Three Brewing Methods

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Poll runs 30 days, you have to vote to see results.

Which method do you do the Most ?
  • Malt Extract
  • Partial Mash
  • All Grain
0 voters
2

ive probably gone over this before in separate threads but to combine them really fast:

history: 2 batches extract kit that, all grain for years. end up in small apt in foreign country with limited and DIY equipment. start mixing in DME. go back and forth on it due to questionable DME quality (actually chinese dried malt powder sold from a homebrew shop). become parent and my freetime gets cut by 90%. stop brewing for a few years. come back to north america and start brewing again. still trying to make it efficient so after a few palatable LME extract brews decide to experiment with it all as a way to save a lot of time and made adequate brews. REALLY FAST SUMMARY: i tried LME/DME full extracts as well as partial mashes including a few lbs of base malt grains. had a few successes but imho they were in spite of the extract rather than because of it. have been doing all grain ever since barring adding <15% DME or LME to very big brews which i do.

LME: can stale, annoying to mix in and make sure it doesnt burn at the bottom of kettle. bulky and heavy, it generally does increase the FG needlessly.

DME: compact, doesnt go bad, still kind of annoying to mix in. i find the pale/pilsner ones are lacking flavour. my particular issue is that (BRAND) DME has excess sodium which either i notice greatly or objectively interferes with the beer profile in amounts over 15%.

partial mash - this WORKS pretty well, but only when im truly using a few lbs of base malt and then 1 to 2lbs of specialty malts, which i have to mash anyway. then add the extract in the kettle… so it can produce some okay beers but they generally can’t be subtle/pale beers and it takes about the same time as just doing all-grain since im mashing anyway…

allgrain - OG can vary more than measured LME/DME. just a lot more ability to control all the variables. i want to make good beer, and doing a superfast/careless allgrain brewday is more comfortable for me than doing extract especially since my personal petpeeve these days is higher FG than needed.

3

I do mostly all-grain (BIAB), but I do like DME on occasion for the simplicity of it. I don’t know what magic they put in it, but I’m a fan of Briess Sparkling Amber.

4

i believe the amber is a mix of 2row, munich and crystal malt. i may be wrong but they mix in a lot of stuff for the darker malts of theirs

5

Me too.

6

Aroused my curiosity, ordered some Sparkling Amber.
Haven’t used DME in years, going to give it a go again,
not out of desire but of necessity.  Maybe complaints
on smell will be reduced or eliminated.

Cheers

7

Do you use 100% Sparkling Amber, or mix with other stuff ?
I read online some brewers will use 1/2 DME at beginning of boil,
and 1/2 at end of boil.  Mixing DME in cold water is used by some.

Thanks

8

I’m logged in but don’t see how to vote.

9

Wish I could.  Don’t know why it isn’t working but I’ll look into it

10

Something happened, progress of poll is now showing.
Don’t know why they didn’t see where to vote, many others did.

11

<2% extract brewers ? one person ?  wow, I would’ve gotten an F on this test.

12

Single addition at the beginning (before the steam starts gumming everything up as you’re trying to put it in), short boil to pasteurize & get a few IBUs and aromatics.

Edit: mixing the DME with cold water first could mitigate that, too. Maybe I’ll try that next time.

13

This will be a first for me, brewing in a few days.
—3 lbs Sparking Amber DME (03/23)
—1 1/2 lbs organic Maltoferm DME (no date)
—1 oz Lupomax Citra (2022 crop, 18.5 AA)
—Novalager
—20 min boil

Time will tell if the touting you can make awarding winning brews with extract has any merit.

Cheers

14

FWIW: I often replace some of the DME (75% fermentable) with sugar (100% fermentable). I also use a higher attenuating yeast (like US-05, and unlike Windsor).  My preference is to add the DME at about 140F or 160F to avoid adding DME over steam.  I do not see a negative impact on color when doing this.  Others (see #30 in [3]) talk about dissolving the DME in cool water over a short period of time.

Over the past couple of years, there has been an active, on-going discussion on brewing with DME over in one of the other forums.  The first link will get you to Dave Taylor’s “Tips and Tricks for Brewing Excellent Extract Beers”.  The second link will get you to the recipe for the 2021 gold 1B American Lager recipe that was brewed with using extract (and a bunch of other things).  The third link will get you to a nicely refined process (reply #30) for ‘stove top brewing’.

15

Thank you, good stuff.
1/2 at knockout, interesting, I think I’ll do that.

Cheers

16

Quote: “FWIW: I often replace some of the DME (75% fermentable) with sugar (100% fermentable). I also use a higher attenuating yeast (like US-05, and unlike Windsor).”

I don’t know why the difference, but I generally get attenuation in the mid 70’s to mid 80’s when using LME and DME - depends on the specific style and yeast. Yeast is mostly US-05, Nottingham, S-189, BE-256, and Munich Classic Wheat Yeast. So my thought is try it without substituting sugar first to see if it is actually needed, given your particular process. Obviously, ymmv.

17

That was the plan, no sugar, or distilled water. My tap well water I could probably sell as spring water.
Novalager is a high attenuation yeast.  The process and ingredients are good as can be.
There will be no excuses, if I have to make offerings to the DME Gods, I’m out ;D

I already had the next 3 all grain batches planned and ready to go.
This was an out of the blue batch, which will be brewed in a day or so.

Cheers

18

The interesting details are probably recipe specific (brand/style of extract, additional steeped malts, strain of yeast) and process dependent (fermentation temperature?, …).  With my recent DME (Briess and Muntons) and LME (Williams), I have been estimating fermentibility of the DME/LME at 75% and getting appropriate FG.

eta: apparently there is a very old (1990s?) Zymurgy article that talks about fermentibility of extract.  I’ve been told those numbers ranged from 50% to 75%.  In the 2020s, there may still be extracts with lower fermentibility.  But my experience with some of the major brands suggests that 75% is a good starting point for estimating.

19

All grain to DME conversion tables don’t account for brewers brew house efficiency.
I used table found below to calculate OG, and it was pretty darn close, if not exact.

from Briess
Sparkling Amber DME
USAGE INFORMATION

Desired O.G.  Lbs/Gal
    1.020        0.45
    1.030        0.66
    1.040        0.89
    1.050        1.11
    1.060        1.34

20

i tried an all DME batch and 20 min boil.once and i did 2 attempts where all the fementables were breiss DME and amounts of specialty grains because obviously it would be a huuuge time saver which is important for me.

it was not pleasant at all and this was explained in another thread. the specialty grain ones were passable. the issue imho is briess’s sodium content in their DME. if you could get williams or something id recommend trying that.

do let me know either way