• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

LME and DME why?

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Alamo_Beer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2006
Messages
2,436
Reaction score
16
Location
Manor, Tx
Why do some recipes call for both liquid extract and dry extract?

I just ordered the ingredients for a mild ale http://byo.com/feature/1279.html (last one)

It calls for 3lb of lme and 1lb of dme....I ordered what it said I'm just wondering why?

Couldn't you just use a bit more LME how much I'm not sure of but would this change anything?

Thanks guys
 
You're right...if they are both the same, i.e., light LME and DME, then there is not difference except in the weight department. With different weights in malt you'll have to re-calculate your hops.

Translate it with a grain of your own intelligence. Could be that's all they had on hand when they brewed it. :D

Write this down...you'll need it in the future:

1 lb grain = .75 lb LME = .6 lb DME
 
cool.....I'm at work so I just wrote it on a post-it....sweet

I ordered both extra light extracts....didn't say in the recipe what color (IE:amber, pale, extra light...) So I figured extra light would be good for both.

thanks
 
A lot of extract recipes that I've see with both DME and LME, the amount of the LME is usually equal to the amount that you would get in one or two "standard" sized cans. You'll see DME added if some additional extract is needed, but not enough for a full extra can of LME. It's easier to save a partial package of DME than LME.

And yeah, I know, you can buy LME in bulk, which would make this point moot - but I would have to believe most people buy LME by the can.
 
makes since....AHB (where I ordered from) sells by the LB so I ordered 3lb of LME and 1lb of DME.

If I did this next time would it be wise to order like 4lb of LME bc it calls for 3.3lb in the first place or 3lb and 8oz..

Thanks guys
 
poetic_entropy said:
Spokane here and all is well the the zags

well sort of

..........

How ARE they doing this year? Last I heard, they were sucking pretty bad (I don't follow college hoops until March).
 
greenhornet said:
...makes sense...If I did this next time would it be wise to order like 4lb of LME bc it calls for 3.3lb in the first place or 3lb and 8oz...
Uh, No Beavis!!! It does not make sense to order 4 lbs of LME...OK, if you are financially unable and you're on the pay-as-you-brew-plan.

When you mail order LME you are paying to ship WATER...DME is powder and relatively lesser weight.

Translate the LME to DME and then order what you need. You may want to consider bulk also.

I purchase my DME in 55 lb boxes for about $140 (about $2.55/lb not counting shipping). :D
 
Thanks butthead...

at ahb the shipping is a flat 5.99

and their lme doesn't get that much cheaper if you buy in bulk.. only 2.25 per pound when you buy 40lb compared to 2.49 per lb normally.

and DME is 3.99 no matter how much you order.....

Plus I am sorta on the pay-as-you-brew plan (stupid college job)

Where do you buy in bulk from?

Thanks
 
When I did extacts, I would use LME only if it was really specific to the recipe and a specific brand was called for. For instance, I did a bock using Bierkeller LME - an imported German extract. I figured it was chosen b/c it was malted from German grain - maybe a Pilsener. I did a cream ale and APA using an American LME - either Breiss or Northwestern - b/c they are made from American malt.

The only DME I see for sale in the LHBSs around here is Munton's from the UK. So, if I was doing any kind of beer British style of beer - IPA, Bitter, etc., I'd substitute DME for the LME using the same conversion formula HB99 gave you.

Not saying my way is the right way. In fact, IMHO, I think using all-DME will give you a cleaner tasting beer.
 
The reason you might sometimes use 2 types of *ME, is because more often then not, LME is comprised of water, malt and yes... dextrose! This issue has been discussed before, and the problem with 90% of LME is that they add refined sugar to reduce the costs of LME. You can ship a hell of a lot more LME with sugar in it, as you wont know. However, buy a bag of DME and all the refined sugar will settle in the bag, making it damn obvious its 50% sugar.

Secondly, DME is great for giving your brew a nice mouthfeel, as refined sugars like dextrose tend to make a beer watery, poor head retention etc etc. So using 3 cans of LME will NOT produce the same as 2 cans LME and how ever much DME, as the DME is there to aleviate some of the refined sugars in the LME and give you a nice body and head.

Then why not use all DME? most brewers do use DME and avoid LME purely for the fact that LME is prone to go stale, prone to have dextrose to thin the costs of the LME (no pun intended)... but! if you use all DME, you have to do a full boil, as DME is unhopped. Where as an LME can be hopped... so you use 2 cans of LME to get yourself the nice hopped flavour without having to do a full boil, and you use the DME (un hopped) just added to the ferment to give your beer a bit more character...

thats my 2 cents!

:mug:
 
I used DME for the first time this weekend for my starter, then dumped the rest into my cream ale. Seems like it is way easier to work with. Once I get back to WA state and can buy a 3# bag for less than $13.00, or order in bulk I will probably switch to it exclusively.

My LHBS puts LME into plastic bags, and I never seem to be able to fully get it out. I'm probably being a bit anal, as I am sure there is only a couple of ounces left, but I hate to waste anything. Plus it comes out of a 55 gal drum and I wonder, since I rarely see anyone in the store how long a drum that big has been there.
 
Kadmium said:
...if you use all DME, you have to do a full boil, as DME is unhopped...

I do partial boils using strictly DME all the time. I add the hops in the amount that the recipes call for and my beers have turned out great. In fact, that is the first time I've heard that before.

I prefer DME over LME for several reasons. The only one not mentioned so far, I think, is that trying to heat up or scrape every bit of LME out of the can into the brew pot is a PITA.

Didn't know about the sugar added to LME...interesting.
 
desiderata said:
I do partial boils using strictly DME all the time. I add the hops in the amount that the recipes call for and my beers have turned out great. In fact, that is the first time I've heard that before.

I prefer DME over LME for several reasons. The only one not mentioned so far, I think, is that trying to heat up or scrape every bit of LME out of the can into the brew pot is a PITA.

Didn't know about the sugar added to LME...interesting.
You don't have to do a full boil, but not doing so will affect the color of your brew. BYO did a little test a couple of years ago - same recipe, different methods of boil, partial, full, split batch, topping off in the fermenter. All of the brews came out different colors - only the full boil came close to the color it was supposed to be, and even it was a tad darker.
 
sorry my mistake! got full boil mixed up meaning you need to boil the DME with hops :) did not mean to infer that you need to boil all 6 gallons at once hehe my bad! but yes, what DcBrewmeister said about doing full boils with DME WILL get you a more correct color. However late additions of DME will also achieve this, like at flame out. No need to really worry about a hotbreak, as most of those ingredients are eliminated during the malting process! LME is easy in the fact that you dump the can into fermenter, add hot water, stir then top up... EASY! DME is harder

:mug:
 
This is a very interesting thread to me. I have a couple of takes on it.

1. Most extract brewers in this forum seem to prefer dry malt extract over liquid. Yet, the two LHBS's I go to always want to sell LME. Most of the online ones seem to have a lot more LME than DME on their websites. Most extract recipes I see (not all, but most) seem to feature mostly LME.

2. Is this an accurate assessment: Tasters Choice instant powder vs. ground coffee: ick. Make that totally ick.

Frozen concentrate vs. fresh squeezed orange juice. Not as good as the fresh, but definitely not ick.

I could be way wrong, but to me it would seem that liquid malt extract is sort of concentrated wort that's sort of the same as orange juice concentrate. The dry would seem to be more like the instant coffee.
 
mmditter said:
This is a very interesting thread to me. I have a couple of takes on it.

Frozen concentrate vs. fresh squeezed orange juice. Not as good as the fresh, but definitely not ick.

I could be way wrong, but to me it would seem that liquid malt extract is sort of concentrated wort that's sort of the same as orange juice concentrate. The dry would seem to be more like the instant coffee.

The OJ analogy might be more to the point, except you have to remember that you're going to make SCREWDRIVERS with this OJ, and who CARES if the OJ was fresh squeezed or not?
Just my 2cents about his 2 cents about the other guy's 2 cents...
 
mmditter said:
2. Is this an accurate assessment: Tasters Choice instant powder vs. ground coffee: ick. Make that totally ick.

Frozen concentrate vs. fresh squeezed orange juice. Not as good as the fresh, but definitely not ick.

I could be way wrong, but to me it would seem that liquid malt extract is sort of concentrated wort that's sort of the same as orange juice concentrate. The dry would seem to be more like the instant coffee.


Completely the other way around. Think of it this way, LME is your instant coffee that has the milk powder and lots of cheap sugar added to it (IE, hop flavours = milk powder, cheap sugar = dextrose) its cheap, easy to ship, easy to sell, easy to use, and YES, it does get the job done.

DME is like ground coffee, you need a coffee machine, and you add your own milk (boil the hops with DME) this is more complex way of making "coffee" but still gets the job done relativley easy.

All grain, is like grinding the coffee yourself, frothing the milk yourself, and adding all sorts of flavouring syrups (specialty grains) to your "coffee"

DME is by far superior to LME, but LME is much easier to use, gets the job done well enough, but has more often then not cheap ingredients.

This is not to say that all LME is crap, for instance Coopers make a GREAT LME (the brewmasters range) which works very well. But, in the most part, the DME goes through less processing then the LME.

LME is essentially DME boiled up in a factory, they add the hops, boil it down, add a generous amount of dextrose to reduce costs, boost alc% etc etc, and yes it gets the job done, but its instant. If you take the time to boil your own DME, boil your own hops, and "froth your own milk" it will come out with a better body, flavour, feel and taste!
 
As long as we're clear, not every company pre-hops their LME. William's Brewing doesn't, for example. Experienced with all this I ain't, but I did want to weigh in and toss that into the ring. Not all LME is pre-hopped, and I do think that while some companies will cut corners, I'm sure some are a little more quality-minded.
 
Thanks Whelk, I was going to say that myself.

I agree that canned prehopped extract would probubly be pretty bad (never used the prehopped stuff).

But wouldn't buying LME from like ausitnhomebrew or williamsbrewing or something be pretty much on par with dme?
 
Like I said, not all LME is crap :)

This is not to say that all LME is crap, for instance Coopers make a GREAT LME (the brewmasters range) which works very well. But, in the most part, the DME goes through less processing then the LME.

And no, not all LME comes pre-hopped :D but like I said, you just cannot garuntee that what you are getting in an LME is pure malt! DME you can see the malt sugar, and any other sugar will seperate in the bag and sink to the bottom, showing you sugar is added, where an LME... well it all looks the same :)

but, like I said, not all LME is going to be bad, the main thing to look out for with an LME is getting a FRESH AS POSSIBLE can, and a well trusted, proven result brand :)
 
Kadmium said:
The reason you might sometimes use 2 types of *ME, is because more often then not, LME is comprised of water, malt and yes... dextrose! This issue has been discussed before, and the problem with 90% of LME is that they add refined sugar to reduce the costs of LME. You can ship a hell of a lot more LME with sugar in it, as you wont know. However, buy a bag of DME and all the refined sugar will settle in the bag, making it damn obvious its 50% sugar.

...

thats my 2 cents!

:mug:

Where did you get that information? I've never seen anything anywhere about dextrose in LME, and all the sites I've seen it on say it is 100% malt. Are you claiming they're lying about it?
 
I would not claim that they lie about it, but less reputable companies can and do thin their LMEs with dextrose, or other refined sugars.
 
From every thing that I have seen or read the major difference in LME & DME is the fact that LME is 20% water. So you have to use more of it than DME (20% obviously). A couple other things i saw was that some people seemed to forget that Dried Malt Extract (DME) is just that Malt Extract. Just like LME they are essentially condenced wort (hopped or unhopped & they do make hopped dried extract). They are just processed differently. From reading the malt companies websites it looks like the Spray Dried malt is better as far as having the most fermentables, because of the drying method. What you really need to look at when dealing with dried malt is the moisture content. And for the boiling & color issues try putting your extract in the boil with 15 or 20 minutes left instead of boiling for the entire time. It helps to keep the sugars from carmalizing too much and turning brown. Really all you are trying to do with the extract is redisolve them back into your wort and sanitize it all.

Cheers
 
wop31 said:
(hopped or unhopped & they do make hopped dried extract)

Not to bust your balls or anything, but the drying out process of the malt (DME) kills any hop oils extracted... so no, you dont get hopped DME unless its refrigerated and has hops IN it (like pieces)....
 
Kadmium said:
I would not claim that they lie about it, but less reputable companies can and do thin their LMEs with dextrose, or other refined sugars.


Less reputable or more often than not?

Your previous posts seem to imply that the overwhelming majority of LME is mfg'd with dextrose and/or other refined sugars.
 
Back
Top