How much DME can you dissolve in 1 gallon of water?

[kaj030201]

Can you do 3+ lbs. in 1 gallon of water? At what point does the sugar content become too concentrated?

 

[homebrewer_99]

I'm not sure, but I've done 7 lbs of DME in 1 gal of warm water.

Be sure to add it 1 lb at a time and dissolve before adding the next lb.

 

[the_bird]

Remember, the higher the gravity of the wort you're boiling, the lesser the hops utilization. You can add extract near the end of the boil (it just needs to be boiled for ~10 minutes to be sanitized) to overcome this. That'll also keep the color a bit lighter.

 

[Funkenjaeger]

What do you think the difference is between liquid malt extract and dry malt extract? Some water.

I would expect you could keep adding dry extract to water until you got it just as syrupy as you wanted, so I guess it would depend on what your definition of "too concentrated" is.

What exactly are you trying to achieve here?

 

[david_42]

The SG of LME is about 1.450, so roughly 10 pounds.

 

[kaj030201]

Some great responses here- thanks! All I am really trying to do here is raise the OG of an imperial stout. I need to add about a quart of super-concentrated wort at a time- trying to get the full batch OG up to about 1.185 or so. The batch is currently 2 gallons at 1.125, so 4 1qt additions of 1.280 should leave me really close to 1.185. Question is, will it ferment out fully??? Its going nicely so far...

 

[homebrewer_99]

Your question was kind of deceptive...

If you are intending on brewing a big beer in a small pot you should really look into the late addition technique and add the majority of the malt after flame out instead of adding it all to the small pot. Your hop utilization will go way down with that much malt.

I add 1 lb of malt to 1.5 gals of water...my total boil. This keeps the boil gravity around 1.040 and has a very high bitterness extraction level.

 

[sirsloop]

I've put in over 15# of fermentables in ~3 gallons of water and it was fine, 13.3# of that was LME. The OG of that brew was 1.100.

 

[kaj030201]

Your question was kind of deceptive...

If you are intending on brewing a big beer in a small pot you should really look into the late addition technique and add the majority of the malt after flame out instead of adding it all to the small pot. Your hop utilization will go way down with that much malt.

I add 1 lb of malt to 1.5 gals of water...my total boil. This keeps the boil gravity around 1.040 and has a very high bitterness extraction level.

I may have worded my question in a confusing manner- sorry. Right now in the primary is 2 gallons of wort at ~1.12. I will be fermenting it for a day or 2 then adding concentrated wort 1 qt at a time for sake of not overwhelming the yeast. I plan to end up with 3 gallons of ~1.175 wort, fermenting down to 1.040, coming it at roughly 17-18%. Thats why I need to make such a concentrated wort.

 

[wilserbrewer]

A quart of lme (6lbs) contains roughly the equiv. of 4.8 lbs of DME. Using this as a guide, 19-20 lbs of DME/gallon. I would think the water would need to be pretty warm to do this?? I would use a double boiler to avoid scorching if I really wanted to max out. Too heavy and you will have trouble mixing it in the fermenter?
Mike

 

[wailingguitar]

Thread rez!

I have a question similar to the OP. I have not used DME in a partial boil in probably 17 or 18 years and am not sure how to proceed. I need to bump up the gravity of a 2 bbl batch in our brewery (long story) and need to add a BUNCH of DME while adding the least amount of volume possible. Was wondering what you all think the greatest number of #s DME per gallon of water is that will still be manageable when mixing/heating? Hop extraction is a non issue as the beer in question is already thoroughly hopped, just needs a fermentable boost.

 

[Bosh]

Remember, the higher the gravity of the wort you're boiling, the lesser the hops utilization. You can add extract near the end of the boil (it just needs to be boiled for ~10 minutes to be sanitized) to overcome this. That'll also keep the color a bit lighter.

That's what I`ve been doing. Read that boiling thr hops in plain water leads to astringent tastes. Haven`t noticed that so far but am thinking I`ll add a bit for DME at the start of the boil to give me a low gravity wort and the rest at the end just to be sure.

Or better yet, get off my lazy ass and start doing BIAB.

 

[wailingguitar]

Of course, in my case, as I said the utilization factor is a non-issue. Just looking for an idea of how much DME I can realistically dissolve /gallon

 

[wailingguitar]

Thread rez!

I have a question similar to the OP. I have not used DME in a partial boil in probably 17 or 18 years and am not sure how to proceed. I need to bump up the gravity of a 2 bbl batch in our brewery (long story) and need to add a BUNCH of DME while adding the least amount of volume possible. Was wondering what you all think the greatest number of #s DME per gallon of water is that will still be manageable when mixing/heating? Hop extraction is a non issue as the beer in question is already thoroughly hopped, just needs a fermentable boost.

Anyone have an idea?

 

[Yooper]

Anyone have an idea?

No, no clue at all. I'm picturing sugar, though, and I can dissolve pounds and pounds of sugar in a gallon of warm/hot water (like when I make wine). A pure wild guess would be 7-8 pounds or so per gallon. That is completely unscientific, and just a memory from me adding sugar to water on my stove to boost the OG of a wine.

 

[azazel1024]

Depends on the sugar.

Sucrose is 2kg per liter at 25C. That means you can dissolve about 16lbs of table sugar in to 1 gallon of water. Please note, it would take a long time to fully disolve that amount of sugar at that temperature (my guess would be several hours while constantly agitating the mixture, really anything when you are dissolving close to the solubility limit).

Maltose is 1.08kg per liter at 20C, or about half the solubility. So, roughly 8lbs per gallon of water. Also again, this is going to take awhile. For a temperature of 89C I found around 350 grams per 100 grams of water. That means you could dissolve about 30lbs of maltose in to 1 gallon of water.

However, super saturated solution (IE at room temperature, it would be more highly saturated than what it could normally hold), so it WILL begin to crystalize out of solution once the temperature is reduced, even if only slowly. So once cooled, you may have some percipitation issues as well as when mixing in with the current batch.

My suggestion is, you do not exceed 8lbs DME per gallon, or if you do, do not exceed it by much. Also of course only mix near a boil to maximize how quickly it'll dissolve in to solution.

 

[wailingguitar]

Thanks Yoop and Az, that helped!

 

[edroberts]

However, super saturated solution (IE at room temperature, it would be more highly saturated than what it could normally hold), so it WILL begin to crystalize out of solution once the temperature is reduced, even if only slowly. So once cooled, you may have some percipitation issues as well as when mixing in with the current batch.

Dangle a string in, cover it, and cool. Malt rock candy. :fro:

 

[azazel1024]

Dangle a string in, cover it, and cool. Malt rock candy. :fro:

Only cool if you have at least hopped the super saturated solution fir....

Oh crap, I am TOTALLY going to try to do this now.

I know, I know, it is no actual beer candy, but I really want to try to make hopped rock candy now.