Extract base brewing help

[BeardsAndBeer]

Hey all, I'm a total newbie at brewing and other than the coopers draught I've got brewing at the moment, I have zero experience. I've heard it a thousand times that before advancing past extract brewing I should do a number of basic extract brews. Unfortunately brewing beer straight from a tin limits the control over taste, what I want to do is use an extract for a base and brew my own beer according to MY taste, but I have no idea how... If someone has the time and patients to explain the whole process of brewing using an extract as a base that'd be awesome! As I said I don't know anything at all so I'll need to know ingredients, temps, water amounts, brewing time etc.

I know it's allot of info I'm asking for but I've looked everywhere and can't understand anything until someone can explain it to me, thanks to all who can and are willing to help.

 

[wailingguitar]

It's incredibly simple. To have the max amount of control with an extract base you would start with the lightest possible malt extract, get crushed specialty grains appropriate to your style, steep them in the hot water prior to adding the extract, bring the temp up ad extract and hops at appropriate times and you're done. I would recommend, if you don't already have it, Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing. IMO, it does a great job of holding your hand through the process and has lots of appropriate recipes so that you can see the evolution of the step up from extract only, to extract/steeping to partial mash and ultimately all grain brewing. It is somewhat dated in some ways, but people were brewing award winning beers for a long time using nothing more than that one book.

 

[progmac]

brewing an extract recipe with specialty grains. everyone does this a bit differently. a general process:

1. fill a 3-5 gallon pot 2/3 full
2. add specialty grains when the water is 160 degrees, take off heat, cover, and wait 30 minutes
3. remove specialty grains from pot - your water is now called wort
4. bring to boil (don't cover)
5. remove pot from heat
6. add extract, slowly while stirring
7. bring to boil, will boil for 1 hour (don't cover)
8. add bittering hops
9. fifteen minutes before end of 1 hour boil, add flavor hops (or per recipe)
10.five minutes before end of boil, add aroma hops (or per recipe)
11.at end of 60 minute boil, remove pot from heat, put in sink pre-filled with tap water
12.after 20 minutes, drain sink, add tap water and all the ice you have
13.after 20 more minutes, check temperature.
14.when temperature is less than 80 degrees, pour into sanitized bucket/carboy
15.top up with clean water to achieve five gallons
16.cover and wait

i didn't add sanitation procedures to this because it muddies the process. just make sure that anything that touches the wort after the boil is sanitized.

 

[Jay1]

It seems overwhelming at first but it's really easy.

Get an extract recipe off the forum.

Fill your boil pot up and heat to 160.
Steep (make tea) the grains in 150deg water for 30min.
Drink a beer.
Hold your grain bag up flush it with 160deg water and throw it away.
Dump your extract and stir in real well.
Light the fire!
Pop another beer.
Get your boil stable then start your timer and first hop additions.
Twiddle your thumbs or.... Get another beer.
Add hops as directed.
Cool wort to 70 or so, take a hydrometer reading and dump it in the ferment or.
Pitch yeast.
Wait.
Carbonate.
Wait.
Drink.

Just like everyones first time, it takes away the nervousness to have a couple beers on board and you'll perform better.

 

[ChandlerBang]

The easiest way to get your feet wet with good beers is to do an extract kit. Not Brewer's Best or some other crap that has sat on a shelf for lord knows how long. Something from Austin HomeBrew Supply www.austinhomebrew.com or another similar highly reputable supplier. You can pick a recipe that matches your tastes pretty well then select if you want LME, DME, partial mash or all grain. The kit comes with very nice instructions.

 

[Pappers_]

Or read Section Two at www.howtobrew.com which will run you through a recipe for brewing with extract and specialty grains. One of the very best primers out there for new brewers.

 

[Indianhead_Brewer]

Go to Northern Brewer and look at their extract kits, it is great because they give their recipes online as a PDF. Just find a kit that sounds good to you, click on the link, go to the "Additional Information" tab in the detail view and voila! a recipe for you to work off of. Here's an example of their Black IPA w/ specialty grains recipe (http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/BlackIPA.pdf)

+1 for reading Palmer's "How to Brew". It really is a great for primer for any brewer.