swapping DMEs

I'm planning on picking up one of those 55 Lb bags of DME, now heres my question...
I was planing on getting extra light and using it as a base for all my recipes and i was wondering if a recipe calls for lets say amber DME can i achieve the same results using Extra light DME and steeping specific grains to achieve the flavor and color. or does the difference in breakdown of different malt extracts mean i must use those malts if i want to stick within the guidelines of a recipe. oh and if grains can be substituted does anyone have a link to a chart or good reference on what substitutions will achieve what, oh and I have thumbed through the conversion of all grains to extracts PDF thats been posted a few times and at first look did not see what i was looking for but haven't had time to give it the thorough read it disserves so i apologize if its in there.

-jake

Getting a box of extra light DME is the same as getting a sack of 2-row pale. You can always use specialty grains. Palmer has an amusing little chart:

To help get your creative juices flowing, here is a rough approximation of the recipes for the common ale styles:
Pale Ale - base malt plus a half pound of caramel malt,
Amber Ale - pale ale plus a half pound of dark caramel malt,
Brown Ale - pale ale plus a half pound of chocolate malt
Porter - amber ale plus a half pound of chocolate malt,
Stout - porter plus a half pound of roast barley.

jake said:

I'm planning on picking up one of those 55 Lb bags of DME, now heres my question...
I was planing on getting extra light and using it as a base for all my recipes and i was wondering if a recipe calls for lets say amber DME can i achieve the same results using Extra light DME and steeping specific grains to achieve the flavor and color.

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Thats the idea You know you might want to check out some software. I dont know of a chart of what you speak of... there are color guides malts though in books. I hve been playing with ProMash and it gives you an approximation of the color you will get with diffeernt additions of grains. The eval version of ProMash lets you save a few and does not expire after a certain period.. meaning you can use it for different recipes just not save them.

http://www.promash.com/

thanks david that helps alot, ill have to take another look at plamers book and see if i can translate it directly into malt types.

as for promash, i have it but find it incredibly confusing im gunna have to curl up by the fire with the user manual some day

thanks for the quick replys guys, if i can break it down into a spredsheat ill post it for the rest of ya

-jake

jake said:

thanks david that helps alot, ill have to take another look at plamers book and see if i can translate it directly into malt types.

as for promash, i have it but find it incredibly confusing im gunna have to curl up by the fire with the user manual some day

thanks for the quick replys guys, if i can break it down into a spredsheat ill post it for the rest of ya

-jake

Click to expand...

Sounds like you did not do the tutorial yet. In the help section there is a cool tutorial that will makes things make a lot more sense.