Malt Extract Brewing

[Evo]

Like most brewers, I travelled down the path of can and kilo. Most of the time with great results. From there I discovered extra hops and then liquid yeast. From there I seemed to have skipped a step and gone to partial mash.

The missing step I discovered, is extract brewing. Instead of using a can, you use malt extract and boil in hops at appropriate intervals. All very easy (compared to partial mash).

I dunno what it is. I'm just reluctant to get rid of the can. Surely there is some sort of magic inside the can as well (rather than just malt extract and hops). Has anyone had good results using the malt extract method ?

[peterd]

The magic is a carefully controlled kettling, hot break etc. If you simply use the malt extract and hops, you need to control this yourself, as well as be concerned about leaving the beer on the trub for too long.

Heaps of advice and recipes about that tell you all you need to know.

That said, by and large, I use a can (that is A can, not THE can)

[kitkat]

extract works fine, heaps of recipes around, you can bitter to your own taste, but it takes an hour's boil instead of just throwing the kit in or doing a 10 min boil. You can do something that tastes better than K+K.

Look at the cat's meow for extract recipes, or the recipator, and tell me that you're not inspired to try extract ... Both sites have a mix of extract and AG recipes, just look at the extracts:

http://brewery.org/cm3/CatsMeow3.html
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipes

[Oliver]

I love extract brewing. Some of my best beers have been extract.

But I'm lazy and the wife is always on my back to do things around the house (or get off the internet), so tend to do mostly kit beers.

Check out my No.31 Lumley's Light Ale for a ripper extract brew at
http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/ourhomebrews.html

Cheers,

Oliver

[Brew Nerd]

What's not to love about extract brewing...
Little stages to let the smells develop slowly in your kitchen, and longer to sit, enjoy a brew and ponder...

I've brewed about the same amount of Kits & M.E - and strangley the Kit brew that I drank tonight had (nearly) no sediment in the bottle...compared with my ME's.

[Brew Nerd]

Oh, and I think extract brews can have more flavour than the Kits, but they (mine) tend to be more sublte flavours than when I do a kit.

Dunno

[Oliver]

Oh, and I think extract brews can have more flavour than the Kits, but they (mine) tend to be more sublte flavours than when I do a kit.

I agree.

Oliver

[Hrundi V Bakshi]

My favourite brewing style is being with partial mash with extract and hops. I have the limited capacity for only 3Kg of grain in the tun. This is wherein I mash specialty grains and the remainder of base malt. With a 10 litre run-off and sparge, I boil this with hops and add the necessary extract at the end of the boil. Generally, this will equate to maybe 30% of extract and adjunct. Quite easy but it is just as time consuming as a full-grain, so I am moving the brewery out of the kitchen and onto the roof-top.

[Brew Nerd]

... so I am moving the brewery out of the kitchen and onto the roof-top...

Is that like 'The Brew-tles' with their 1969 rooftop brewing concert for the masses, in an attempt to Get Back to their roots. Malt Extract, Hops, Grain, and Water...you're my hereos. (and lets not forget the 5th Brew-tle, Yeast...without whom the 4 Brew-tles would have been just a collection of great ingredients).

Sorry. That was pretty nerdy.

[Dogger Dan]

Hrundi,

Are you going to make Kriek? (I may have dicked th Sp)

I do a similar thing as you using my deal Coopers beer kits as the extract and 2.5-3 kg of grains. Once those are gone I will switch back to malt.

Really need a good heat exchanger and go all malt full time

Dogger

[Hrundi V Bakshi]

Are you going to make Kriek? (I may have dicked th Sp)

I would like to try the lambic styles sometime, but not with the local microflora, as one can well imagine.

[Evo]

Yeah, I still find it hard to believe they get yeast that way (and get a great result). It goes against all my brewing instincts (yes, instincts - I come from a long line of beerheads).

Loving all the feedback on extract brewing. Am definitely gunna give it a go next.

What about the importance of cooling the wort quickly (ie that immersion chiller that I still haven't purchased) ? Is it going to be a problem if I sit my brew pot in a sink full of iced water til I sort the immersion chiller ?

[Hrundi V Bakshi]

Ooops. Double posting is rude, isn't it? Sorry sorry. 1000 pardons.

[Hrundi V Bakshi]

Yeah, I still find it hard to believe they get yeast that way (and get a great result). It goes against all my brewing instincts (yes, instincts - I come from a long line of beerheads).

Loving all the feedback on extract brewing. Am definitely gunna give it a go next.

What about the importance of cooling the wort quickly (ie that immersion chiller that I still haven't purchased) ? Is it going to be a problem if I sit my brew pot in a sink full of iced water til I sort the immersion chiller ?

Mr Evo, the Belgian Lambic yeasts are known to live in the buildings of the breweries. There is a tale of a brewery famous for lambic and kriek beers that was renowned for a taste from the fermentation. It disappeared when the brewery changed premises and they were required to return to their previous lodgings because the yeast was not able to be trasferred.

Mixes of cultures are available from White Labs, but years of patience are required. I shall leave this persuit until my kegs are kept filled and delicious Christmas cases are presented at the family feasts every December.

An interesting theory as to one source of modern brewing strains is the mead mixing sticks of Vikings, passed on from father to son for generations. Just as your English language unknowingly owes much to the Hindi and Sanscrit tongues, modern beer owes much to the wild airborne fungus of Scandinavia and the men who tempted it into domestication with honey.

Question of chilling depends on the size of the brewpot, the size of the sink and the amount of ice. It can be done in a tub of water with ice packs from the freezer. The importance of this being rapid is the formation of "cold break". These are proteins that drop from solution and do this best when the temperature is dropping quickly.

My mother-in-law who is devout gives me very strange looks and comments about my methods of production. I think she thinks I am making something illicit when she sees pots being swirled in the sink of ice packs, with the smell of boilover spreading thru the bedroom, which is where I am brewing until the kitchen is rebuilt. The roof beckons to me like the call of Kali.

[Brew Nerd]

I do the sink and ice packs from freezer thing. Empty the sink water every 5 mins, circulate sink water ...and I also put a wet teatowel (plus another ice pack) on top of the lid of the pot and wet it down every couple of mins. This seems to also take some heat away.

My first 10 or so extract brew were less than 500g grain, and amount of wort was easily cooled past cold break within 15mins. Lately with more ~ 1-5-2kg grains, it's been taking closer to 1/2 hr to cool. No probs yet though. No immersion cooler yet either. I'm sure it's coming one day.

[Dogger Dan]

There is a theory also that bacteria grow best in the warmer temps so you need to get from about 130 deg F to 60 deg F as quick as possible to avoid good growing conditions for the nasty micros.

Dogger

[Guest]

You can use LME and DME to make a good brew. All kits are is hopped LME. If you boil your kits you are on your way to extract brewing. As you have done AG brewing you are 1 up on me. That is something to be done in the near future for me. I boil my Morgans hopped kits and add extra hops for flavor at 10 min. I have made an imersion chiller and use it all the time. Everything your mates have said rings true.

[the Baron]

kitkat Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 9:08 pm Post subject:

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extract works fine, heaps of recipes around, you can bitter to your own taste, but it takes an hour's boil instead of just throwing the kit in or doing a 10 min boil. You can do something that tastes better than K+K.

Do you have to boil your extracts for an hour or just your hops, depending on my patience I may boil my hops this long but I boil my extracts for only 10 mins or so, is there some reaction that needs to take place or is this ok?

[Tony]

I think you can just boil the hops (well mostly)

I'm about to try my first all-extract recipe, which will be a clone of Fat Tire Amber Ale, from the New Belgium brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado (http://www.newbelgium.com). Worked in Fort Collins for a while and acquired a taste for this amber drop.

Recipe
------
3Kg Amber Malt Extract
250g crystal malt 50/60L

45g Cascade hops (boiling - 45m)
15g Cascade Hops (finishing)

Make up to 23L
Belgium Abbey Liquid Yeast (Wyeast)

Bulk prime 160g/23L Dextrose
Bottle condition for 3 weeks.

The tricky bit: I've only got a 5L saucepan, and was therefore thinking of using Steve Bader's "Boil the Hops, Not the Malt Extract" method (http://webtrolley.org/mivastore/merchan ... gory_Code=). I got the idea from the Cascadia Brewing website (http://www.cascadiabrew.com/intermediate.asp)

Any comments on either the recipe or the method?

Tony

[Dogger Dan]

Tony,

If it works, do it

I like to boil the whole gambit but only because I can (7 gallon brew pot) If you are limited, do what you need to do.

Dogger