Hey gang,
I have been dying to get into this new Hef to provide a LME vs. DME update as promised so here goes.
Started with the same Hef recipe for both, the one on the left was made with LME, the other was made with DME. The LME was a partial boil (very gentle boil) and the DME was a full boil (again very gentle). I did adjust the Hops to account for the full boil and the higher hop utilization, steeped the grains a bit longer, other than that, everything else was the same. FWIW, I always remove from heat to add LME/DME to eliminate scorching.
The main reason for doing this was due to the pronounced caramelized taste that every batch of beer seems to have and the much darker color as well.
With the DME recipe, the caramel taste is virtually gone. The Hef flavors are much stronger, it's a cleaner beer and I really love it. I know some will say the partial vs. full boil helped the beer, while I agree, I also don't see how it could have made this much of a difference. The color of the wort was significantly different from the very start.
I have been reading a ton from others that taste the same caramel flavor and to me, late additional just didn't go far enough, tried that on my 3rd Hef batch, it was better by a small margin, this is by far the best Hef I have brewed yet.
The last two times I have been to the LHBS, they say that LME and DME is exactly the same, I'm not so sure this is the case.
Enjoy
Toy4Rick
I have been dying to get into this new Hef to provide a LME vs. DME update as promised so here goes.
Started with the same Hef recipe for both, the one on the left was made with LME, the other was made with DME. The LME was a partial boil (very gentle boil) and the DME was a full boil (again very gentle). I did adjust the Hops to account for the full boil and the higher hop utilization, steeped the grains a bit longer, other than that, everything else was the same. FWIW, I always remove from heat to add LME/DME to eliminate scorching.
The main reason for doing this was due to the pronounced caramelized taste that every batch of beer seems to have and the much darker color as well.
With the DME recipe, the caramel taste is virtually gone. The Hef flavors are much stronger, it's a cleaner beer and I really love it. I know some will say the partial vs. full boil helped the beer, while I agree, I also don't see how it could have made this much of a difference. The color of the wort was significantly different from the very start.
I have been reading a ton from others that taste the same caramel flavor and to me, late additional just didn't go far enough, tried that on my 3rd Hef batch, it was better by a small margin, this is by far the best Hef I have brewed yet.
The last two times I have been to the LHBS, they say that LME and DME is exactly the same, I'm not so sure this is the case.
Enjoy
Toy4Rick