LME same as Malt Enhancer?

[beecher]

hi

New to homebrewing (brewed my first batch three weeks ago, planning my second one now) and my question is as the title says, can I replace a LME with a Malt Enhancer or not? What are the differences? My second brew will be a Session IPA (around 4.7% abv) fyi

many more questions to follow in the next days, be prepared


thank you!

 

[JayEff]

I had never heard of Malt Enhancer before, but from what I'm reading it's different than malt extract in that it's part malt extract and part sugar (dextrose or sucrose). Sugar ferments cleanly, not adding any flavor to the beer, just raising the ABV, while the malt extract adds body and mouthfeel without adding much in terms of flavor.

It's meant to be used for beer kits or recipes where usually, plain table sugar is added to boost the OG. In these kits you can replace table sugar with malt enhancer to improve the flavor of the beer. That's at least how I understand it.

What's your recipe? Are you using a beer kit, if so, which one, and what are the ingredients?

I believe using pure malt enhancer would cause you to have less body (compared to using only DME/LME, no added sugar) as it's not pure malt extract. This way, the malt enhancer would do the opposite of what it's supposed to. Depending on what your recipe or beer kit is, I'd go with dry malt extract rather than malt enhancer, as I find DME more convenient than LME and both produce the same results, according to most people here.

So, no, don't replace malt extract (dry or liquid) with malt enhancer. You can replace sugar with malt enhancer, if the recipe calls for sugar, if you want to.