Malt extract = to grain?

Does 1lb of extract generally or theoretically translate to 1lb of grain? Just wondering if I can directly translate a malt recipe to a grain recipe.

The answer is no, it's not quite that easy.
There are charts though.

Post the recipe and maybe tonight I'll have a chance to beersmith it into a grain recipe.
I know that grain to extract works OK, I'm not sure about the taste being close when the software goes the other way.
There are far more grain choices than extract choices, so it might be close, but not quite right.

No it does not, assuming 70% efficiency you would substiture approximately 0.56 lb's of DME or 0.68 lb's LME for 1 lb grain....extracts will create a darker color for your finished product than grain so when substiting you may want to go with some if not all light/golden LME or DME even if doing a darker brew

Reedkellough said:

No it does not, assuming 70% efficiency you would substiture approximately 0.56 lb's of DME or 0.68 lb's LME for 1 lb grain....extracts will create a darker color for your finished product than grain so when substiting you may want to go with some if not all light/golden LME or DME even if doing a darker brew

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He's going the other way, so a little darker grain to replace the extract?

Beersmith!

I realize this isn't what you asked for and you'd likely want to figure out how to do the calculations on your own (which can get somewhat tricky) but I highly recommend Beersmith. You can input an extract recipe and convert it to all-grain and vice versa. It's very handy. There's probably a free to use calculator out there as well but I just use Beersmith. It's one of those things that I did without for 2 years and looking back I have no idea how.

generally speaking

1 lb. grain = .75 lb. LME = .6 lb. DME

45_70sharps said:

The answer is no, it's not quite that easy.
There are charts though.

Post the recipe and maybe tonight I'll have a chance to beersmith it into a grain recipe.
I know that grain to extract works OK, I'm not sure about the taste being close when the software goes the other way.
There are far more grain choices than extract choices, so it might be close, but not quite right.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I appreciate it. It's partial grain but the extract is:
6 lb wheat lme
3.3 lb dark lme

Pretty basic.
I'll see if I can punch it into beersmith tonight.

You should check out beersmith. It's a brewers swiss army knife.
You can download it for free and get about 30 days use, then if you like it, it's pretty cheap to buy.
Keeps your recipes, converts, keeps your brewing notes and a ton of other stuff.

Johnnyrhine said:

Thanks. I appreciate it. It's partial grain but the extract is:
6 lb wheat lme
3.3 lb dark lme

Click to expand...

Woops.... I didn't pay much attention.
Post the whole recipe if you can. It would help in trying to get the same sort of flavor and color out of it.

Johnnyrhine said:

Thanks. I appreciate it. It's partial grain but the extract is:
6 lb wheat lme
3.3 lb dark lme

Click to expand...

Wheat extract tends to be a mix of barley and wheat, and usually it's 35% wheat and 65% barley.

Dark LME is much trickier, as it's not "plain" extract the way light or wheat extracts are. There is caramel malt in dark LME, and probably some Munich malt- but the manufacturer's don't tell you, so it'd be just a guess to try to replace that with grain.

If you have the whole recipe, and the tasting notes from the extract recipe, you can probably come up with a good guess for the dark LME, though.

45_70sharps said:

Woops.... I didn't pay much attention.
Post the whole recipe if you can. It would help in trying to get the same sort of flavor and color out of it.

Click to expand...

Sorry. Here it is:
6 lb wheat lme
3.3 lb dark lme
8 oz carapils
8 oz caramel 40L
2 oz tettenanger hops

Yooper said:

Wheat extract tends to be a mix of barley and wheat, and usually it's 35% wheat and 65% barley.

Dark LME is much trickier, as it's not "plain" extract the way light or wheat extracts are. There is caramel malt in dark LME, and probably some Munich malt- but the manufacturer's don't tell you, so it'd be just a guess to try to replace that with grain.

If you have the whole recipe, and the tasting notes from the extract recipe, you can probably come up with a good guess for the dark LME, though.

Click to expand...

No tasting notes, it's from Midwest supplies dark wheat kit. Am planning on making my own all grain recipe and was just checking around to get an idea of what grains to get. Came across this one with the extract and figured if there was a rule of thumb for conversion it might be a good piece of info to keep in the old noggon.