Coopers Canadian Blonde - to spray malt or not?

[thecosmicfrog]

Hi there. Glad to be a member of the forums.

I've made four or five brews so far and am looking to start the Coopers Canadian Blonde. On the kit it says I need to use the Coopers Brew Enhancer 1 (70 Dextrose:30 Maltodextrin) but I only have light spray malt and dextrose in the house.

My question is whether or not I should use spray malt in conjunction with the dextrose for my brew, or should I just use dextrose on its own? Is there any call to add spray malt in place of the maltodextrin that is recommended?

Also - it specifies to use 1kg of Brew Enhancer 1. How much dextrose (or dextrose/spray malt mix) should I use in place of this?

Many thanks.

 

[thecosmicfrog]

Sorry to bump this, but hoping to start the lager in the next hour and would really appreciate an opinion

 

[william_shakes_beer]

What is spray malt? I've heard or LME and DME but never spray malt.

 

[Tossie]

For my latest brew (Muntons Export Stout) I used 1KG extra light spraymalt on it's own. You could use 1KG spraymalt and 500g dextrose. I'm no expert though

 

[unionrdr]

We call it DME (Dried Malt Extract). They use a spray process to dry it into a powder. I'd go with some DME with say,300g of dextrose to keep it a little dry on the finish. Maltodextrin is a long chain sugar that will mostly not ferment,increasing mouth feel. It'll only ferment about 5% of the total added.

 

[aidan]

To answer the original question, yes it will help your beer to use the spray malt (DME), so I would recommend you to do so. Better to add malt than dextrose but nothing wrong with a little bit of dextrose too. If you have 1kg of malt you can substitute that for the beer enhancer and it should give you a better result. The maltodextrin is mostly unfermentable but the DME is mostly fermentable so just a straight substitute of 300g DME for the Maltodex would not give the same effect as it would not have nearly as much unfermentables. I've never used maltodex myself and it's certainly not a required ingredient.

 

[thecosmicfrog]

Many thanks for all the replies. Fortunately I got roped into something else yesterday so I haven't started the lager yet. This feedback is really useful. I think I'll definitely go with the spraymalt/DME.

Cheers

 

[unionrdr]

Your flavors & aromas will def be better. Just remember to balance the extra malt with some more hops.