Consentrate Vs Grain

Hello all. I'm a brand new guy in the beer making. I've spent the last several years making fruit wine but have changed interest of recent. My dad, for my 8th wedding anniversary, bought me a Mr Beer kit. I noticed that the ingredients that come with Mr Beer are a concentrated malt that you are to heat up on the stove and dilute. Now, I have a recipe that demands 16 lbs of malt for a 5 gallon recipe. Using this concentrate which comes in 18 ounce cans stating it makes 2 gallons, would that mean I need 2.5 of those cans or is the concentration different? Please help.

that math works for me, as long as the recipe you're following is an extract recipe, and it's calling for 16lbs of the extract you have in that can...

Awesome, thanks =) Just a side question, it should have the same flavor profile correct?

as long as all the ratios are scaled correctly. If you wanna post the recipe we could double check the conversion for you.

This is from BYO magazine about the 90 minute clone, was apparently done with help from DogFish

5 gal
OG 1.088 FG 1.021
IBU 90 SRM 13 ABV 8.7%

16.5 lbs Pilsner Malt
1.66 amber malt

2.00 oz Amarillo 8% AA 90 - 0 minutes
.62 oz Simcoe 10% AA 90 - 0 minutes
.53 oz Warrior 15% AA 90 - 0 minutes
1.00 oz Amarillo Dry
.50 oz Simcoe Dry
.50 oz Warrior Dry

Irish moss
Wyeast 1099 (Whitbread)

Mash @ 122F then raise to 149F until conversion is complete.
Boil wort for 105 Minutes
With 90 minutes left to the boil slowely and evenly start adding hops

what do you have in the 18oz can? Does it say anything about prehopped?

That's not an extract recipe. That looks like it's calling for actual grain.

That would be like making a lemon meringue pie recipe that called for "three lemons" with three bottles of lemon juice. Not gonna work.

hit the boards and books to learn a little more about the difference between extract (concentrate) and all-grain (all-grain) brewing.

No, these are unhopped malt extracts. it's a 18.6 oz can of pale export - says "Use this traditional style malt to make pilsners, pale or cream ales, and continental lagers."SRM 3, abv 2.3%, IBU 0

JetSmooth said:

That's not an extract recipe. That looks like it's calling for actual grain.

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what he said

I do see your point, but there is a definitive amount of juice you're going to get from a lemon and you can look up for example :1 lemon equals 1/3 cup of lemon juice. That's what I was hoping for here. Perhaps I'm way over my head. Like I said, brand new to all of this. @_@

Any advice, books, links, you can give for me to get a good idea of the difference between the two?

Any advice/links, books you would recommend for me to learn the difference between the two?

Didn't mean to write that down twice, sorry bout that.

Shadowknight77 said:

I do see your point, but there is a definitive amount of juice you're going to get from a lemon and you can look up for example :1 lemon equals 1/3 cup of lemon juice. That's what I was hoping for here. Perhaps I'm way over my head. Like I said, brand new to all of this. @_@

Click to expand...

It is the same for extract, except more so. You can look up the PPG for an ingredient (points per pound per gallon) and calculate its exact contribution to the SG from there. e.g. see here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter3-4.html

For extract, the PPG numbers are the PPG numbers, there is no getting around that. For a mash, it depends on your efficiency. Typical efficiency is around 75% from what I understand (I'm an extract brewer only so far), but it can range much lower or higher depending on process.

Check out http://www.howtobrew.com for starters, it is an online version of one of the most popular (and best) homebrewing books. Be warned, though, this is the first edition (it is now on the 3rd in print) and there is a little bit of outdated information in here.

If you had never fermented before, I'd be suggesting The Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian. It is neither as clear nor as comprehensive nor as concise as the Palmer book (How to Brew), but it will make you feel confident about brewing. The first few times I started reading the Palmer book, every time I was look, "Oh crap, I screwed up soooo many things on all of my beers, what will I do!!!" Papazian is much more comforting But since you say you've done fruit wines before, you probably don't need the confidence boost, and in that case I'd recommend Palmer.

You have all been fantastic. I appreciate all your help ! =)

My pleasure. Not trying to disuade you or anything. Just pointing out that it's never as easy as you think it is when you first get started. . . . then you realize how easy it can be once you've done it a few times.