making your own extract

MiniMoose · Post by **MiniMoose** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 2:27 pm

Just wandering if one could make his own extract (from AG)

Not for any reason just wandering, how would you do it?

could you do it in a still?

Kevnlis · Post by **Kevnlis** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 2:40 pm

Because of the technologies behind evaporating the wort down to the concentrate you see as liquid extract it would be very hard if not impossible to do at home. You could certainly make a "wetpack" type product which you water down to create the wort, but I would imagine anything more than a 50% or so reduction in volume would be pretty tough to do.

I do not see how a still could help, but I do not know much about that side of things.

drsmurto · Post by **drsmurto** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 2:47 pm

You need access to either a rotary evaporator or any other piece of equipment that is capable of reduced pressure distillation.

the way Coopers and others make their extract is by greatly reducing the pressure in the container of wort which in turn, reduces the boiling point of the wort meaning less caramelisation. This allows them to produce lighter colour extracts than previously available.

If you try and do it at home by simply boiling the crap out of your wort you end up with a much darker colour due to the caramelisation. Not to mention the fact that as you reduce the volume you increase the viscosity which in turn makes evaporation slower.

Hey, you asked!

DrSmurto

MiniMoose · Post by **MiniMoose** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 3:02 pm

interesting

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 4:06 pm

We're not going to start the 'interesting' thing again are we?

Kevnlis · Post by **Kevnlis** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 4:28 pm

Well, it was pretty interesting the first time around, but it has probably lost a bit of the "coolness" factor now

warra48 · Post by **warra48** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 5:57 pm

Why on earth would anyone want to try and do this? I'm willing to be enlightened, but after you spend 3 to 4 hours making an AG wort, why do you want to boil the crap out of it until you have 10% of the volume, only to add the water back in before you ferment it?
Am I missing the point somewhere?

lethaldog · Post by **lethaldog** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 6:33 pm

Me 2 , if you are going to all the trouble of doin an ag then why would you want to do that to it when it would already be at its best???

sathid · Post by **sathid** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 7:20 pm

I've heard of people doing a "no-chill" where they put the hot wort in a cubee (sp?) where it slowly cools, and then use it when they are ready. Could be handy if you only have one fermenter?

Would want to be careful with sanitation I would think.

bottle top · Post by **bottle top** » Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 10:19 pm

There's a whole bunch of people that swear by it over on AHB. The only thing that holds me back is the idea of the hot wort leaching out plastic from the cube. Having said that, the instructions on a typical homebrew kit involve pouring boiling water into the fermenter, so I guess they think it's ok...

I don't think sanitation is any more important than usual, as you are transferring the wort at near boiling point so the cube is pretty well pasteurised.

warra48 · Post by **warra48** » Wednesday Nov 07, 2007 9:43 am

sathid wrote:I've heard of people doing a "no-chill" where they put the hot wort in a cubee (sp?) where it slowly cools, and then use it when they are ready. Could be handy if you only have one fermenter?

Would want to be careful with sanitation I would think.

Ah yes, but the no chill brewers chill the full volume of their boiled wort, not one condensed from say 23 litres down to 1Â½ litres.