The version I re-brewed with DME has finished active fermentation. Drew a sample last night and this beer has none of the problems I noted in the prior LME beer.
The LME I used in the prior batch was from Morebeer, which I’m pretty sure is from Briess. MB touts their turnover and so I was surprised to get old extract.
Wes MB certainly does turn over their LME in that manner.
I am 90% positive More beer does not Briess use but has a private label malt extract maker. Nothing against them at all.
Also when did you put your LME in the beer? Adding LME at the end of the boil will have huge positive effects on your beer. We are currently validating in store putting LME in after the boil. Since you only need to sanitize it, our theory is that if we keep it above 160F for 15 minutes we will be fine. So far we have had luck at keeping LME above 180 for 30 minutes with no problem. Just some food for thought.
I may have to try that. For both batches, the one with the old LME and the subsequent one with the DME, we added the extract after removing the steeping grains (at about 160F). The heat was off and we stirred them in well before ramping up to boiling. The DME batch smelled like normal all grain wort, whereas the LME batch had that molasses aroma and was much darker than expected.
Not trying to knock Morebeer. I’ve been very pleased with them over the years. Just a bad batch of extract, I guess.
Maybe the extract was mis-labeled? Could it have been amber or dark instead of pale?
Late addition of extract helps to reduce the darkening and carmelization from the boil. You need some fermentables at the start, or else your just boiling your hops in water, but you can add the bulk of it way at the end.
I’m able to produce straw-colored beer using Breiss Pilsen DME and a mini-mash/partial mash/whatever you want to call it.