Stouts Porters and Milds - All Extract

Does anyone know if it's possible to make any of these beers, using just Mild, Amber, and Dark LME, and no additional grains? Or would it turn out nothing like the style in question?

You could do it for sure I'm just not sure your going to get the results you want. There's a big difference between going straight extract and steeping some grains first with little to no extra effort.

blisterman said:

Does anyone know if it's possible to make any of these beers, using just Mild, Amber, and Dark LME, and no additional grains? Or would it turn out nothing like the style in question?

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Are you wanting to try just for the heck of it? Or is there some reason why you don't want to steep?

As PWalk stated, there is little to no extra effort to steep some grains, and the payoff is being able to customize your beer to a much greater extent than extract alone.

The easiest and quickest way to steep is to put your steeping grains in a bag and put it in your kettle while you heat the water. Remove the grains when you get to around 170F. There may be better ways to steep/mini mash, etc., but the above method works great too.

The real reason is that I have a load of different extracts, yeasts and hops, but no grain.

I might just go ahead and order grain, if that's the case.

From everything I have ever read on extract brewing, you definately want to use specialty grain. In fact, several sources have suggested always using light DME and getting all the color and flavor profiles from steeping specialty grains. For instance, I just made a clone of Guiness from a book called Clone Brews. The recipe called for light DME and the specialty grains gave it the color and taste profile for an Irish Stout. However, that being said, I have never tried to extract brew without grains.

This is a good resource:
Briess Malt & Ingredients Co.: Malt Extracts LME and DME

They have a couple different extracts and tell you what is in them exactly. Hope this helps.

blisterman said:

The real reason is that I have a load of different extracts, yeasts and hops, but no grain.

I might just go ahead and order grain, if that's the case.

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Dude, grain is CHEAP

Throckmorton said:

From everything I have ever read on extract brewing, you definately want to use specialty grain. In fact, several sources have suggested always using light DME and getting all the color and flavor profiles from steeping specialty grains. For instance, I just made a clone of Guiness from a book called Clone Brews. The recipe called for light DME and the specialty grains gave it the color and taste profile for an Irish Stout. However, that being said, I have never tried to extract brew without grains.

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the writers of that book own the local supply store i use. awesomely helpful really nice people.

goodbyebluesky82 said:

Dude, grain is CHEAP

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It's not the price, it's the waiting for stuff to be delivered.