Opinions on Extract Brewing

[GHBWNY]

Three things I have experienced with extract, and ONLY extract, brews:

1. Higher FG (the dreaded "1.020 Extract Curse")
2. A slightly apparent "extract-y" taste as compared to AG.
3. A slightly darker color as compared to the AG equivalent.

That said, I still like to do a kit once in awhile, depending on the style. The above tendencies seem to not be as noticeable in say, a brown or wheat.

 

[dmtaylor]

Three things I have experienced with extract, and ONLY extract, brews:

1. Higher FG (the dreaded "1.020 Extract Curse")
2. A slightly apparent "extract-y" taste as compared to AG.
3. A slightly darker color as compared to the AG equivalent.

That said, I still like to do a kit once in awhile, depending on the style. The above tendencies seem to not be as noticeable in say, a brown or wheat.

Winner winner chicken dinner! Give this man a prize, I totally agree.

And now I'll just set this here for good measure:

 

[TheFlyingSparge]

Why waste time thinking about it – brew something and find out. Fresh, well brewed beer that YOU made YOURSELF tastes good no matter what. Start with extract and steep your specialty grain. That's the way many people start.

 

[NGD]

Winner winner chicken dinner! Give this man a prize, I totally agree.

And now I'll just set this here for good measure:

Thanks for posting that @dmtaylor

Only quibble I have with that sheet is the full vol/60min boil. I just don’t see any reason for it. 30-45 min boils still give you your hop utilization numbers and at least from what I’ve seen I tend to end up with lighter beer. Fully admit the SRM could be a self induced placebo effect, but the 30 less min I spend brewing is really nice.

 

[S-Met]

30 vs 60 min for bitrering additions, perhaps? Not a promise though. Side by side, you may be able to tell a difference, but individually I doubt anyone would know.

 

[dmtaylor]

Thanks for posting that @dmtaylor

Only quibble I have with that sheet is the full vol/60min boil. I just don’t see any reason for it. 30-45 min boils still give you your hop utilization numbers and at least from what I’ve seen I tend to end up with lighter beer. Fully admit the SRM could be a self induced placebo effect, but the 30 less min I spend brewing is really nice.

I agree with that. I'm all for shortening the brew day. My all-grain batches are done in 3 to 3.5 hours average. Not many all-grain brewers can say that. If an extract beer can be done in, let's say 45 minutes, wow, I love that.

 

[GnenieGone]

Winner winner chicken dinner! Give this man a prize, I totally agree.

And now I'll just set this here for good measure:

Thanks. I'm grabing this sheet and posting on my No-Boil Recipe thread. Appears to have some valuable information.

 

[doug293cz]

Getting too OT with post discussing the merits, or lack thereof, of Brulosophy's methodology. Save those discussions for a Brulosophy related thread.

doug293cz
HBT Moderator

 

[Big Monk]

Extract is fine, especially for brown beers and hoppy beers. For most other things, all-grain tastes a whole lot better. But if all you care about is hops, then extract is just fine. Just brew it.

You know what Dave?

I think that admirable Trappist inspired beers are achievable with extract as well. For beers that are hopped so lightly, they typically get pegged as malt showcases, but what they really are are yeast showcases.

I love my all grain Trappist recipes but I don’t think I’d have an issue converting them to extract and still loving the results.

 

[GnenieGone]

You know what Dave?

I think that admirable Trappist inspired beers are achievable with extract as well. For beers that are hopped so lightly, they typically get pegged as malt showcases, but what they really are are yeast showcases.

I love my all grain Trappist recipes but I don’t think I’d have an issue converting them to extract and still loving the results.

Any chance you can PM your Trappist recipe? Doing cold brew all dme recipe experimenting but still do AG 90min boils most the time.

 

[dmtaylor]

You know what Dave?

I think that admirable Trappist inspired beers are achievable with extract as well. For beers that are hopped so lightly, they typically get pegged as malt showcases, but what they really are are yeast showcases.

I love my all grain Trappist recipes but I don’t think I’d have an issue converting them to extract and still loving the results.

More power to that, man! Sounds great to me. I haven't brewed all extract for quite some time... maybe I should give it a whirl with WLP550 or whatever.

 

[Big Monk]

More power to that, man! Sounds great to me. I haven't brewed all extract for quite some time... maybe I should give it a whirl with WLP550 or whatever.

Neither have I but I have too much Dad stuff to do lately and I’m not going to be able to do an AG brew for some time.

I’d rather brew some extract than not brew at all. Of course I’ll apply my usual rigor even to that.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I wonder why breweries using hop extract is innovative and exciting, but using malt extract is cheating and lesser.

 

[Big Monk]

I wonder why breweries using hop extract is innovative and exciting, but using malt extract is cheating and lesser.

It sure is an expensive form of cheating if that’s the case!

I’ve wanted to get my hands on Weyermann malt extracts for a while but I don’t believe you can get it in the states.

 

[applescrap]

It wont be long. I have 5 more gallons of light lager left, and 7 pounds of gp left. I am probably going to use that 7 pounds for the colonial brown. 7 pounds gp and 7 pounds brown malt with 1 pound biscuit. This recipe is mouthwatering.

 

[Mic Carp]

I see a lot of talk about the cost of extract vs all-grain. how much does the equipment cost to do all-grain? I am into my kettles (all stainless), burner and fermenter buckets (around 6) for a total of about $200 max. if I spent $500 on gear, it would take me about 50 brews to break even. does that sound abot right?
meanwhile, I love the beers i brew using LME or DME and so do all my friends. and really don't we all brew to drink better beer than the big 3 produce and get a few atta-boys from our friends?

I think there is no better way to brew, only better for you!

 

[myelo]

I see a lot of talk about the cost of extract vs all-grain. how much does the equipment cost to do all-grain?

For me it was $3.10. Oh yeah, plus tax. That's what I paid for my paint strainer bag that I bought so I could do all grain BIAB. I already had my brew pot that I use on my kitchen propane stove.

If I did my ciphering correctly, I broke even about half way into my first all-grain brew. When this bag gives out I'm dreaming of getting me one of them fancy WeiserBrewer bags like they have in the big cities ... but so far the damn paint strainer bag keeps working fine.

 

[kh54s10]

As myelo said, it depends on how you want to tackle the transition to all grain. I went with a three vessel system and didn't spend $500. $100 for 2 ten gallon kettles (Craigslist find), $45 for a cooler, $75 for valves etc. $75 for burners, Maybe $75 for everything else. Approximately $370

If batch size is not a concern $20 for a 5 gallon pot and $5 for 5 gallon paint strainer bags.

Your $40 extract kit costs approximately $25 in all grain. Possibly even less.

Plus you more control over the recipe. You are not always sure what goes into making the extract.

 

[NGD]

Your $40 extract kit costs approximately $25 in all grain. Possibly even less.

I get your point here but wanted to clarify the word “kit”. Most all grain recipe kits are only a few dollars less than their extract counterparts..at least from Midwest and NB.

Few examples:
Karma Citra IPA Extract: $37.99
Karma Citra IPA All grain: $33.99

Dragons Silk imperial Stout Extract: $67.99
Dragons Silk imperial Stout all grain: $59.99

Most recipe kits are under a $10 difference, many only being $3-4. When you buy ingredients in bulk then the saving will become much more significant.

 

[Apimyces]

6lb of LME costs about 27,00$CAD, which is about 20,17$USD. Add a few bucks of hops and some yeast, and you've got a decent brew totaling something around 25$USD or so.

I was seriously considering going all grain, for some time, but I started trying to brew without boiling it, and so far, so good, and if that keeps up, I'll just ditch the all-grain project completely. Foregoing kits, picking LME and hops already gives a lot of flexibility in recipe making. At most, adding a partial-mash with specialty grains allows a bit more, without needing as much fuss. Heck, they can be cold-steeped, possibly avoiding boiling altogether, or at most boiled in smaller volumes with the bittering hops (despite the lower effectiveness this is likely to cause).

Also, of course transitioning to something is gonna be cheap if you already own everything. But that's fudging the numbers, in reality, it's not free, you just already happened to have paid for it. For example, I could say my whole brewing setup was free! I didn't need to spend a penny when I started making beer despite my 50 gallon or so capacity! But in reality, I've been brewing mead for a while, so I just already had a ton of stuff. No kettles, though, or anything relating to boiling. So no heat-able pump, no valves, no chiller of any sort, no false bottom, etc.

In reality, someone can brew complex recipes with just simple food-grade plastic pails, a few feet of tubing, some recycled bottles, caps, and a small kettle. For the cost of the LME+hops+yeast+adjuncts. While on the other hand, I don't see many people doing all-grain who don't have multiple large kettles, something for the sparge, heat-tolerant pumps, chillers, fairly efficient filtration equipment, lots of tubing, lots of valves, temperature monitoring and control, burners (typically propane), etc., etc., etc.

Obviously if you already have all that, the incentive to switch to all grain is greater.

But the main cost saver is simply to avoid kits, and to make one's own recipe, especially if you can bulk-size your ingredient purchases. Avoiding frivolously premium ingredients, such as patented hops, can also help save a few bucks off every brew.

 

[Steveruch]

That is what I did a month ago. While not my best beer it turned out okay.
Did to my current living arrangement that is going to be how I brew for a while.

It was one extract, and a small amount of hops. I did a second batch with three different extracts and way more hops (6 different varieties) and it was way better. I now have a stout in the fermenter that used three extracts and one hop with some specialty grains; the hydrometer sample tasted pretty good.

 

[kh54s10]

I get your point here but wanted to clarify the word “kit”. Most all grain recipe kits are only a few dollars less than their extract counterparts..at least from Midwest and NB.

Few examples:
Karma Citra IPA Extract: $37.99
Karma Citra IPA All grain: $33.99

Dragons Silk imperial Stout Extract: $67.99
Dragons Silk imperial Stout all grain: $59.99

Most recipe kits are under a $10 difference, many only being $3-4. When you buy ingredients in bulk then the saving will become much more significant.

Fair. But I haven't done a kit, extract, partial mash or all grain for almost 7 years. The bigger savings are by buying grain in larger, discounted quantities. Then add buying 4 ounce or 1 pound packages of hops, reusing yeast, and you can see a big savings.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

You are not always sure what goes into making the extract.

While one may not always be absolutely certain about the base malts used for specific types of extract (for example Amber DME), a lot of good information has shown up at manufacturer web sites. With this current information, I'm able to brew an enjoyable amber ale with ... wait for it ... Amber DME.

But I haven't done a kit, extract, partial mash or all grain for almost 7 years.

It would appear that there have been some meaningful changes in information about DME and quality of DME since 2015.

That being said, please continue promote the positive aspects of "all grain" brewing. I BIAB when I need a specific wort composition that I can't get from DME. I also know that I can brew many enjoyable beers with DME.

And, with small batches (2.5 gal or less), it doesn't have to be either "extract" or "all grain", it can be both.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

It was one extract, and a small amount of hops. I did a second batch with three different extracts and way more hops (6 different varieties) and it was way better. I now have a stout in the fermenter that used three extracts and one hop with some specialty grains; the hydrometer sample tasted pretty good.

Three extracts!?! Which ones?

I have a recipe (that I will brew again) that was 50% Munich DME and 50% Vienna DME. It's a fun beer - doesn't really fit any specific style - so I won't say much more about it at this time.

 

[kh54s10]

My last couple replies were about how you can save with all grain as opposed to extract. Especially if you talk extract kits to bulk bought all grain.

I occasionally brew with extract. I usually use Briess golden light DME and steep specialty grains for color and flavor. I have a hard time distinguishing any difference between my extract and all grain beers.

The way I use extract, it really just replaces the base malt for all grain. And steeping instead of mashing.

 

[Apimyces]

You can save a lot by foregoing kits and buying bulk, regardless of whether you use extract or grain.

Issue with bulk though is conservation of ingredients, unless you drink a lot.

 

[Mic Carp]

I am excited to say I just bought a larger (15 Gallon) kettle and an immersion chiller. I am goin BIAG all-grain. By this time next week I will have brewed my first batch.
My biggest concern was chilling. with extract, I always did a partial boil then poured over ice in the fermenter to quickly chill and add fill water at the same time. it actually worked really well. the problem is with LME the colors are always so dark. I made a Kolsch that tasted pretty good, but looked closer to a brown ale than a pilsner/lager. even my creme ales and blondes are on the darker side. I have a Hefe in the fermenter and in steeping the specialty grains I was optimistic that this would be the lightest beer to date, (since 2010), but once the extract was added to the boil, my hopes were dashed.

So, in order to have more control over ll aspects of my brewing, I am steppin it up a notch.

just remember, fun is the best thing to have

 

[Immocles]

My first all grain pale ale was significantly lighter than its extract counterparts. Recently made the switch to stovetop biab from extract as well. I don’t see myself ever completely switching though. The shorter, simpler brew day is too convenient sometimes. And I’ve had great experiences with the results.

Agree that the darker colors are a bit of a disappointment. I primarily used DME but still frowned a bit at the color. I’ve generally been very pleased with taste, but it turns off a lot of my friends as they’re concerned it’s a ‘darker beer’. Usually change their minds once they take a swig though.

 

[NGD]

I am excited to say I just bought a larger (15 Gallon) kettle and an immersion chiller. I am goin BIAG all-grain. By this time next week I will have brewed my first batch.
My biggest concern was chilling. with extract, I always did a partial boil then poured over ice in the fermenter to quickly chill and add fill water at the same time. it actually worked really well. the problem is with LME the colors are always so dark. I made a Kolsch that tasted pretty good, but looked closer to a brown ale than a pilsner/lager. even my creme ales and blondes are on the darker side. I have a Hefe in the fermenter and in steeping the specialty grains I was optimistic that this would be the lightest beer to date, (since 2010), but once the extract was added to the boil, my hopes were dashed.

So, in order to have more control over ll aspects of my brewing, I am steppin it up a notch.

just remember, fun is the best thing to have

Dude, congrats the the new equipment. Curious as to what immersion cooler you ended up with.

Sure you’ve probably done this already, but if you decide to try extract again I’d go with the short boil method. The max boil time I do now is 30 min. It not only shortened my brew day but made my brews notably lighter. My house beer is a Belgian blonde and it lightened up nicely. I plan on trying a small batch BIAB to compare the color against in a few months. Hope to report back the difference

Congrats again. Look forward to seeing the results of switching to BIAB.

 

[Immocles]

+1 on shorter boil. 30 is my standard as well.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Another +1 for shorter boil times with extract.

Is anyone brewing with 15 minute boils (15-Minute Pale Ale, one-hour extract brew)? I tried it once, was happy with the results, but got "distracted" by BBR's "Hop Sampler" approach (basically a "1 minute boil" and a ambient temperature cool down) and by "No-Boil Recipes! New for 2019!" and similar "hop steep" approaches.

 

[Immocles]

I did one 15m pale ale. I liked the beer, mostly, but it was bordering on too hoppy for my tastes. Definitely seemed like it’d be successful though

 

[Immocles]

Unrelatedly, those hop sampler podcasts are both informative and hilarious.

 

[kh54s10]

I never tried a short boil but I use only light DME for extract, 1/2 at 60 minutes and 1/2 at flameout. I use steeping grains in a way that is a little lighter than would be normal. My extracts are darker than a similar all grain, but only a little.

 

[Mic Carp]

It never occurred to me to go shorter boils but i have tried adding LME late in the boil with not much difference.
As for the chiller. I went pretty big. Because well it’s bigger! Haha

 

[Alex4mula]

I get your point here but wanted to clarify the word “kit”. Most all grain recipe kits are only a few dollars less than their extract counterparts..at least from Midwest and NB.

Few examples:
Karma Citra IPA Extract: $37.99
Karma Citra IPA All grain: $33.99

Dragons Silk imperial Stout Extract: $67.99
Dragons Silk imperial Stout all grain: $59.99

Most recipe kits are under a $10 difference, many only being $3-4. When you buy ingredients in bulk then the saving will become much more significant.

This is true for my local store (AHB). I just bought my first all grain kit to brew next week after doing 9 extract. For $4 less it is not worth the whole extra effort but I will see if taste is much better. I’m brewing the same amber I did one month ago which was one of my best. Buying grain in bulk is where the savings are plus flexibility of doing your own I guess.

 

[NGD]

I never tried a short boil but I use only light DME for extract, 1/2 at 60 minutes and 1/2 at flameout. I use steeping grains in a way that is a little lighter than would be normal. My extracts are darker than a similar all grain, but only a little.

I’m sure you’ve seen me say it before on another thread; unless you need 60min to utilize the hops for some reason there is no need for that long of a boil to the best of my knowledge. My understanding is your essentially reconstituting wort to isomerize hop oil at a certain efficiency using extract. You could probably even shorted the brew day even more by buying already isomerized hop oils like this https://www.steamhops.com/

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

unless you need 60min to utilize the hops for some reason

Recently, I listened to BeerSmith podcast #189 (Hops and IPAs with Stan Hieronymus). There are some interesting ideas on how boil time can yield different "types" of bitterness.

 

[NGD]

Recently, I listened to BeerSmith podcast #189 (Hops and IPAs with Stan Hieronymus). There are some interesting ideas on how boil time can yield different "types" of bitterness.

Thanks for the reference. I’ll check it out

 

[Steveruch]

Three extracts!?! Which ones?

I have a recipe (that I will brew again) that was 50% Munich DME and 50% Vienna DME. It's a fun beer - doesn't really fit any specific style - so I won't say much more about it at this time.

I used (briess) golden light, pale ale, and munich.