mmditter said:
2. Is this an accurate assessment: Tasters Choice instant powder vs. ground coffee: ick. Make that totally ick.
Frozen concentrate vs. fresh squeezed orange juice. Not as good as the fresh, but definitely not ick.
I could be way wrong, but to me it would seem that liquid malt extract is sort of concentrated wort that's sort of the same as orange juice concentrate. The dry would seem to be more like the instant coffee.
Completely the other way around. Think of it this way, LME is your instant coffee that has the milk powder and lots of cheap sugar added to it (IE, hop flavours = milk powder, cheap sugar = dextrose) its cheap, easy to ship, easy to sell, easy to use, and YES, it does get the job done.
DME is like ground coffee, you need a coffee machine, and you add your own milk (boil the hops with DME) this is more complex way of making "coffee" but still gets the job done relativley easy.
All grain, is like grinding the coffee yourself, frothing the milk yourself, and adding all sorts of flavouring syrups (specialty grains) to your "coffee"
DME is by far superior to LME, but LME is much easier to use, gets the job done well enough, but has more often then not cheap ingredients.
This is not to say that all LME is crap, for instance Coopers make a GREAT LME (the brewmasters range) which works very well. But, in the most part, the DME goes through less processing then the LME.
LME is essentially DME boiled up in a factory, they add the hops, boil it down, add a generous amount of dextrose to reduce costs, boost alc% etc etc, and yes it gets the job done, but its instant. If you take the time to boil your own DME, boil your own hops, and "froth your own milk" it will come out with a better body, flavour, feel and taste!