Mixing Liquid Malt Extract and DME... any advice?

[BeardStorm]

Hi all

I'm following a malt extract recipe (for a California Blonde) and the recipe calls for 3.6 kg of LME.

My LME comes in 1.5 kg cans so I'm 600g short. Can I make up the shortfall with DME? (I happen to have a bag of the stuff for yeasts cultures).

If so, do I just use 600g or is there a conversion?

Or would this compromise the quality of my brew and I'd be better off using less and accepting that my beer will be slightly less strong?

Thanks in advance!

 

[davidabcd]

Yes. .84 X 600g to get 480g of dme. you won't compromise your batch.
edited 08.01.18: I was sure I put a link to "Brewer's Friend" which has a DME to LME and LME to DME calculator. Anyway, it can be Googled.

 

[BeardStorm]

Oh no way!? I can't believe it's that simple! Thanks!

 

[TwistedGray]

You'll find some kits may include both liquid and dry malt extracts.

 

[davidabcd]

You'll find some kits may include both liquid and dry malt extracts.

Yeah, I wouldn't change them necessarily if I didn't have to. But in a pinch....

 

[davidabcd]

You're welcome, glad to help.

 

[RM-MN]

Hi all

I'm following a malt extract recipe (for a California Blonde) and the recipe calls for 3.6 kg of LME.

My LME comes in 1.5 kg cans so I'm 600g short. Can I make up the shortfall with DME? (I happen to have a bag of the stuff for yeasts cultures).

If so, do I just use 600g or is there a conversion?

Or would this compromise the quality of my brew and I'd be better off using less and accepting that my beer will be slightly less strong?

Thanks in advance!

Sure there is a conversion as mentioned above by Davidabcd but if you didn't do the conversion and used the 600g you would still make beer. It would be a slight amount stronger but unless you had the two beers side by side, you probably wouldn't know the difference. Beer making is quite forgiving and a slight change to the recipe won't matter a whole lot.

 

[tri_clamp_ninja]

Sure there is a conversion as mentioned above by Davidabcd but if you didn't do the conversion and used the 600g you would still make beer. It would be a slight amount stronger but unless you had the two beers side by side, you probably wouldn't know the difference. Beer making is quite forgiving and a slight change to the recipe won't matter a whole lot.

Well said and something that many people forget when they start to overthink things. Even for me on the commercial/professional brewing side, I have encountered many pro brewers who lose their mind if their post boil gravity is low by 0.001 and will try to do quick math for very small DME addition to throw in during whirlpool to make up that og difference when the final result (at worst) will be an abv reduction of 0.01% tops which will not at all change the flavor profile and is still within legal "bounds" for variance of beer you are selling.

 

[ncbrewer]

You probably already know, but use the same type of extract - e.g. light, if that's what is called for.