Homemade LME — is it possible?

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geezerpk

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Is the making of LME something that's beyond the capability of a typical home brewer? I'm not really planning to ramp up a shop for something like this, as I've gone to all grain quite some time ago.

That being said, on occasion my OG has fallen short of expectations, and it might be nice to have a pound or so of LME on hand in the fridge to correct my incompetence or expectations. I'm a cheap-a$$ and don't like the retail prices of LME or the shipping toll. Just curious.
 
Why not just keep DME on hand? I doubt you could make LME for less without scorching it. Then there is the problem of storing it.
I would guess LME is "boiled" under vacuum, which lowers the boiling point reducing caramelization and scorching.
 
I'd guess for the normal person it would be a lot harder to make LME than buy it (unless you have lots of free time on your hand).

I mean, think about it -- you have to make wort, PLUS put it in some kind of contraption to get it to condense in a vacuum. Sounds cool for a science project, but I definitely would not personally undertake it, even though I'd be all for cheaper LME.
 
Why not just keep DME on hand? I doubt you could make LME for less without scorching it. Then there is the problem of storing it.
I would guess LME is "boiled" under vacuum, which lowers the boiling point reducing caramelization and scorching.

I dunno. When I made my wee heavy, I finished my sparge and then boiled for 20 minutes, then racked it immediately to a couple of corny kegs and threw them in the kegerator. They stayed there for another 2-3 weeks before I was able to pull them out and actually finish that batch.


So, long term storage? Maybe, maybe not. But I think it is perfectly conceivable to make a high gravity wort (functionally equivalent to LME) that you can store for a while and use later on.
 
I doubt you could make LME for less without scorching it. Then there is the problem of storing it.
I would guess LME is "boiled" under vacuum, which lowers the boiling point reducing caramelization and scorching.

LME is indeed "boiled" under vacuum, in a steam evaporator.
 
LME? Not possible without more equipment than you wanna buy.

High gravity, pressure canned wort? Definitely possible. Make a huge beer (~1.12), pressure can the wort.

Way easier to keep DME on hand though. DME would be way more neutral and consistent, never mind storage space, etc. Big beers aren't the most efficient monsters, so you wouldn't save any money...
 
What I would do if it were me would be to make 20 gallons of all-grain wort using a base malt such as marris otter or golden promise at a gravity of 1.090. Then, split into 2 seperate kettles (10 gallons each), boil each kettle down to 2.5 gallons using a gentle boil (as not to scorch or carmelize as much) so you're left with 5 gallons total at a gravity of 1.360. Pressure can into 20 quart size mason jars, and save for later use. It will be a days worth of work to boil down that much wort, and I'd have to run some more calculations on the cost of doing that vs the cost of buying LME, but it'd be a fun experiment. Heck, I might do that now that I've thought of it.

After a quick calc, this would take ~73.5lbs of grain, at my prices for Golden Promise, this would be $92 worth of grain. That would break down to $4.60/qt of the high gravity wort. Wort at this gravity would weigh 2.8 lbs per quart. If added to 3 more quarts of water to make a gallon, you'd have a gallon of wort at a gravity of 1.090 ( [0.25*360 GU's] + [0.75*0 GU's] = 90 GU's in 1 gallon). So, the extract potential for one lb of the wort is 90/2.8 or 1.032 in 1 gallon...not sure where I'm going with this...but, for ease of understanding this, lets take making an equivalent beer from the high gravity wort and LME..and DME for fun.

For ease of calulation, lets say 5 gallons of 1.090 wort.

*High Gravity Wort

(14lbs wort / 2.8lbs/qt) * $4.60/qt = $23.00

*LME

You need just shy of 12lbs of LME to make 5 gallons of 1.090 wort

at a cost of $14.95 for 3.3lbs from my LHBS, that's ($14.95/3.3 lbs) * 12lbs = $54.36.

*DME

In this example, you need a scosche over 10 lbs to make 5 gallons of 1.090 wort

at a cost of $12.95 for 3 lbs from my LHBS, that's ($12.95/3 lbs) * 10 lbs = $43.17.


Someone check that, my brain is fried, even for an engineer.
 
"Someone check that, my brain is fried, even for an engineer."

Thanks for doing the legwork on the proposition. Being a non-engineer, I'll probably need some time to digest your work, probably along with a home brew or three later in the day. I may take the concept a little more seriously, it just occurred to me last night when I was mini-mashing about 1.5# of 2-row in a couple of quart of mash/sparge liquids, then boiling it down to under a quart to add to a brew that came up a bit short on the OG. By time it go boiled down it was taking on some of the viscosity characteristics of LME, that's when the light bulb came on — a very dim bulb BTW.:rolleyes:
 
What I would do if it were me would be to make 20 gallons of all-grain wort using a base malt such as marris otter or golden promise at a gravity of 1.090. Then, split into 2 seperate kettles (10 gallons each), boil each kettle down to 2.5 gallons using a gentle boil (as not to scorch or carmelize as much) so you're left with 5 gallons total at a gravity of 1.360. Pressure can into 20 quart size mason jars, and save for later use. It will be a days worth of work to boil down that much wort, and I'd have to run some more calculations on the cost of doing that vs the cost of buying LME, but it'd be a fun experiment. Heck, I might do that now that I've thought of it.

After a quick calc, this would take ~73.5lbs of grain, at my prices for Golden Promise, this would be $92 worth of grain. That would break down to $4.60/qt of the high gravity wort. Wort at this gravity would weigh 2.8 lbs per quart. If added to 3 more quarts of water to make a gallon, you'd have a gallon of wort at a gravity of 1.090 ( [0.25*360 GU's] + [0.75*0 GU's] = 90 GU's in 1 gallon). So, the extract potential for one lb of the wort is 90/2.8 or 1.032 in 1 gallon...not sure where I'm going with this...but, for ease of understanding this, lets take making an equivalent beer from the high gravity wort and LME..and DME for fun.

For ease of calulation, lets say 5 gallons of 1.090 wort.

*High Gravity Wort

(14lbs wort / 2.8lbs/qt) * $4.60/qt = $23.00

*LME

You need just shy of 12lbs of LME to make 5 gallons of 1.090 wort

at a cost of $14.95 for 3.3lbs from my LHBS, that's ($14.95/3.3 lbs) * 12lbs = $54.36.

*DME

In this example, you need a scosche over 10 lbs to make 5 gallons of 1.090 wort

at a cost of $12.95 for 3 lbs from my LHBS, that's ($12.95/3 lbs) * 10 lbs = $43.17.


Someone check that, my brain is fried, even for an engineer.

I am not sure if your calculations are correct, but one cost you are not considering in your homemade process is the cost of sitting there all day boiling the wort down. If you are using propane, that is going to cost a bit. My boil off rate is about 1 gallon per hour during a brewday. If I use that rate, we are looking at 15 hours of continuous propane use; probably half a tank or possibly even more.

You have clearly shown that AG brewing is cheaper than extract brewing, but we already knew that.
 
I am not sure if your calculations are correct, but one cost you are not considering in your homemade process is the cost of sitting there all day boiling the wort down. If you are using propane, that is going to cost a bit. My boil off rate is about 1 gallon per hour during a brewday. If I use that rate, we are looking at 15 hours of continuous propane use; probably half a tank or possibly even more.

You have clearly shown that AG brewing is cheaper than extract brewing, but we already knew that.

I agree, it would be a lot of propane, and I didn't count that in because I have no real way of quantifying it. Splitting it into two 10 gallon batches would shorten the boil down time, but not propane useage as you would need two burners going. Anyway, yeah, it's really up to whether you want to spend your time doing this, or buy it. Some folks like the DIY aspect of stuff like this, some consider it a waste of time. FWIW, even using a whole tank of propane @ $17 a tank is still cheaper.
 
weirdboy said:
I dunno. When I made my wee heavy, I finished my sparge and then boiled for 20 minutes, then racked it immediately to a couple of corny kegs and threw them in the kegerator. They stayed there for another 2-3 weeks before I was able to pull them out and actually finish that batch.

So, long term storage? Maybe, maybe not. But I think it is perfectly conceivable to make a high gravity wort (functionally equivalent to LME) that you can store for a while and use later on.

The main reason long term storage concerns me, is because the people who can wort say you absolutely must use a pressure cooker to avoid the risk of nasties like botulism. I have no idea how they manage that commercially, or how it might apply to washed yeast which has no alcohol content. If someone does, I'd like to know.
 
Well there is a definitely difference between shelf stable canned wort which has been heat pasteurized, and boiled wort in terms of shelf stability. But, I did refrigerate my kegged wort at mid-30's and probably wouldn't try to just let it sit at room temperatures.
 
I have never seen someone so against using a little dme for og correction. I thought I was anal.
 
Well if it were me, and I was the cheapskate in question, I would just boil longer to get to my target OG and live with a slightly smaller volume. If I were far enough off that this becomes infeasible, adding a bunch of extract probably wouldn't get me what I wanted out of the recipe anyway.
 
wildwest450 said:
I have never seen someone so against using a little dme for og correction. I thought I was anal.

Agreed...I try to brew as "all-grain" as possible...but when I miss a gravity, I just toss a little DME in. The suggestions I made earlier were just for the DIY'er...although, I might try my own suggestions to validate them.
 
I do some pretty ridiculous things in the name of "saving money, I think." Making your own LME out of an all-grain batch though...other than to say that you've done it, I can't see a good enough reason to attempt this at home.

I had a long drawn-out response all typed up before the big picture became clear. Making LME, while it might save a little money, is essentially a tradeoff of time. Right now, if you have an abundance of time, you can make a lot of wort and boil it down so later you don't have to spend as much time mashing. While producing wort in large quantities will save on prep time significantly versus doing it 1G or 2G at a time (finished product), it may not be realistic since it would require more equpment (2x 10G boilers, 2x burners, a mash tun that can handle ~75lbs grain).

In my revised estimates, I corrected for lower costs of LME and averaged them. In my neck of the woods, LME is only $3.00/lb versus $5.00 in PintoBean's estimates. Assuming a $4.00/lb average for LME at a homebrew supply place, I came up with a potential savings of about $22.00 using an all-grain LME DIY process instead of LME in a 5G batch of 1.090, not including energy/time costs. Energy costs might be around $6.00 per 5G batch of DIY LME, reducing the savings to about $16.00.

Even assuming a potential savings of $16.00, this doesn't include the time investment.

Using the "time is money" argument makes sense in an economic perspective, but in not so much in the homebrew world. I believe few are doing it to truly save money, but instead to make quality beers while enjoying the hobby. In an economic sense, the time spent on brewing seems like it is part or all of the utility that we get out of it since we enjoy the processes.

With that being said, assuming $16.00 savings can be realized per 5G batch of 1.090 beer, and the extra time required to produce that wort prior to brew-day can be found, if no extra equipment is necessary that erases the savings, from a quality perspective, I have to disagree with the DIY LME production idea. When commercial maltsters create extract, they do it with lower heat in vacuum boilers. Extract will naturally be darker since some carmelization occurs during the heating process. In a homebrewer's system, this vacuum will be difficult reproduce, and higher heat will likely be required. This extra heat means more carmelization.

The character of the finished extract will likely be much darker than a commercially purchased extract.

I've never done the DIY extract production thing at home, so obviously I might be full of **** on some of the things I've said. I've only gone so far as to make AG starter wort in bulk and steam canned that. The time required to do that is significant.
 
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