First Brew: DME & LME Addition Question

Hey everyone,

I am brewing up my very first batch of beer this weekend and have a question about extract additions. The beer is an Amber with steeping grains and an OG of 1.054.

I am planning on "steeping small" for the grains. And then adding more water to the pot to start the boil.

Ok, so I have 1 Lb of Wheat DME and 6 Lbs of light LME.

Should I
A) start with the DME and then add the LME late?
or
B) DME + half the LME early and the rest of the DME late?
or
C) other?

I am trying to formulate a plan so that everything is smooth sailing on brewing day!

I assume you're doing a partial boil. How much water will you be boiling?

Also, what is your hop schedule?

Correct, partial boil of 3-3.5 Gallons (my pot is 4 Gallons)

Bittering hops at 60 and 30

final hop additions at 10, 5, 1

Worked it out on Beer Calculus and everything looks good. I am just curious about when to add the extracts (to make the best possible beer I can)

I do partials in a 3 gallon pot. 2.5 gallons of water to start. Once I add ~6lbs of DME its dicey throughout the boil.

I'd add the DME first, its harder to get dissolved and it will easier in fresh water rather water with 6lbs of LME already in it.

I agree, I think I would add the DME first as well. There is actually a lot of controversy about this in the brewing world amongst judges and brewers alike. Some will argue by adding extract to boil in a smaller water quantity will lead to carmalazation in the kettle, and leave the brewer with that "extract twang." I however, do not subscribe to this theory. If you are doing a 60-90 min. Boil I doubt your kettle is getting above 360* F for this molecular transformation to occur. By doing such a late addition you may be robbing the wort of the nutrients and essential flavors gained from a vigorous extract boil. I think your plan is sound, and you should not have any problems. If you are too worried about it you could always do the full extract boil and then add your 2 gallons of sterile water to the fermenter during flame out.

Just keep in mind that you are going to get different hop utilization depending on when you add the extract and how much you add. Your IBUs will vary significantly

I brewed an amber very similar to yours as my first batch too.

I would try boil as much as you can handle. Adding a few drops of Fermcap-S will help reduce hot break boil overs (also helps when added to primary to reduce yeast blow offs of certain varieties). Boiling more water should help keep your color lighter and closer to style. The flip side is it will be harder to cool down, so either have a wort chiller or lots of ice to add to sink.

I added all of the DME + LME at the start of boil and it turned out closer to a brown than amber color wise, also started only 2.5 gallons which was quite a bit lower at end of boil.

DME first at 60 min. Then maybe add your LME in increments. First half LME at 45 min, 2nd half LME at 15 min. You will get more bittering hop utilization this way as the wort is less concentrated. I like to shift some of the 60 minute hop additions towards the end for aroma/flavor to keep the bitterness closer to designed.

After boil is done, get that baby down to pitching temps as quick as possible. If you are using Nottingham or something similar, hold off pitching that yeast until you are near the bottom temp range for the yeast (really wish I had done this on batch #1). Cheers

I would just chuck it all in and save a bit for the last 10 minutes.

I'm weird though.

It'll make beer by just chucking it all in too.

Woaah Rob. Bud clone? I would not think our friends across the Atlantic would be into the "King of Beers." Maybe I'm wrong?

levon15 said:

I'd add the DME first, its harder to get dissolved and it will easier in fresh water rather water with 6lbs of LME already in it.

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+1 I brewed a red ale last week and used half DME and half LME, added half of each one at the start and that last 1.5 lbs of DME did not want to disolve, Next time I will put all the dry in at the start, and add the LME towards the end to keep the color light.

I'd start with the DME, and save most of the LME for the end. You could put in the DME and about 1/3 of the LME at the beginning, and add the bulk of the LME at the end. That's what I'd do, anyway.

Just this sunday I brewed an IPA with 3 pounds of DME and 3.3 pounds of LME because and I all DME at 75min then all LME at last 15min.

Sent from my iPad2 using HB Talk

Thanks for the tips guys,

I don't have a wort chiller and might be able to bump up the volume to 3.5 but the boil overs are what I am worried about. I don't have any fermcap, but will be near a local HB supply tomorrow.

For partial boils, which I do, putting around 7 lbs of ice in your primary before adding the wort will bring it right about to pitching temp when the restof the water is added. Plan on getting a chiller when I move up to full boil / AG.

Solbes - bud is really popular over here! We have coors too, but not much else from America...

RobWalker said:

Solbes - bud is really popular over here! We have coors too, but not much else from America...

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I suppose it's not much different from Newcastle and Guinness being popular over here. Although I gotta give a strong nod to the English/Irish pair over the Bud. I guess imports are trendy!

Dover,

You add ice directly into the primary? Isn't there a risk of wort contamination that way?

TriggerFingers said:

Dover,

You add ice directly into the primary? Isn't there a risk of wort contamination that way?

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I suppose its possible, but most things that can hurt you cant live in sub freezing temps so the ice shold be mostly sterile. Also I dont use store bought ice, I have my ice maker in the freezer hooked up to my RO system so is the same water that I boil and top off with. I also add water straight from the RO to top off before pitching yeast. The way I see it is people were brewing long before sanitizing was even thought about, and most did not even have soap. That being said im not at total slob, fermenter, spoons, racking canes and tubes and all that stuff gets a 3 min soak in one step before comming anywhere near the wort. This is supposed to be fun after all, not stressfull.

Just chuck it in baby

solbes said:

It'll make beer by just chucking it all in too.

Woaah Rob. Bud clone? I would not think our friends across the Atlantic would be into the "King of Beers." Maybe I'm wrong?

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As weird as it sounds I have found that those across the pond love Bud. I knew an Irish couple that only drank Bud in the midst of all those other amazing beers I found this to be an egregious crime