So I’ve been looking around in the recipe wiki and notice most of them list instructions for all grain. Can I use the exact recipe or alter slightly while using DME and/or LME to accomplish a similar recipe? Thanks.
Can you give an example? I’m thinking the answer is relatively straightforward: once you have the wort in the kettle, everything is the same. But I don’t want to steer you wrong.
you can, with some exceptions. although those exceptions are getting further and further apart.
Someone will correct me but the ratio for DME to Grain is .6:1 approximately.
The general procedure is to identify those malts that must be mashed and see if you can replace them with extract at that .6:1 ratio.
So, my Kolsch recipe is about 7 lbs of pilsner and about 3 lb of munich malt. This all must be mashed and luckily you can find both pilsner DME and Munich LME) so you would want about 3-4 lbs pilsner extract and about 1.5-2 lbs munich extract.
Now this won’t be exact because I don’t think the munich extract is 100% munich but it will get you close.
If there is crystal malt in a recipe you can just leave that as is or reduce it a little because extract usually already has some crystal malt in it.
Sure, here’s the first one I clicked on…
http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/BillyBobMississippiLager
Also, why all of the 5.5 gallon recipes? Previously all of my kits were for 5 gallons.
5.5 gallons goes into the fermenter because you will lose some to sediment after fermentation is complete. this way you get to bottle a full 5 gals.
FWIW, as a side note, it’s perfectly fine to do a straight 1:1 grain to extract conversion. a friend of mine tried it the first time he wanted to convert a recipe. he just ended up with an 8.5%abv Belgian white when he was expecting something in the upper 4% range! still tasted great!
that one should be pretty easy, swap out about 3.5-4 lbs pilsner DME or extra light DME for the 6 row… done.
it won’t be exactly the same because pilsner malt is not the same as 6 row, there will be less of a grainy flavor likely but other than that… same same
That light lager was just an example. Not the biggest light lager fan!