El Cheapo Extract Recipe

Well I was at the local stepchild beer ingredient store, gourmet place that sells some brew stuff, yesterday and saw a 1/2 price shelf. They had several that I was not interested in but found two Munton's English Bitter cans of prehopped extract in there. One was the standard bitter and one was called Yorkshire bitter. At $7.50 per can, even though they were a year out of date, they were just too good a deal to pass up. I had been doing all-grain with a 5 gallon Rubbermaid cooler converted with a SS braid but that is an all day deal and I have one in secondary to bottle later in the day anyway. Turns out in half an hour I produced an extract beer at even less cost than the all-grain I have been doing. $7.50 for the pre-hopped, $9.75 for 3lbs. of Amber DME, and a handful of Kent Goldings whole leaf in there. I had found when I did the couple of no-boil kits I started all this with, that they were ok in bitterness but lacking in the hop aroma area. I rehydrated the included yeast and had it all ready to go and pitched at 11:30 last night. I topped it up a little too much so I used a blowoff tube. This morning at 9:00 it was bubbling like mad and seems to be off to a great start. Just remember that even though you may know a lot about how to make good beer, the KISS method does have its merits and each method of homebrewing does have its own place in the hobby.

At that price you can't really go wrong. I'd like to hear how it turns out with the extra Goldings in there.

BrewFrick said:

each method of homebrewing does have its own place in the hobby.

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This is the best Point I've read here in a long time.
The really sad part is that we forget this!
We get so wrapped up in our AG is better than Extract is better than BMC, god I hate Coors, and Bud Bashing that we forget that we're all on the same team here. If you can make something you like for like $10 I say good on you. Your Year old malt holds no less credit in my brewing book than the completely valid experiments going on over at the GaP thread.

Good for you, and thanks for the reality check.

Let's not forget, brewing is brewing! If you like what comes out of the pot, then it's all good. I've had to put a keg of beer that cost $30 down the drain because it tasted so bad no one would drink it. If you can play around for $10 and come up with a good drinkable beer then that sure beats paying a lot more to come up with the same thing. I hope you can find some more deals like that and have fun doing what you enjoy. Brew on brother!

BrewFrick said:

...each method of homebrewing does have its own place in the hobby.

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BigKahuna said:

This is the best Point I've read here in a long time.
The really sad part is that we forget this!
We get so wrapped up in our AG is better than Extract is better than BMC, god I hate Coors, and Bud Bashing that we forget that we're all on the same team here.

Good for you, and thanks for the reality check.

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+1 to you and to Kahuna for acknowledging this...That's my brewing philosophy as well...I've choked down some mighty foul AG's and enjoyed some fantastic Extract beers, and even a few surprisingly good Mr Beer made beers...It's not the method that makes great beer, it is the brewer...

I've noticed that a lot of n00bs see AG as the holy mecca of beer perfection, like the minute they put the braid on their cooler and fire up the propane, that their beer is going to be perfect....But if their process sucked as an extract brewer...adding more variables to the mix, just increases the potential suckiness...

I've really wanted to jump in on some of the n00b "Should I go straight to AG?" or "I'm going AG!!!" threads of people who have only done 1 or 2 beers and want to "make the leap" because they weren't happy with how their beer turned out and suggest that they figure out why their extract recipes didn't turn out and work on that until they make great beers with extracts (like so many people do.)

And tell them that they really should nail their process down and quit blaming malt extract for their lousy beers....

The problem is too many recent converts, and EAC's keep encouraging the idea that AG=instant perfection and status as a "real brewer."

I brew all styles...Some of my best beers are extract w/grains, I've done a couple of them as AG and realized that they taste the same, if not better as their original extract recipe...(My amber ale and Yooper's dead guy clone, are two examples) So I don't NEED to spend the whole brewing AG to make those beers.

And tell them that they really should nail their process down and quick blaming malt extract for their lousy beers....

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Too often people are prone to blame the ingredients and never really examine their method. This applies all areas besides brewing: lawn care, cooking meals, home repair,...etc.

The most common statement I have seen in the world is: " If I could just afford better ___________, this would have turned out better."

As an anecdote, I have eaten the best homemade soup that was made from guineas! It wasn't the ingredients, it was the excellent country cook that made it.

Thanks for the recognition guys, glad I could be a grounding force here for all the old hands and noobs alike. I just wanted to relate what a good deal I thought I got on these and that I tried a little extra hop power with it. Just added a little of my personal philosophy after trying no-boil, extract only, extract with grains, and all-grain. Keep brewing bro's! :rockin:

Got to agree.
I'm drinking a braggot I made from a coopers can, added 5 lbs of honey, pitched onto a yeast cake and it tastes fantastic. The big thing was it took me around one hour from heating the water to primary. Sometimes you just don't have time for an all day brew session.

+1. There's no growth in mocking or belittling.

I'm an extract brewer. I flatter myself that I have a pretty good handle on brewing.

I got away from all-grain brewing when I started brewing for a living. I continued homebrewing because I could make weird stuff at home I could never brew at work. I switched back to extract because it takes 7-8 hours to brew 5 gallons as well as 15 barrels, and I wasn't gonna blow a weekend day doing what I did every day at work. These days, I've come back to all-grain and enjoy it, but I no longer have a gas stove, so I do half-batches of all-grain.

My extract beers have been pretty darn good, though I say it myself. I'd say about 50% of my beer comes from extract recipes, and another 25% partial-mash. The rest are all-grain, mostly AG copies of proven extract recipes. But I'll tell you something - the beer I made for summer drinking was two tins of Cooper's Real Ale in 5 gallons.

Any brewer who knocks another because s/he uses extract is a pompous ass.

Cheers,

Bob

BobNQ3X said:

+1. There's no growth in mocking or belittling.

Any brewer who knocks another because s/he uses extract is a pompous ass.

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Very true!
In my opinion, brewing is brewing and everyone should respect that. I brew extract, PM and AG depending on how I want that batch to turn out and how much time and money I want to invest in creating it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a good extract brew and I have tasted some that taste every bit as good as an AG brew. Let's not let our ego's spoil the fun...

This thread is one of the reasons I love this forum...

who would'a thunk it? Extracters and AG'ers walking hand-in-hand through the happy fields of barley

AZ_IPA said:

who would'a thunk it? Extracters and AG'ers walking hand-in-hand through the happy fields of barley

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See, I don't consider myself an AG'er or an Extracter...I'm a homebrewer, I make the best damn beer I can! The way I choose to do it differs from batch to batch, recipe to recipe, time commitment or mood...I put the same effort and skill in an Extract recipe, as I do an allgrain.

Hell that's why I've been working on the AG in a Mr Beer article...I'm trying to get people to stop thinking of Mr Beer, as the ingredients, and instead to look at it as a small batch fermenter, that you can easily lager in your fridge.