Using all DME

[Traingocnb]

Hi! I have not brewed for probably 20 years. Now, my wife wants a super light beer and I'm kind of interested in brewing with all DME. I'm thinking 4lbs light DME in 5 gal. of water ,with hops ,should give around 3.5/3.6 % ABV. The big question is , will it be fit to drink or am I making yellow alcoholic water? Should I just get a can (kit) of LME and go from there?
Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Welcome to HomebrewTalk!

 

[Jtvann]

You’ll be fine with all DME.

There’s opinions already if the type beer you’re shopping for isn’t exactly that. Yellow fizzy beer water.

If that what you’re intending to make though, there’s nothing wrong with it. If you’re shooting for a bud light ish beer, that’s similar to what you’ll get. If you’re expecting something more flavorful, not so much.

 

[BrewinInPA]

Thats good if she wants light as in flavor. If what she really wants is light in calories, you could brew a Stout.

 

[Traingocnb]

You’ll be fine with all DME.

There’s opinions already if the type beer you’re shopping for isn’t exactly that. Yellow fizzy beer water.

If that what you’re intending to make though, there’s nothing wrong with it. If you’re shooting for a bud light ish beer, that’s similar to what you’ll get. If you’re expecting something more flavorful, not so much.

"Bud,ish" is exactly what she wants. I also can't do much with hops as she smells everything she puts in her mouth and hates hop smell. Go figgure.
As long as it will be even vaguely similar to Bud/Coors I should be ok.
Thank you.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Now, my wife wants a super light beer and I'm kind of interested in brewing with all DME. I'm thinking 4lbs light DME in 5 gal. of water ,with hops ,should give around 3.5/3.6 % ABV

With DME, there are "light" products made with either Pilsen malt or "Two row" Brewers Malt. If you want to go as light as possible with just DME, find one that uses Pilsen malt. Here's an example of color (pre-boil vs post-boil) with Pilsen DME.

Brewers Friend recipe calculator estimates this at about 2 SRM which is pretty close to what I found. Oxidation after bottling may ave a noticeable impact on color.

The big question is , will it be fit to drink or am I making yellow alcoholic water?

What style of beer are you looking for?

Given a style, hops and yeast may be able to get you the flavor that you are looking for.

As long as it will be even vaguely similar to Bud/Coors I should be ok.

You might want to consider a noble (or nobish-hop) for bittering (Fuggle? Willamette?) to maybe 20 IBUs and a very neutral dry yeast (Nottingham?)

Good luck & let us know how it turns out.

 

[Traingocnb]

Thats good if she wants light as in flavor. If what she really wants is light in calories, you could brew a Stout.

She wants light in flavour, what I'd consider no flavour. I've brewed stouts, wouldn't consider them light, in anything.
Thanks.

 

[balrog]

"Hop smell" is excruciatingly broad, given all the pine/citrus/herbal/earthy/stonefruit hops out there.

 

[Traingocnb]

Welcome to HomebrewTalk!

Thank you !

 

[Traingocnb]

"Hop smell" is excruciatingly broad, given all the pine/citrus/herbal/earthy/stonefruit hops out there.

I realize that, but she is an odd little duck.

 

[Traingocnb]

With DME, there are "light" products made with either Pilsen malt or "Two row" Brewers Malt. If you want to go as light as possible with just DME, find one that uses Pilsen malt. Here's an example of color (pre-boil vs post-boil) with Pilsen DME.

Brewers Friend recipe calculator estimates this at about 2 SRM which is pretty close to what I found. Oxidation after bottling may ave a noticeable impact on color.


What style of beer are you looking for?

Given a style, hops and yeast may be able to get you the flavor that you are looking for.


You might want to consider a noble (or nobish-hop) for bittering (Fuggle? Willamette?) to maybe 20 IBUs and a very neutral dry yeast (Nottingham?)

Good luck & let us know how it turns out.

Thanks for the tip. If I'm not wrong, Bud lite is around 10 IBU ?
I'd like to aim for 15.

 

[NSMikeD]

does she like Blue Moon? That seems to be a popular beer for the millercoorsbud crowd. Wit beers are complex but lack the ABV and IBUs of the classic home brew beers and don't require the lagering of light beers. Northern brewer has an extract wit beer kit that looks good.

 

[Traingocnb]

does she like Blue Moon? That seems to be a popular beer for the millercoorsbud crowd. Wit beers are complex but lack the ABV and IBUs of the classic home brew beers and don't require the lagering of light beers. Northern brewer has an extract wit beer kit that looks good.

Never tried Blue moon. And shipping for Northern Brewer is prohibitive. We live in the eastern most part of Canada , right beside Nowhere. Selection here is limited.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I'd like to aim for 15.

A recipe calculator (like Brewers Friend) will help "dial in" the IBUs for the first attempt. There's also a search feature, so one can filter existing recipes by style ("American Light Lager") and method ("Extract"). There are also some threads here at HomebrewTalk that cover brewing this style of beer. A combination of the built in search and a 'google'/'duckduckgo' site specific search should turn up some good topics.

For ingredients, "Rice Syrup Solids" may be something to consider. I haven't used it, but it did show up in a couple of recipes over at Brewers Friend.

 

[Traingocnb]

A recipe calculator (like Brewers Friend) will help "dial in" the IBUs for the first attempt. There's also a search feature, so one can filter existing recipes by style ("American Light Lager") and method ("Extract"). There are also some threads here at HomebrewTalk that cover brewing this style of beer. A combination of the built in search and a 'google'/'duckduckgo' site specific search should turn up some good topics.

For ingredients, "Rice Syrup Solids" may be something to consider. I haven't used it, but it did show up in a couple of recipes over at Brewers Friend.

I did find a calculator at brewgr that I am using.
Thanks

 

[NSMikeD]

Never tried Blue moon. And shipping for Northern Brewer is prohibitive. We live in the eastern most part of Canada , right beside Nowhere. Selection here is limited.

you can easily look at the kit's ingredients and buy them directly. If the basic ingredients for a wit beer are not available, I'd find another hobby.

 

[Traingocnb]

Never tried Blue moon. And shipping for Northern Brewer is prohibitive. We live in the eastern most part of Canada , right beside Nowhere. Selection here is limited.

I just tried Northern Brewer. $106.00 for the kit with yeast and shipping.

 

[balrog]

I realize that, but she is an odd little duck.

My point is that if she doesn’t like hop smell/taste, and it’s the ipa type, then go with Saaz floral/spicey. If it’s the piney dank she dislikes, go with fruity Bergemot for orange w Amarillo. And if you just use 60m bittering hop, going for no hop presence at all, go w Magnum for least least flavor impact.

 

[balrog]

And try reading this for some ideas, but convert to DME

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/index.php?threads/123937/

 

[Traingocnb]

My point is that if she doesn’t like hop smell/taste, and it’s the ipa type, then go with Saaz floral/spicey. If it’s the piney dank she dislikes, go with fruity Bergemot for orange w Amarillo. And if you just use 60m bittering hop, going for no hop presence at all, go w Magnum for least least flavor impact.

I had actually considered Saaz. I've used it before and like it.

 

[D.B.Moody]

Welcome to HBT.
I can assure you that a brew with just 4 lbs. of DME is just fine. I used to brew something I called "Tutweiser" with 4 lbs of extra light Munton's or Briess Pilsen DME.. It also used 1 lb. of rice solids. I cannot tell you what the ABV was, because, although I brewed it 15 or so times over the years, I never took a gravity reading. Skip the rice to keep the ABV down. I used Tettenang hops almost always. I shot for 5 HBU in the boil. I know HBU's are old school, but it means about 1 1/4 oz at alpha 4.0 for the boil. I used only 1/4 oz for aroma. I usually used US05, but Nottingham worked too.
I do partial boils and have recently become a fan of doing late additions and 30 minute boils. If you're interested, I talk about it on "I brewed a favorite recipe today" thread on the Extract Brewing forum. (Post #8 and beyond.)

 

[Traingocnb]

Welcome to HBT.
I can assure you that a brew with just 4 lbs. of DME is just fine. I used to brew something I called "Tutweiser" with 4 lbs of extra light Munton's or Briess Pilsen DME.. It also used 1 lb. of rice solids. I cannot tell you what the ABV was, because, although I brewed it 15 or so times over the years, I never took a gravity reading. Skip the rice to keep the ABV down. I used Tettenang hops almost always. I shot for 5 HBU in the boil. I know HBU's are old school, but it means about 1 1/4 oz at alpha 4.0 for the boil. I used only 1/4 oz for aroma. I usually used US05, but Nottingham worked too.
I do partial boils and have recently become a fan of doing late additions and 30 minute boils. If you're interested, I talk about it on "I brewed a favorite recipe today" thread on the Extract Brewing forum.

Thank you for this D.B. It is reassuring to hear that I won't be making poison as I will probably be drinking it. SWMBO is hard to please.

 

[Beermeister32]

Brew yourself up a standard strength Kolsch for you to drink and enjoy. You can make Kolsch with DME and as an ale it can be produced with basic equipment. That will be low IBU to start with.

Then take some grocery store seltzer water and dilute it back maybe 50% for her in the glass. She will like this, and you won’t be stuck with a super light batch of something she drinks only occasionally. Also you will find what ratio of dilution she prefers in the event you ever do try brew something this light. It isn’t easy to get light beers right.

 

[BrewinInPA]

You could serve her a Shandy or Radler.

 

[madscientist451]

"Bud,ish" is exactly what she wants. I also can't do much with hops as she smells everything she puts in her mouth and hates hop smell. Go figgure.
As long as it will be even vaguely similar to Bud/Coors I should be ok.
Thank you.

So Bud/Coors are light lagers. Using all DME is not going to make a light lager similar to Bud/Coors. The problem is an all DME beer will have too much "body" and won't be light enough. So you want to use at least 25% corn syrup or rice syrup.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/b...tu3h1DiFmYn79kFBEO2-kbsNUUHIZD6oaAjX2EALw_wcB
Corn syrup is way cheaper, look at the label to see if it has preservatives. Rice syrup will make it more like "Bud".
You don't even have to boil a big kettle of wort if you don't want to. Make a "hop tea" with about a gallon of water and boil that. But for sanitation you should heat your water to about 180F or so and then dump in your extract/rice syrup. Not boiling the extract will provide a lighter color to your beer.

The next problem you need to deal with is using lager yeast and and providing a cold fermentation environment. You can get around this by using SF lager yeast or just not worrying about it and using a clean ale yeast. Going forward you can make a cheap fermentation chamber by using a large square cooler and frozen plastic water bottles.
You may want to reduce the standard 5 gallon recipes by half, so you can see how the beer comes out and make adjustments later on. Also, if you are a Coors light drinker, buy it in the 16oz aluminum screw cap bottles. Rinse out right after drinking and save for bottling your homebrew. Bud used to have aluminum bottles as well but I haven't seen it in a while.
Here's a good recipe to try, but I'd change the hops to Willamette and reduce the amount by 1/2 the first try.
https://ballastpoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/American-Light-Lager-Extract-Recipe.pdf

 

[Traingocnb]

Brew yourself up a standard strength Kolsch for you to drink and enjoy. You can make Kolsch with DME and as an ale it can be produced with basic equipment. That will be low IBU to start with.

Then take some grocery store seltzer water and dilute it back maybe 50% for her in the glass. She will like this, and you won’t be stuck with a super light batch of something she drinks only occasionally. Also you will find what ratio of dilution she prefers in the event you ever do try brew something this light. It isn’t easy to get light beers right.

View attachment 733835

Now, there is an idea. Thank you for this.

 

[Traingocnb]

So Bud/Coors are light lagers. Using all DME is not going to make a light lager similar to Bud/Coors. The problem is an all DME beer will have too much "body" and won't be light enough. So you want to use at least 25% corn syrup or rice syrup.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/b...tu3h1DiFmYn79kFBEO2-kbsNUUHIZD6oaAjX2EALw_wcB
Corn syrup is way cheaper, look at the label to see if it has preservatives. Rice syrup will make it more like "Bud".
You don't even have to boil a big kettle of wort if you don't want to. Make a "hop tea" with about a gallon of water and boil that. But for sanitation you should heat your water to about 180F or so and then dump in your extract/rice syrup. Not boiling the extract will provide a lighter color to your beer.

The next problem you need to deal with is using lager yeast and and providing a cold fermentation environment. You can get around this by using SF lager yeast or just not worrying about it and using a clean ale yeast. Going forward you can make a cheap fermentation chamber by using a large square cooler and frozen plastic water bottles.
You may want to reduce the standard 5 gallon recipes by half, so you can see how the beer comes out and make adjustments later on. Also, if you are a Coors light drinker, buy it in the 16oz aluminum screw cap bottles. Rinse out right after drinking and save for bottling your homebrew. Bud used to have aluminum bottles as well but I haven't seen it in a while.
Here's a good recipe to try, but I'd change the hops to Willamette and reduce the amount by 1/2 the first try.
https://ballastpoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/American-Light-Lager-Extract-Recipe.pdf

Some great points. It looks like I still have some thinking to do.
Probably be easier just to buy her Bud Light. Lol

 

[bwible]

"Hop smell" is excruciatingly broad, given all the pine/citrus/herbal/earthy/stonefruit hops out there.

My wife doesn’t like beers made with any of the “C” hops. I’ve made light colored beers with noble hops - Perle, Mittelfruher, Hersbrucker, Tettnanger, Saaz - and she likes those. She doesn’t like the grapefuit/pine smells/flavors.

They make Extra Light DME. I would dare say if you just use all extra light DME with one hop addition at 60 min for bitter to about 15-18 IBU and then another 1/2 oz at about 10 min you will be close to what you are after. Use a clean ale yeast like Wyeast 1056 or 1272 or White Labs California Ale. If you can’t lager.

 

[bwible]

Never tried Blue moon. And shipping for Northern Brewer is prohibitive. We live in the eastern most part of Canada , right beside Nowhere. Selection here is limited.

What’s wrong with some LaBatt’s?

 

[balrog]

I have done the seltzer trick, BTW, and it was not for me. Even tried lime seltzer to attempt the lime in a corona. Perhaps it's the seltzer's minerals, or I don't know, but definitely try it. Taste is a very personal thing. As I've said before, it's like my adoring Brussels sprouts and detesting lima beans. Other people are the opposite.

They, of course, are wrong.

 

[Traingocnb]

What’s wrong with some LaBatt’s?

Not a thing.

 

[Traingocnb]

My wife doesn’t like beers made with any of the “C” hops. I’ve made light colored beers with noble hops - Perle, Mittelfruher, Hersbrucker, Tettnanger, Saaz - and she likes those. She doesn’t like the grapefuit/pine smells/flavors.

They make Extra Light DME. I would dare say if you just use all extra light DME with one hop addition at 60 min for bitter to about 15-18 IBU and then another 1/2 oz at about 10 min you will be close to what you are after. Use a clean ale yeast like Wyeast 1056 or 1272 or White Labs California Ale. If you can’t lager.

I can't find extra light in my area. That was my first thought as well.

 

[IslandLizard]

I doubt you can make a (good) light lager with extract.

Can you buy Pilsen Malt (grain, not extract)? That, together with 30-50% well-cooked rice will make a Light Lager wort. It needs to be mashed for 2 hours at low 140-145F (60-63C) temps. A little bit of hops (your choice) goes a long way.

Preferably use a (true) Lager yeast too and ferment at low 50-55F (10-13C) temps for a couple weeks, until it's done. Ideally should be lagered (ice cold storage) for 3-6 weeks, but if you don't mind a little haziness you can drink them sooner.