to try something new, then I'd suggest finding a new recipe to brew, using DME as the base.

If you want to make the switch to DME, you are going to need to include hops in your recipe.

I would recomend a book like Beer Captured or Clone Brews
I have been able to take the book into my LHBS and point at the page, then browse while they grab everything i need. I just go home and follow the directions....

Okay, I thought it was pretty clear to begin with, but lets try again.
I have a recipe. This recipe calls for the aforementioned kits, and two kinds of hops.
It's cooks up just like any other liquid malt extract recipe, including adding hops during boiling. I don't even use the yeast from the kits, after it failed on us one time.

I want to use dry malt extract instead of the kits for various reasons. One of those reasons is that the kits are hard to come by.

I guess if there's no good way to go from kit to dme, then I could just find another similar recipe somewhere.

I think the new recipe is the way to go. The way I read the question is sort of like:

"How do I make rum and coke without the coke?"

You probably could make your own coke like soft drink, or you could try a Mojito instead.

Swap out the hopped LME for DME (1lb DME = .8lb LME) and add bittering hops of your choice at the start of your boil. An ounce to 1.5 ounces of 5%AA should probably put you in the same ballpark.

yarghble said:

Okay, I thought it was pretty clear to begin with, but lets try again.
I have a recipe. This recipe calls for the aforementioned kits, and two kinds of hops.
It's cooks up just like any other liquid malt extract recipe, including adding hops during boiling. I don't even use the yeast from the kits, after it failed on us one time.

I want to use dry malt extract instead of the kits for various reasons. One of those reasons is that the kits are hard to come by.

I guess if there's no good way to go from kit to dme, then I could just find another similar recipe somewhere.

Click to expand...

I think the problem lies in the fact that this kit uses a hopped (and probably other flavoured) extract. If it was simply standard LME, then swapping it out for DME would not be an issue. It might not be an issue anyway. But the thing is, we don't know what else (if anything) is in the extract. So it is very hard to say "oh, just use X instead".

Sure, you could just use DME instead (0.8 lb of dry for every 1.0 lb of liquid), and add some extra bittering hops. You can even play around with the ratio of light, amber and dark extracts to get the color you want. But will the beer be the same as you made before? Probably not. It might be close, and it will be beer, but it will not be identical.

So, if you want to make an identical beer, you will need to use the same kit. If you want to make something similar, then you'll need to figure out just what it is you need to add... i.e. you will need to make a recipe. Which is why most here are saying just find a new recipe that starts with DME anyway. It will be tried and true, rather than having to experiment yourself.

DME to LME is a 4 to 5 ratio
5# of LME is equal to 4# of DME

if that fact helps at all...