What is English DME?

Brewing Processes
1

Using a recipe from the HBA recipe book: Better Red Than Dead - Beer Recipe - American Homebrewers Association

Ingredients
For 6 gallons (22.7 L)

    7.0 lb (3.2 kg) | Maris Otter malt
    3.0 lb (1.4 kg) | Munich malt Base Malts?
    8.0 oz (227 g) | CaraRed 20
    6.0 oz (170 g) | Crystal 120
    4.0 oz (113 g) | Roasted Barley
    1.5 oz (43 g) | Fuggle 4.6% a.a. pellet hops (45 min)
    1.0 oz (28 g) | East Kent Goldings 4.5% a.a. pellet hops (15 min)
    White Labs 004 or Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast
    3.5 oz (100 g) | priming sugar

“Better Red than dead” and am wanting to convert it to a partial mash an am having trouble understanding what this paragraph means:

Extract Option

Substitute 6.5 lb (3.0 kg) Eglish dry malt extract for the base malts. Steep specialty grains for 30 minutes in 160°F (71°C) water. Increase hops to 25 percent to compensate for lower utilization rate. Reduce boil to 60 minutes and proceed with remainder of recipe.

  1. Am I correct in assuming that both the Otter and the Munich are used as base malts?
  2. It states that in order to convert to extract to use “Eglish  DME” What is that? I assume I was going to use either pale/gold DME or Amber DME
  3. I do not understand the increas the hops to 25% comment. Does it mean increase BY 25%?

Thanks guys! I’m still relatively new to this! I appreciate any help!

2

I don’t know what it is talking about with increasing the hops. the utilization won’t be lower because you are using extract.

English DME might refer to Marris Otter extract that Northern Brewer sells but that’s LME not DME. would work though. Looks like there are munich extracts available as well.

I think if you just used the marris otter LME it would work pretty well.

3

I used to see Munton’s DME, that would be one, made from English malts.

4

1/  Yes

2/ They probaby mean something like Munton’s dry malt extract - it is from England and is easily found at most homebrew supply shops. Personally, I’m not a big fan because it is not as fermentable as many other brands - ie., it tends to finish sweeter. I recommend using 6.5 lbs of Briess Pilsen DME which is much more fermentable than Munton’s and will help the beer finsh drier and more drinkable.

3/ I would use the hop amounts quoted in the recipe this time and bump up next time if you think you need to.

Good luck.

5

The recipe may be assuming that an extract brewer is topping off after the boil.

6

Yes - I was under the assumption that I would top off to 6 Gallons… or is it to 5?

You guys are awesome, thank you.

7

Volume will vary based on recipe. I brew for 6 gallons. I leave .5 gallons in the kettle and .5 gallons in the fermenter.

If you are brewing a concentrated boil, than the hop utilization will suffer by a bit. The more concentrated, the lower the utilization.

8

Yeah, if he’s topping off, the + 25% is probably a good idea on the hops.