Q: For convenience, my brews are 3-gallon (11.5-L) DME (dried malt extract) batches. When I select a recipe that calls for LME (liquid malt extract), I convert it to DME for the ease of measuring the correct quantity and storing the excess for future use. Are there any negative effects of substituting DME for LME?
— Chris Patterson • Downers Grove, Illinois

A: Both DME and LME are great options for homebrewers looking to brew without the hassle of mashing. In general, DME has a longer shelf life than LME because of its lower water content; about 5% compared to about 25%. When LME ages, especially when stored at room or elevated temperatures, a range of unpleasant compounds develop that include molasses-, licorice-, and cardboard-like flavors. Collectively, these off-flavors impart a distinctive “twang” to LME. Before homebrewers generally understood the relationship between aged LME and beer flavor, homebrewed beers were often characterized by this strange “homebrew twang” that is absent in commercially brewed beers, except for the rarest of the rare examples brewed using old LME; uncommon in commercial beers because few use LME and those that do tend to use it shortly after purchasing.

The short answer to your question is no; subbing DME for LME does not have any negative effects to your finished beer. And doing so for the reason you stated makes perfect sense. Indeed, one way to improve the flavor of beer brewed from extracts is by using DME instead of LME. It’s important to note that LME, in and of itself, does not cause off-flavors; it’s just a problem when it is old and twangy.

It’s also important to account for the differences in moisture when subbing DME for LME. For example, 1 pound/kilo of DME at 5% moisture is equal to 1.27 pounds/kilos LME at 25% moisture (calculated by dividing 95% solids by 75% solids). The challenge with this conversion is we do not always know the moisture content of the ingredients we are using at home. The good news is that most raw material suppliers producing products intended for the homebrewing market make their product specification sheets relatively easy to find, and moisture content is one piece of information found on specification sheets for DME and LME.

In Japanese and Korean baking, there is a barley malt-rice liquid syrup called Mizuame used frequently to make breads and desserts. But homebrewers will recognize Mizuame right away as just another name for liquid malt extract. BYO’s Technical Editor Ashton Lewis walks you through how to make your own malt-rice liquid extract at home after he discovered the similarities while baking a Korean dessert that required some homemade Misuame as an ingredient. Now you can make your own barley malt-rice liquid extract for your own homebrewing by following Ashton’s instructions in this BYO+ video.

Demographic studies show that all of the fuss and fight that you dear readers (and us) go through, doesn’t matter to the majority of homebrewers. Overwhelmingly, the world’s homebrewers practice the fine art of extract brewing. Surely, they’re not all in the search for cheap booze and nothing else?
Yet, extract brewing carries that stigma of: “It’s not real brewing,” “It makes bad beer,” “It has a twang to it.”

We reject these notions.

The most prevalent reason that an extract beer turns out to be of lower quality is because of the number of new brewers using the stuff. If you get an experienced brewer making beer with extract, you’ll get great beer! You just need to know how to put its best foot forward.

Quite simply, malt extract producers are more proficient makers of wort than the whole of our readership. This is what they do and they have the gear and the knowledge to make it happen. Companies like Briess and Muntons can make a better wort than you or I and probably many of our beloved breweries.

Extracts are definitely not just for freshmen brewers. Experienced brewers focusing on yeast strain, specialty malt, and hops experiments can benefit from the time savings. And brewers focusing their efforts on giant bases for playing with fruits or adjuncts will also enjoy the convenience of extracts.

That’s one of the great powers of malt extract — they’ve taken one of the most tedious and technically involved parts of the brew day and freed us from it.

That’s one of the great powers of malt extract — they’ve taken one of the most tedious and technically involved parts of the brew day and freed us from it. We happy weird few take great joy from all the minutiae, but spending that much time and effort isn’t the optimum spend to happiness for most.

For starters, extract allows you to focus on the other fundamentals of brewing. There’s so much to understand about the boil, chilling, sanitation, fermentation, and packaging that not having to deal with the mash is a blessing. It’s also the reason why, even in this day and age of cheap and easy brew-in-a-bag setups, we still recommend people start with extract.

Water worries become about flavor impacts and not about biochemical impacts to your mash regime. In a world where a lot of all-grain and even professional brewers treat minerals like salt and pepper, it’s nice to have one place where that’s true.

Fighting to maintain stable mash temperatures isn’t a thing. No need to worry about lautering and waiting for gallons of water to drain from pounds of grain. Just fire and go.

Speaking of which, that’s the best reason to use extract — time. We’ve talked extensively about trading time for money. Normally we talk about this in reference to automation, but buying extract is borrowing the maltsters automation for our time gains. Even with all the fancy gear that we have — a quick all-grain brew day is 4-ish hours. With extract, a two-hour brew is no sweat.

Let’s not forget the idea of a bonus beer. We’re big believers in the idea that there is no such thing as too much hot water on a brew day. In fact, Drew usually ends up with a few gallons leftover in his hot liquor tank (HLT). If it’s not being used for cleaning (or watering the plants after cooling down), then why not use it to make beer? After finishing the boil for one beer, Drew’s used the leftover HLT water to make a bonus beer with the extract he keeps on hand.

If you’ve paid attention to all your time playing around in the brewery, if you understand your yeast mechanics, your sanitation, etc., extract just becomes a wonderful short cut to great beer. There are some ground rules to follow:

• Buy the fresh stuff. The biggest sin you can commit when using extract is buying old extract. Like most food products, time is not your friend. Liquid malt extracts, in particular, will oxidize and produce terrible beer. Old extract is often the source of the “cidery” beer flavor that people think of in bad homebrew.
  • Buy the freshest extract you can find and from places that turn over a lot of extract, quickly. Drew’s local homebrew store – The Home Beer Wine Cheesemaking Shop in Woodland Hills, California, sells from bulk drums that are flushed with nitrogen. Unless you’re certain the extract you’re getting is equally fresh, use dry extract. That’s all Denny uses. (Also, dried extract keeps like a champ.)
  • Drew is usually, possibly unfairly, suspicious of most extract “can kits.” Really scan the dates on those.
• Plainer extracts are better in our opinion. You’ll see lots of options for extracts of different colors to, say, make a “stout.” In our experience, it’s far better to buy a pale or extra pale extract or a Maris Otter or rye/wheat extract. Then add the extra color and flavor via steeping grains. Speaking of which . . .
• Add fresh grains. Just like adding fresh ingredients to store-bought broths can make things much better, adding steeping grains is a must for more flexibility and better flavor.
• Take what the extract gives you: Don’t expect to make the palest and driest beer you can imagine with extract. (Although – an experiment we haven’t tried – maybe some of the leftover enzymes from the Brut IPA days might help). Yes, you can make pale beer and dryish beers with extract, but an all-grain mash will always have the advantage of not having gone through the concentration process that does ultimately have an effect on the wort.
• Boil at full volume. Instead of boiling 3 gallons (11 L) and topping up with a couple of gallons of chilled water, boil all 5 gallons (19 L) together. It makes your hop calculations more accurate and hop usage more efficient and seems to lend a less “cooked” taste to the beer.
• Because of the way extract is made, it often has a little higher finishing gravity and more body than all-grain brews. You can adjust that by replacing a bit of the extract with good old table sugar. Replace ¼ lb. (113 g) of dry extract with the same amount of sugar. Replace 5 oz. (150 mL) of liquid extract with ¼ lb. (113 g) of sugar.

On that last point, one of the chief things you can do to up your extract game is to add it late in the boil. Most recipes will instruct you to bring your water to a boil, shut off the heat, stir in all the extract and bring back to a boil. Don’t do that! You only need to boil the majority of your extract long enough to sanitize it.

Instead, we recommend you add roughly 1⁄3 of the extract when the liquid comes to a boil. Doing so provides a chemically appropriate environment for things like hop compound extraction. Proceed as normal and then before you get to the end of the boil, add the remaining extract and stir like the dickens to get it to dissolve before returning to the boil.

How long? The safe and sane rule of thumb says at least 15 minutes, but we’ve seen some folks push that down to 5 minutes under the theory that they’ll stay above pasteurization temperatures for much longer while chilling.

Trust us – if you combine late extract additions with all of the wonderful skills you’ve developed as a brewer to make a clean, sanitary, and well-regulated sugary pool for yeast, you can produce fabulous extract beer in a fraction of the time. It will be good enough for your summer party, your late-night tap raids, and even a competition best-of-show table!

My entrance into the joys of homebrewing began at an office Christmas party in 1991, when a colleague brought two six-packs of his homebrew to the party. My first thought was, “Oh dear, I’m gonna have to try this slop and be polite.” One taste and I said, “This has real flavor! How do you make this stuff?” His supplier, and my first, was an elderly gentleman who used one room of his house to sell beer supplies. My first beer was an old ale made from a kit that had 3 pounds (1.35 kg) of hopped liquid malt extract, a packet of dry yeast, and instructions to add 6 cups of corn sugar and water. I thought it was wonderful at the time, but my brewing has come a long way since that humble beginning.

Even as I’ve gotten more experience and my understanding and technique has improved, one thing that that hasn’t increased is available time. That limitation was a motivator for me to develop a technique (or maybe it is more of a planned-out schedule) that allows me to brew two delicious beers in one session with little more time than it takes to brew one beer. Other significant benefits are that it has less impact on the environment and cuts many of the “chores” required in our hobby in half. I’m here to explain the process so others who find time constraints hindering their supply of homebrew can follow suit.

My process takes a little over two hours and yields two 5-gallon (19-L) batches of different style beers from liquid and/or dried malt extract and steeping grains. This time estimate does not include the time it takes to set up the equipment beforehand or chill the wort and pitch the yeast, nor clean and put away the equipment afterwards. How long these activities take depends on your equipment, how you chill the wort, etc. I can say, based on my own experience with single-batch brew days, that these activities take only about 10% more time for two batches than for one, whereas two batches on two separate brew days takes 100% more time — so there are significant time savings to be had there as well.

So, how’s it done?

My step-by-step process for a typical brew day goes like this:

1. Gather all the equipment and ingredients. I often do this the day before if it’s convenient. This takes about the same amount of time whether I am brewing one beer or two. Most of the equipment is the same either way. I do have two 8.5-gallon (32-L) brew kettles and two propane burners in the garage, so it takes an extra two minutes to set up the second one. That and gathering ingredients for the second beer are really the only differences in time to set things up. 

(Note: The propane burners and large brew pots are great to have but my technique can be adjusted for 3-gallon/11.5-L pots on the stove and doing a partial boil before topping off in the fermenter.)

2. Fill two 2- or 3-quart saucepans about half full of water to boil the hops in. Fill two larger pots with the amount of water the recipe calls for to steep the grains (assuming the recipes call for them). On most stoves, the saucepans fit on the small burners in the back and the larger pans on the front burners. 

(Note: Boiling hops in water is somewhat controversial but it has knowledgeable advocates. It might be better for an all-grain beer to boil the hops with the wort, but I, like many others, have not found any difference in the results using extract and specialty grains.) 

3. Turn on all of the burners. While the water is heating, weigh the hops and put them into hop bags. Also, weigh and grind the specialty grains and put them into grain bags. While doing this, monitor the heat in the pots for the grains and turn their burners off when the water gets to the heat the recipe calls for, around 150–170 °F (66–77 °C). 

4. The water for the hops usually boils before the grain water gets to the right temperature. When it does, put the hop bags into the water and set a timer for 60 minutes (assuming the recipe calls for a 60-minute hop addition). When the water returns to a boil, set the cover ajar and reduce the heat so it doesn’t boil over. You’ll want a full rolling boil but not so strong that steam condensing from the cover drips onto the burner. That can be really difficult to scrub off. If the recipe calls for additional hop additions, add them to the water when you would normally add them
to your wort. 

(Note: You might consider doing what I do — increase the amount of hops by 10% and decrease the boil to 45 minutes to save a little electricity. Hop utilization charts indicate that this yields about the same number of IBUs.). 

5. When the water for the steeping grains is at the right temperature, remove the pots from the front burner and put the grain bags into the water. Set timers for the grains or watch the clock. I am usually still milling the grains for a while after I’ve started the hops. This works out well because the grains typically only take a 30-minute steep vs. the longer boil time for the hops, so no time is lost.

6. With the front burners now free, use one to boil a quart or two (1–2 L) of water. You will find the water gets low in the hop pots, so add boiling water from this pot as needed to keep the level up. 

7. When the boil and steep are done, put a large strainer over each of the two brew kettles. Put the hop bags into the appropriate strainer and press all the liquid out of them with your brew spoon or paddle to be sure you collect all of the precious hop juice. Discard the spent hops.

8. Put the grain bags into the appropriate strainers and rinse the grains. Now you have liquid with the flavor and aroma you want from the hops and specialty grains in each kettle.

9. If you have large enough kettles, fill them with enough water to have 5 gallons (19 L) after you’ve added the extract. If you only have 3-gallon (11.5-L) brew pots adjust accordingly.

10. Heat the worts to around 195–200 °F (90–93 °C). Sanitize your fermenters while it heats. When the temperature is reached, turn the burners off, stir in the extract and any other ingredients, and let it sit for 15 minutes to pasteurize. 

Note: I have found that with 5 gallons (19 L) of wort, adding either liquid or dried malt extract lowers the temperature by 13–17 °F (7–9 °C). If the temperature is less than 180 °F (82 °C), heat it up to 180 °F/80 °C and hold for 15 minutes to essentially kill all spoilage organisms that may be present.

11. Chill, oxygenate the worts if pitching a liquid yeast, transfer to your fermenters, and pitch the yeast. 

12. Clean and store your equipment. You will have two brew kettles, four stovetop pots, and maybe additional bowls, etc. you use to weigh the ingredients. This will take longer than with a single batch of beer, but you’ll use the same chiller and can reuse some of the miscellaneous bowls, utensils, etc., so it’s not twice the time.

Every brewing technique has pros and cons. This one definitely does. Here are some of them that I have experienced over two decades of using this method.

PROS

• Time savings. As I said before, the time from weighing hops and crushing grains through when the wort is ready to chill is about two hours. This is the same whether you’re brewing one or two batches. This is because there is enough time while you’re waiting for the water to heat on the stove and then in the brew pots to do the additional weighing, measuring, etc. for both batches.

• Better for the environment. Boiling hops in 1–1.5 quarts/liters of water uses less energy than boiling hops in three or six gallons (11.5 or 23 L) of thick wort. You can reduce the energy use a little more by adding 10% more hops and reducing the boil to 45 minutes.

• Less chance of a boil over. It is still possible to have one if you don’t monitor the temperature of the wort you’re heating to 195–200 °F (91–93 °C). But it’s much easier to catch it between 195–212 °F (91–100 °C) than it is just when it hits boiling and the foam is rising rapidly in the brewpot.

• Getting two batches of delicious beer from a single brew day. No need to elaborate on this benefit.

• The ability to keep multiple batches of beer in stock so you can enjoy different brews that you crafted whenever you want. I always have about a dozen batches in stock so I can choose the beer I want to have with dinner and then a different pre-dinner beer. My current stock includes:

• American IPA (recipe below) 
• New England IPA 
• Brown ale
• Robust porter 
• Imperial stout (clone of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout, recipe from November 2015 BYO)
• Belgian dubbel (recipe below)
• Belgian strong pale ale (clone of Duvel)
• Belgian quadruple (clone of Rochefort 10)
• Belgian quadruple (clone of Westvleteren 12)
• Lambic
• Flanders red ale
• Gose
• Hefeweizen

As you can see, there’s really no limit to the styles you can brew with this technique.

CONS

• More stressful brew day. This is by far the biggest potential negative to my brewing method. During the boil you might be weighing or measuring various additions (e.g., additional hops, yeast nutrient, Irish moss), each of which has to be added at a certain time. It’s easy to get the timing wrong or put an addition into the wrong kettle if you are not well organized.

Even after the boil, mistakes can be made. I once chilled a pale ale and forgot to replace the filled carboy with an empty carboy to chill the porter I was brewing at the same time. I got a quart or two of porter into the pale ale before I noticed. (It was actually quite tasty in its own way — you could almost say I created a new style.) Another time, I added the malt and yeast for a brown ale to the hops and specialty grains for a pale ale and vice versa. Both were drinkable but not at all what I wanted. Still, in 20+ years of brewing about 20 batches a year, almost always two batches at a time, that’s not too much harm. The main downside is the stress involved.

There are a couple of things you can do to minimize the likelihood of getting things mixed up. I put the ingredients for each beer into its own box on separate counters and when I prepare ingredients to add to the boils I put those ingredients next to the respective recipes. And I note the time I start each boil on its recipe and add the times when I should add any other ingredient to the boil. Not drinking until the brew day is complete helps.

• More equipment expense. You’ll need two brew pots. That’s not much expense if you’re doing stovetop brewing with 3 gallons (11.5 L) of wort and top off water. It’s more with larger brew pots and propane burners. You will definitely need two large carboys, buckets, or other fermentation vessels. And you’ll need more bottles or kegs if you want to have a number of styles in stock.

• Your beer may not be as fresh if you keep several styles in stock. For most styles that’s not a real problem, but hop-forward styles like pale ales and IPAs are definitely best fresh.

• You will never fully master the science and art of brewing without going all-grain. Depending on what you really want from your hobby this may or may not be an issue. I very much enjoy the extract brewing process and relative ease and time savings, but I understand that others would rather focus on all-grain brewing. It’s a personal choice.

Conclusion

Brewing two batches a day is not for everyone. But if you want to minimize your time and impact on the environment, are organized and have the ability to multitask (and can also handle a little additional stress), it might be worth giving it a try. And if you’d like to have a number of styles in stock, it really helps to minimize the number of brew days you need to get there.

As both a homebrewer and professional brewer at Phat Fish Brewing in Dickinson, North Dakota, I frequently get asked about the process of brewing beer, including how difficult it might be to get started brewing at home. I always do my best to give a complete yet concise answer that includes encouragement for them to take the leap to begin brewing beer themselves. 

Any discussion of brewing beer is inextricably linked to the equipment necessary to carry out the process, particularly what pieces of equipment would be essential to get started. Before grasping the concepts of the brewing process itself, most people want to know what it will cost them in time and money to get into the hobby of homebrewing. I tell those interested in getting started that it is important for them to understand the essential steps of the brewing process and the equipment needs will then become apparent to them. I say this to challenge would-be brewers to take stock of what equipment they may already have on hand in their kitchen, attic, basement, or workshop in order to not only keep costs down, but to help them realize that they may be closer to getting started brewing than they previously thought.

If you’re a longtime reader of Brew Your Own, you may not learn a lot of new information from this article (although, refreshers are always nice!). However, I believe this article will be useful to read so you can consider it when others take interest in your hobby and you find yourself trying to describe the necessary steps and equipment for a newcomer to get into homebrewing. If you have been homebrewing for a while, the chances are that you, too, have been asked by a friend, family member, or even a stranger about what it takes to start making beer at home.

My elevator pitch to beginning brewers about getting started is that it is easier and cheaper than they might think. Most homebrew suppliers have beginning brewer kits that include most of the items listed in the essential equipment section, below, plus an extract ingredient kit and instructions, enough to brew a 5-gallon (19-L) batch of beer for less than $100. Once you have purchased the essential equipment, you can buy recipe kits that typically cost between $20 and $60 to brew again and again. I strongly encourage new brewers to begin with extract brewing, rather than brewing all-grain batches by mashing malt to produce wort. By getting comfortable with an abbreviated brewing process, you will have a greater chance of immediate success before attempting the somewhat more complicated process of brewing from scratch. 

Starting with a liquid malt extract recipe kit not only simplifies the brewing process, it cuts the time required to brew a batch of beer from about five hours to three, and reduces the amount of equipment and expense of getting started brewing. Malt extract comes in the form of a syrupy liquid of approximately 20% water content, or a dry powder, with nearly no water content. Recipe kits may include one or both forms of extract. Once you are a successful extract brewer, you can add the mashing step to your process later. I brewed with extract kits for several years before I made the leap to mashing to produce wort and am glad I did. It allowed me to be successful making good beer first, then I added more detail and dimensions to my brewing later. So, let’s walk through the extract brewing process and the corresponding pieces of equipment needed to get the job done.

Essential Equipment

• 5-gallon (19-L) or larger pot for boiling wort.
• Long-handled spoon for stirring wort.
• 6.5-gallon (24.5-L) fermenter, plus a lid with a hole in it to accept an airlock — fermenter may be made of food-grade plastic (bucket with lid or carboy), stainless steel with a lid, or glass (carboy) where the airlock fits into a drilled rubber stopper that fits into the opening of the carboy.
• Plastic airlock
• A thermometer capable of measuring between the freezing and boiling points of water.
• A 6.5-gallon (24.5 liter) bottling bucket similar to a plastic fermenter bucket with a lid and plastic spigot that fits in a hole in the side near the bottom of the bucket to be used to fill bottles. 
• Plastic tubing for transferring beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket.
• Bottling wand
• Scale or measuring cups to measure priming sugar and water.
• 2-quart (1.9-L) or larger saucepan to dissolve and boil priming sugar solution.
• (48) 12-ounce (355-mL) bottles or an equivalent number and size of bottles to contain 5 gallons (19 L) of beer. Either brown glass bottles that will accept a crimp-on steel cap, bottles with swing-top stoppers, or brown plastic bottles with reusable screw-on caps. Brown glass or plastic is important to restrict light, which can adversely affect the flavor of beer. 
• Bottle caps, if not using swing-top bottles or screw-on bottles.
• Bottle capper

Steeping Specialty Grains 

Oftentimes, an extract kit includes the option of some crushed specialty malt (and possibly un-malted grains) along with a mesh bag for steeping them in the brewing water. The crushed grains are placed in the mesh bag supplied with the kit and suspended in the brewing water as the water is heated, but not boiled, prior to adding the malt extract. Do this by steeping the specialty malt in 2.5 gallons (9.5 liters) of potable water in a pot that can hold at least 5 gallons (19 liters) until the water reaches a temperature of 170 °F (76 °C), then lift the bag out of the water, let it drain into the pot for a minute, and discard the malt. 

Regardless of whether your recipe kit includes specialty grains or not, it is helpful to warm the container of liquid malt extract by removing the lid from the container and placing it in some hot water while you are waiting for your brewing water to heat. This will make the extract easier to pour. If you have not already prepared some brewing water by conducting the steeping process of any specialty malt (leaving you with a bit less than 2.5 gallons/9.5 L of water that has not yet begun to boil) then place 2.5 gallons (9.5 L) of potable water in at least a 5-gallon (19-L) pot that you will use for the actual wort boil, or continue to heat the water that you steeped the specialty malt in, until the water comes to a boil. At this point it is important to remove the pot from the heat source before adding the warmed liquid malt extract. The reason for removing the pot from the heat source it to avoid scorching the malt extract on the bottom of the pot. Scorched malt is very difficult to clean off of the bottom of the pot and more importantly, will leave a nasty burnt flavor in your beer that is impossible to remove or mask. 

Stir the liquid malt extract into the water with a large spoon. Rinse the malt container with a little hot water to get most of it into the pot.

Boiling

Boiling is necessary to sanitize the wort, extract bitterness from the hops, and coagulate proteins so the finished beer will become clear. Wort is a complex solution of sugars, color and flavor compounds, yeast nutrients, and water, which in the case of beer come from malted grains, primarily barley and wheat. Later in the brewing process, wort will also contain bittering acids and aroma compounds from hops. As mentioned previously, we are skipping the step of mashing to allow you to focus on the basics of the brewing process, including what lies beyond the boil. 

Once you are certain that the extract is completely dissolved in the water so that no extract remains on the bottom of the pot, you may return the pot to the heat source and continue heating it up to a boil. Do not leave the pot unattended during the time it is heating up to a boil! As the wort reaches a boil it will often foam excessively (this is why we suggest using a 5-gallon (19-L) pot to boil approximately 14 quarts (13.3 L) of wort. When the wort begins to foam, you can reduce the heat, stir the wort with your big spoon, and/or spray water onto the foam to keep it from overflowing the pot. If the pot should foam over its sides (aka the dreaded boilover) it will not ruin your batch of beer, but you will have a burned and sticky mess to clean off of your stove that you will live to regret! 

For most beer recipes, you will need to boil the wort for about an hour, adding particular hops at specified times during the boil according to the recipe. The boil should be a gentle rolling boil that can be sustained without resulting in a boilover. Also, each time hops are added to the pot there is a chance the wort will foam excessively and need to be controlled as mentioned previously. During the boil, sanitize your fermenter by spraying it with a solution of 2 mL/liter or 1⁄2 teaspoon/quart of Star San or the sanitizer supplied with your kit per the instructions and allow the excess sanitizer to drain from it.

Chilling

After the boil the wort must be cooled down to a temperature at which yeast can survive and thrive. From this point on, everything the wort or beer touches needs to be sanitized! Failure to sanitize equipment is perhaps the greatest reason for failure in homebrewing beer. By killing any other bacteria or fungi before adding our fungi of choice (beer yeast) we can be reasonably assured that the beer will be fermented by the yeast we add rather than some other organism(s). Star San and other sanitizers are cheap, bad beer is expensive! 

As a general rule, brewing yeast perform best between 50–78 °F (10–26 °C). Since we now have something less than 3 gallons (11.4 L) of hot wort and wish to have just over 5 gallons (19 L) of final volume at a temperature suitable for our yeast to thrive, the simplest approach is to add about two gallons (8 L) of ice to the wort and allow it to melt.  If you plan to make homebrewing a continuing hobby, the first equipment upgrade to consider is a wort chiller.  Wort chillers are available from homebrewing suppliers or can be made yourself from materials found at a hardware store. Transfer the semi-cooled wort into your sanitized fermenter. Some splashing of the cooled wort while pouring the wort into the fermenter is a good thing, as yeast require some oxygen during the first part of their life cycle. Do your best to leave most of the sediment (trub) behind in the pot. Check the wort temperature with a sanitized thermometer and add ice and/or cold water until the wort in your fermenter is at a volume just over 5 gallons (19 L) and a temperature between 50–78 °F (10–26 °C). If you have just over 5 gallons (19 L) in your fermenter and it is still over 78 °F (26 °C), then cover the fermenter with the sanitized lid and set it in a sink of cold water (with ice if necessary) until it does cool below 78 °F (26 °C).

Pitch the Yeast

Once you have the volume of wort adjusted to just over 5 gallons (19 L) and in the correct temperature range, cut the yeast package open with sanitized scissors and sprinkle (dry) or pour (liquid) yeast into the wort. Sanitize the lid or stopper and the airlock and attach them securely to the fermenter. Add a bit of water to the airlock so it is less than half full and place the fermenter in a place with consistent temperatures between 50–78 °F (10–26 °C) and where it will not be exposed to light or wide temperature variations.

Fermentation

Active fermentation should begin within 48 hours of pitching the yeast into the wort. You should see a layer of foam develop on the surface of the wort and carbon dioxide bubbling through the airlock. The layer of foam and the bubbling of the airlock should continue for a week or two. When the layer of foam is nearly absent and little or no carbon dioxide is coming through the airlock, fermentation is essentially complete. One of the next pieces of equipment you’ll likely want to buy is a hydrometer to measure gravity, which is a more accurate way to determine fermentation completeness, but we can get by without one to start.

Racking, Priming, and Bottling

When fermentation appears to be complete (usually 10–14 days), sanitize the bottles, caps, bottling bucket (including the attached spigot), and plastic tubing that will be used to transfer the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket by spraying them with sanitizer or soaking them in a bath of sanitizer solution and allowing the excess sanitizer to drain away. 

Make a priming sugar solution by dissolving 5 ounces (142 g) of dextrose (corn sugar that is typically provided with a recipe kit) or white granulated sugar in a pint (473 mL) of water and bring it to a boil to sanitize. Allow the solution to cool slightly and pour it into the bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter into the bottling bucket using sanitized plastic tubing, leaving the sediment behind in the fermenter. Carefully fill each bottle using a bottling wand or directly from the spigot on the bottling bucket, allowing the beer to flow down the inside of the bottle instead of splashing straight down, to within 3⁄4 inch (2 cm) of the top, position a sanitized cap on the mouth of the bottle and crimp it down to seal it with the bottle capper. If you used swing top bottles or plastic screw-top bottles then secure the sanitized stopper or cap onto the mouth of the bottle. 

Conditioning and Serving

Allow the bottled beer to sit upright at room temperature away from light for two weeks to allow the yeast to ferment the priming sugar to produce carbonation. Chill the bottles down to serving temperature. Pry off a cap from a bottle (or open the swing or screw top) and carefully pour the beer into a clean glass being careful to stop before the yeast sediment comes out of the bottom of the bottle. If all went well, you should be drinking carbonated beer (hopefully good beer!). If the level of carbonation seems a bit low, allow the bottles to sit at room temperature for another week before chilling them again to serving temperature. 

Many homebrewers start the hobby brewing with malt extract and move into all-grain batches, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t advantages to brewing with extract or that great beer can’t be made from it. Two experts on the subject — one on the supply side and one a pro extract brewer — share their advice for brewing great extract beers.

Dan Bies, Technical Services Representative at Briess

In addition to saving time by skipping the mash step, extract brewing also saves time by allowing for a shorter boil. Extract does not require a full 60-minute boil (although specific hop schedules may) as the vast majority of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is removed during the evaporation phase of production of both liquid and dried malt extract. A boil of at least 10 minutes would be recommended to get additional hot break and destroy potential spoilage organisms. Just remember to turn the heat off and dissolve liquid extracts fully before turning heat back on; LME is very dense and can sink to the bottom of a kettle and scald very quickly.

For many beer styles there are two potential approaches for extract brewers — using 100% extract or using extract and steeping grains. I feel deciding between grain and extract should be based on personal preference. A brewer needs to weigh their values regarding convenience, taste, cost, and flexibility. I feel a small amount of steeped grain brings a fresh grain flavor to any extract brew. I like to use a light extract with a portion of steeping grains to make darker styles, however, you can make really good beer with extract alone.

Whether you use liquid malt extract (LME) or dried malt extract (DME), the resulting beers are very similar — liquid may have slightly more aromatics since they are not concentrated as far, but these differences are minor. I think most people find LMEs to be a little easier to work with but there are plenty who prefer DMEs.

Water adjustments when brewing with extract are not necessary unless there is a specific hardness or minerality that is critical to the style. Extract will contain a certain level of minerality. In most instances I would recommend using deionized or reverse osmosis water to avoid excessive minerality. 

There is a real savings for bulk extract purchases, but I’d suggest purchasing package sizes that will be emptied soon after opening. Liquid extract does not contain preservatives, in fact it is extremely nutrient-rich, which is why yeast (and spoilage organisms) go crazy for it. A partial package has more headspace, which can make for dramatic in-package condensation as storage temperatures fluctuate — at elevated temperatures moisture from the syrup will be drawn into the air space above the syrup. Upon cooling, the air will no longer be able to hold as much moisture and condensation will form on the surface of the syrup which will promote surface spoilage. It is possible to successfully repackage and store extract refrigerated or frozen, although doing so would likely be outside of the manufacturer’s guidelines. In a similar vein, opened DME is also difficult to store; an opened package will quickly turn into a brick above 40% relative humidity.

If you have any concern about the freshness you should taste the extract (about two tablespoon in a cup of warm water) to make sure it meets your expectation before you invest more time and additional ingredients.

In addition to boosting gravity in high-gravity recipes, I think all-grain brewers should consider extract for recipe development. Building on top of an extract can be a great tool for specialty malt, hop, and flavor exploration — a brewer may be able to turn out 2–4 times as many concept brews in the time it takes to brew one all-grain brew by utilizing extract with partial steeps.

Chris Townsell, General Manager & Head Brewer at Buffalo Brewpub

My brewing experience is actually limited to our 10-barrel extract system. I started brewing on it in 1999. It’s a very simple and efficient way to brew. Cost per ounce is unbeatable and if you stay within its capabilities you can make really great beer. We offer 3–5 of our house beers along with other locally- and nationally-touted craft beers. We’re happy to say our beers are still the best sellers. We have been especially successful with our amber ale, Oktoberfest, wheats, and porters. 

We only brew with liquid malt extract from Briess. It’s readily available, consistent, and most importantly, it’s what we know.  All of our beers brewed in-house are 100% extract brews. For darker beers I use darker extracts — mainly Briess’s traditional dark. It offers a darker finished product and stronger characteristics typically found in dark beers like stouts and porters. 

We don’t do any brewing water treatment. We actually just recently installed a water filter and there has not been a noticeable change in the beer flavor. 

Boil times vary based on how long the bittering hops need to be boiled. Our finishing hop additions are all 15 minutes and our first hop addition is boiled either 30 or 45 minutes. 

One downside of extract is how hard it is to brew lighter beers. We offer a year-round lager — Buffalo Lager — but it is not brewed in-house. 

I did once attempt to brew a Pilsner using Pilsen light extract. The lightest liquid malt extract available is Golden, which I wish I had used as the Pilsen did end up being too dark. I have yet to be brave enough to give it another go using the Golden. I’m not able to make a smaller batch than 10 barrels, so obvious concerns prevail. I do plan on attempting another batch at some point and flavoring some of it by individually dosing kegs. I do wish we could brew smaller batches so I could experiment more, but we have a relatively large recipe book and it’s still growing. 

As a homebrewer who has been brewing for more than 30 years, and spent the last nine years as the owner of a homebrew shop, I always smile when a fellow brewer says, “I am an extract brewer now, but I want to brew all-grain because I will be able to make a superior beer.” Or, “I did a couple of kits but they were too easy. I want to brew all-grain because I want to make beer that I like using my own recipe.”

So like the generation of brewers before told me, I say to the new generation of brewers that you need to study and brew to appreciate the many facets of brewing.

The Partial Mash: Equipment

I believe this hobby loses too many brewers because a brewer will get over their head quickly or they make an undrinkable beer and decide they do not want to waste another 5 weeks of their time waiting for sub-par beer. Or the brewer will spend a lot of money to buy equipment with all the bells and whistles to brew their beer and then realize they don’t have the time it takes to use the equipment. How many times have you seen a post on an online auction site stating the seller brewed a couple of times and made great beer but they now have no time to brew anymore? Brewing all-grain batches is a time commitment, often taking the better part of a day from the time grains are crushed until yeast is pitched and the final piece of equipment has been cleaned and put away.

Looking to reduce my own brewing time requirements, my advanced extract brewing philosophy that I will lay out for readers in this story incorporates mashing a percentage of grains while also utilizing malt extract to get the best of both the all-grain and extract brewing methods. This article is intended to help brewers find their own brewing philosophy that incorporates brewing science with techniques that are easy to master, with an emphasis on good recipe formulation. Brewing beer can be done in many ways, and all homebrewers are searching for the path that is the best for them. Let’s get this out of the way up front: All of these paths can lead to tremendous homebrewed beer.  

That said, let me share a way of brewing extract-based beers that I subscribe to, which can be done by novice homebrewers just getting into the hobby or those with years of experience. As I go through the steps of my brewing philosophy, I will show how recipes can be created to make beer you want to drink.

I brew beer using a beginner’s extract brewing setup with some additional pieces of equipment. In addition to the basic brewing equipment kit (a fermenter and bottling equipment), I use two 5-gallon (19-L) pots (however a 3-gallon/12-L pot will work fine for one of them), a magnetic stir plate and 2-L Erlenmeyer flask to make yeast starters, and an immersion chiller for cooling the wort. 

After these rather basic homebrewing tools, the last really important investment that I believe is necessary to make great beer consistently is something to control fermentation temperature. I believe this should be one of the first investments homebrewers make because no matter what system you eventually use for brewing, you will be fermenting wort and the ability to control the fermentation temperature is the key to quality beer after sanitation of equipment. One should be investing in some form of chamber or control of fermentation temperature now. 

When designing recipes I take into consideration hot break loss and the volume of trub and beer left behind at the bottom of the fermenter. I always design a 6-gallon (23-L) recipe for the beer style I want to make. This decision gives me the confidence of filling a Corny keg full of beer when I am all done, as some of the wort will be lost before the beer gets to the keg. 

Recipe formulation

Before going into more depth on the specific techniques I use when brewing, let’s break down the essential ingredients that are in beer. By understanding the ingredients we are able to begin creating our own unique homebrew recipes.

Water

I plan on having on hand 8 gallons (30 L) of water for brewing. My source is my own well water that has been tested several times over the years. The water is adjusted to reduce my residual alkalinity (RA) by adding gypsum to buffer the RA to below one (read more about RA adjustments at https://byo.com/article/understanding-residual-alkalinity-ph). If you do not have a reliable water source, I would recommend using reverse osmosis water and building your water profile to your liking. All brewers, no matter their experience, need to understand a key point in brewing is wort pH. Brewers should be very conscious of water profiles of certain beer styles. For me, I concentrate on RA to get wort pH in the correct range in the kettle for the boil. I will discuss other water adjustments later in this article.

Malt

I first learned how to create recipes by studying Ray Daniels’s book Designing Great Beers. In his book, the takeaway message for me was to think in percentages of total extract as opposed to weight, as that gives the brewer the ability to create recipes to any volume using malt extracts as well as grains. When creating a recipe for the beer you are trying to create it is important to understand what malts are best suited for the style while considering how each malt should be only a certain percentage, as balance is a key component in a great beer. I try to keep my base malt percentage between 87–100% for most of my recipes. I am very conscious that more is not better when using crystal malts, roasted malts, adjuncts, or sugars in my recipes. The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Style Guidelines are a good place to start to learn about characteristics of the beer styles, and then supplement that information with articles that are relevant to the style you want to brew.

Now armed with enough information to start putting your 6-gallon (23-L) recipe together, your first decision is choosing an original gravity (OG). By knowing the original specific gravity and volume (multiply the volume in gallons by the last two digits in OG to determine the gravity units) you can now create a grain bill using malt extracts, base grains, specialty grains, etc. By using the gravity unit (GU) methodology and knowing the Points Per Gravity (PPG) of the grains you will use in your recipe you can determine the percentages of each grain in the recipe. When designing a recipe, I start by turning to page 4 of any issue of BYO to refer to the recipe standardization information, which includes an extract efficiency reference chart (to understand the GU you should expect to get from an ingredient by the pound). Let’s illustrate this point with an example, looking at the New Old Timer’s Bock recipe below. This recipe is 6 gallons (23 L) and has an OG of 1.060. So:

6 x 60 = 360 total GU

Now, looking at the fermentables:

Pale ale dried malt extract (DME) per pound in one gallon (4 L) of water will yield a gravity of 1.045. That means every pound of DME in the recipe represents 45 GU. Since the recipe calls for 5 lbs. the equation is:

5 x 45 =225 (62.5%)

DME doesn’t need an efficiency factor because it is already factored in.

Pale ale malt per pound in one gallon (4 L) of water will yield a gravity of 1.037.  Our yield from steeping is only 65% efficient, so the specific gravity is reduced to 1.024. 

(1 x 24 = 24) (6.5%)

60 °L crystal malt per pound in one gallon (4 L) of water will yield a gravity of 1.033.  Our yield from the crystal malt is only 65% efficient, so the specific gravity is reduced to 1.022. 

(1.75 x 22 = 39) (11%)

Flaked maize per pound in one gallon (4 L) of water will yield a gravity of 1.037. Our yield from steeping the flaked maize is only 65% efficient, so the gravity is reduced to 1.024:

(3 x 24 = 72) (20%)

Added up, these four fermentables contribute the 360 GU we were after.

Hops

Once the grain bill has been created, move on to hops. Again, I let the BJCP Style Guidelines and other references guide my hopping decisions when making traditional styles; keeping the bitterness within the expected range of the style to be brewed. Many brewers think in Bittering Units to Gravity Units, or the BU:GU ratio, which will obviously range depending on the style you are brewing. Continuing our example using the New Old Timer’s Bock recipe, I am after approximately a 1:3 ratio (22 IBUs to 1.060 OG). 

The next step is deciding what hops are appropriate for the style to be brewed, followed by where to place the IBUs in the hop schedule. The brewer must consider the many facets of what creates the IBUs in the beer by understanding that the utilization of alpha acids (AA) in a beer are based on when hops are added, a hop’s percentage of AA, the volume of wort to be brewed, and specific gravity concentration and temperature of wort during the boil. Then the ion concentration of the water is where many brewers key in on by looking at the sulfide-to-chloride ratio to improve the bitterness perception of the beer.

I use the calculation and utilization chart in Designing Great Beers to figure my IBUs (although there are many methods available). 

Try to decide how many IBUs you want in each addition and which hop(s) you want to use for that addition. I have observed over the years that many commercial breweries do a blend of hops at many of their hop additions for a more complex flavor. Now comes even a more challenging thought, do you want to think of the oils present in your choice of hops, plus are they high or low cohumulone? There is no wrong answer, only what the brewer likes. Hops can be added at many points of the brewing process with good results — when added early in the boil they will mostly be contributing bitterness, late in the boil will add more flavor and aroma, and post-boil additions will add lots of aroma, some flavor, and less bitterness.

Yeast

Brewers can choose from an incredible number of yeast strains, including both dry and liquid strains depending on the manufacturer. Access to quality yeast is no longer an issue for homebrewers, which is one of the many great things about being a homebrewer today compared to when I got into the hobby. After picking an appropriate yeast for the style you are brewing it is time to focus on cell count, or cells per mL based on final boil volume and original specific gravity. OG comes into play once again when creating the recipe.

I have observed that many brewers do not understand there are three stages of primary fermentation; lag phase, exponential phase, and stationary phase. These phases are explained very well in Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff. The first key to fermentation is to pitch enough yeast cells based on volume and gravity, which should result in a lag phase no longer than 4–6 hours. Then during the exponential phase yeast should consume the fermentable  sugar for an ale in about 72 hours, and in a lager in 7–10 days depending on strain and temperature. Now going into the stationary phase, which will last about 3–7 days, the yeast and foam flocculate to the bottom of the fermenting vessel. Once primary fermentation is done the brewer will move the beer to a bright tank (glass carboy or corny keg), or to bottles for maturation and carbonation if you are bottling your beer.

My Partial mash Brewing Techniques

Using what we’ve discussed up to this point as well as the recipes on the following pages, let me share how I brew with my system.

Before I start brewing I collect all the water I will need (and treat it all, if needed), purchase or make sure I have on-hand all my ingredients for the recipe, make sure all my equipment is clean and easily available to use, and if I plan to do a yeast starter, I have that going. 

With my pre-brewing checklist all done it is time to start brewing. I find using two pots for the brewing process very helpful when using a kitchen stove. I like using a 5-gallon (19-L) pot to give ample room for the mash. The amount of water I use for mashing depends on the amount of grain, opting for approximately 1.5 qts. of water to 1 lb. of malt (3 L per 1 kg). After crushing the grains to be mashed I add them to a bag (or two if needed, you want the grains bagged loosely). While I mash the grains, I use my second 5-gallon (19-L) pot to heat 2 gallons (8 L) of water, which I will coordinate to be around 170 °F (77 °C) when it is time to rinse my grains. The remaining water that has been collected for brewing is put into a fridge to keep cool, which will help get my wort down to fermentation temperatures later.

When my bag of grain is done mashing I take it out and rinse it in the second pot with 2 gallons (8 L) of water (dunking the grain bag in water with no malt extract dissolved in it aids in rinsing as much sugar from the grain as possible for increased efficiency). I then add the wort from the mash kettle to the boil kettle and start ramping the heat up to a boil. 

At this point I will have anywhere from 2.75 to 3.5 gallons (10.5 to 13.2 L) in my boil kettle as I bring my wort to a boil. I have the option to add first wort hop additions at this point if I desire. When I reach the boiling point, I can add any brewing salt additions and my first hop addition of the boil. 

The next technique I recommend is keeping a lid mostly on the kettle with a space of an inch or two (3–5 cm) uncovered. I base this on trying to keep a 5% evaporation rate per hour of boiling, which is similar to what would be experienced on many commercial brewing systems. I would like to point out condensation of water during the boiling process helps keep your concentration at or below an OG of 1.050. And I do believe the Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS) compounds brewers are trying to remove during the boil occurs while using this method. I want to remind you I have not added any liquid or dried malt extract yet. I have kept this concentrated malt extract out of the one-hour boil so that it is not affected by the Maillard reaction, which would cause the wort to darken in color when exposed to boiling temperatures over time.

At the end of the boil I remove the kettle off the heat source and then add my malt extracts into the wort while stirring to dissolve. I am confident there is no risk of contamination based on the heat of the wort and the extract, which has been packaged in a sanitary container.

I cool the wort, which is at a volume between 2.5 to 3+ gallons (9.5 to 11.5+ L) with an immersion wort chiller, but this can also be done with a cold water bath or other type of chiller. The key now is to get your wort down to a temperature between 90–95 °F (32–35 °C). Once that temperature is reached, I transfer this liquid into a bottling bucket with the spigot closed (double check that it is closed — remember Murphy’s Law of what can go wrong). Then add your water that you have refrigerated to the 6-gallon (23-L) mark on the bottling bucket. 

I have an LCD thermometer on my bottling bucket to verify the wort’s temperature. I stir the wort to get the density evenly distributed in the pail, which now allows me to do my specific gravity reading. In my bottling bucket that is covered with a clean dishtowel, I have 6-gallons (23 L) of cooled wort, which matches the volume of my recipe. I allow the wort to be left undisturbed for 60 minutes to allow all the hot break trub to settle. I use one gram of Whirlfloc as my coagulant. 

During the hour I have time to clean up everything except my bottling bucket and the equipment I am using for yeast preparations. Another trick I do is have the bottling bucket tilted so that the spigot side of the bucket is slightly elevated so the trub slides to the opposite side of the bucket. In doing this, when I open my spigot to allow wort to flow to my fermenter, I have kept what has settled from the hot break out of my fermenter. The flow of wort coming out of the spigot can be regulated to create a fanning effect to help aerate wort.

Literature from dry yeast manufacturers indicates they have built the sterols in the yeast to a point where they don’t require adding oxygen to wort. I like to hydrate my dry yeast based on their recommendation, although dry yeast manufacturers say that for many of their strains rehydration is unnecessary. Two 11-gram dry yeast packages are ideal for my style of brewing, as I know my fermentation volume will be very close to their recommended pitch rate. If rehydrating, allow yeast to hydrate in 95–105 °F (35–41 °C) water (the water volume is 10 times the weight) for 15 minutes and then stir briskly. Allow to stand 5 minutes more before adding to wort. All this can be coordinated while the trub is settling.

I ferment in 7.8-gallon (29.5-L) wine buckets because the width allows for a greater surface area than a traditional homebrew fermenter bucket (14 inches in diameter vs. 12 inches/35 cm vs. 30 cm), reducing the worry about foam reaching or blocking the airlock. 

After yeast cell count, the key to fermentation is controlling the temperature, which I do by wrapping the fermenter with a BrewJacket Immersion Pro, however there are many different ways to do this.

My brewing-style allows me to be indoors using my kitchen for less than 4 hours without needing a lot of space or equipment to achieve a quality beer. The partial mash gives me the ability to create quality, custom wort and the use of extracts saves me the need to do a full mash. By keying on good recipe formulation and simple procedures I am able to make beer that will pass as an all-grain beer, even among the most studious beer judges.

Partial Mash Recipes

As the recipe editor at Brew Your Own magazine, I’m often tasked with creating recipes for folks who brew with extract from an all-grain version. I wanted to share some of the basics of what I do so that everyone can take any all-grain recipe found online, through a brewery, a fellow homebrew club member or from friends, and create an extract-based recipe themselves. We will also look at the building blocks to crafting extract-based beers as stand-alone recipes.

Base Malt Considerations

First off, I often swap out most, if not all of the base malts for a very light colored malt extract. So what are base malts? You can identify them with names such as Pilsner, pale ale, 2-row, Vienna, mild, and sometimes Munich malts (not all Munich malts are base malts). Other brewing grains such as wheat, rye, and oat malts can also serve as a base malt. Generally they are self-converting, meaning they are able to enzymatically convert the starch found in brewing grains into sugars and dextrins during the mash.

I personally prefer to use dried malt extract as a base malt substitute rather than liquid for many reasons including better storability and it’s easier to measure out in small increments. Light-colored dried malt extracts are produced using the maltster’s base malts and sometimes a touch of specialty grain like a dextrin malt to build body. These light-colored extracts are going to produce a straw-yellow colored beer. By themselves, they can produce a light-bodied, easy-drinking beer, or can make for a great jumping off point for a more complex beer. Extracts such as wheat, Pilsner, Vienna, or Munich can be utilized depending on your desired goal for the beer.

Specialty Grain Considerations

The only reason I will keep grain base malts in an extract recipe is if a large percentage of the specialty grains should be mashed instead of simply steeped. How do you know if the grain should be mashed instead of steeped? Steeping grains fall into the categories of crystal/caramel (cara) and highly-roasted malts. There are some notable exceptions to this rule like Special B (or Special W) malt, which is actually a steeping grain. Any good homebrew shop should be able to answer correctly in this arena and there are charts found online as well.

If you have 10% or more by weight of specialty grains in your recipe outside of the steeping world, then I recommend mixing a 1:1 ratio of base malts to specialty grains to perform a partial (or mini) mash. Mashing specialty grains include the likes of biscuit, aromatic, brown, melanoidin, and honey malts to name a few. Also any grain that is not malted is included in this such as flaked barley, flaked oats, and torrified wheat.

So what specialty grains should you choose? Basically if you can become adept in the partial mash process, there are very few constraints on your brewing process. Almost all styles of beer are possible with extract as the base. Smoked beers (rauchbiers) are going to be one of the biggest challenges of any extract brewer because smoked malts are enzymatic and usually comprise 25–75% of the total grain bill. Learning the nuances of various specialty grains are something that even professional brewers who have been at it for decades are still constantly learning. I advise doing your own research and then it will be trial-and-error time to advance your understanding in this department.

The Steep vs. Mash

The main difference between a steep and a mash is time and temperature. When performing a partial mash, the grains and water mixture should be kept between 145–162 °F (63–72 °C) for 30–60 minutes. This is because there is an actual biological process occurring in the mash that is sensitive to temperature and takes time to complete. Generally warmer mashes can be held a shorter time period though as the biological process speeds up.

Grains that are being steeped don’t need the assistance of any biological processing, so it’s more like a coffee or tea steeping process . . . you’re simply trying to extract the sugar and some other flavor and/or color components from the grains. And just like those steeping processes, you do still want to be cognizant of time and temperature. You never boil your coffee beans or tea bag, and the same holds true of steeping grains. A steep can be complete in 15–20 minutes so long as those extractables dissolve in the water.

Other Considerations

Water is the first up: If you are brewing with extract, I always advise using either reverse osmosis (RO), distilled, or tap water, as long as your tap water is soft (aka low in dissolved salts like carbonates). Next is full-volume boil vs. partial-volume boil. If hops are going to be a big part of your beer’s profile, then I generally advise full-volume boil. If not, then you can look at doing a smaller-volume boil and adding water just before pitching yeast. Finally, there is the boil . . . is it even necessary? In all honesty, many extract-based recipes may not need to be boiled for 60 minutes, let alone boiled at all. If you want to explore this more, I advise doing some research about the benefits of a boil in brewing.

The popularity of all-grain brewing has surged in recent years. In this column I’m going to step outside the norm for Beginner’s Block and talk more to the advanced brewers about simplifying their homebrew experience. Going back to the roots of homebrewing in many parts of the world . . . brewing with malt extract. By that I mean any batch of beer that utilizes malt extracts, it could be extract only, extract with grains, or partial mash batches of beer. In 1999, a survey of BYO readers found that extract brewers represented 88% of BYO’s readership; only 12% of survey respondents identified themselves as exclusively all-grain brewers. By 2006, a similar reader study showed that those identifying themselves as all-grain brewers had grown to 38%. Fast-forward to 2018, and the number of readers identifying as all-grain homebrewers grew to 79%. Talk about a trend . . . in 20 years, all-grain brewing among our readers has gone from the minority to the majority. The American Homebrewers Association reports similar trends. According to their homebrew shop survey conducted in 2012, 64% of homebrewing purchases included malt extract. By 2018 that number has shrunk to 44%. But extract brewing is still homebrewing and should always be kept as a possibility by every homebrewer.

Pros vs. Cons of Using Malt Extracts

In my opinion the biggest advantage of extract brewing can be summed up in one word: Time. Sure, many Brew-In-A-Bag brewers will claim they’re saving time, but no all-grain brewer can claim time savings like extract brewers. I’ll go into the time-saving details later. Other big pros include: Better consistency, less equipment, less cleaning, less hassle, and less space. The equipment and consistency can be a great aid for beginner homebrewers while space can be a huge advantage for apartment brewers. The cleaning and hassle aspect is great if you have kids or are trying to multi-task with other things in your life. The main cons of extract brewing I often hear revolve around the fact that malt extract is more expensive than bulk grain and that the base malt profile has been pre-determined for you. Expense is true, but consider the value of your time saved by not processing that grain into wort — no milling, no 60-minute mash, no cleaning the mash tun, hoses, pumps, etc. As for the beer’s base malt profile, there is plenty of maneuverability. Would you like the beer drier? Add less malt extract and supplement with simple sugars. Enzymes are another possibility if you want very dry beer (see the “Brut IPA” article in December 2018 issue for more on enzymes). Want more body? You can add unfermentables like maltodextrin or lactose or choose from a plethora of body-building specialty grains. There are also a fairly large variety of malt extracts available such as Maris Otter, Vienna, Munich, Pilsner, amber, pale, and many various dark extracts. Some manufacturers even provide the exact grist profile of the mash used to produce the malt extract.

Eliminate the Mash?

The first obvious time-saving element is realized by eliminating the mash from your brew day. Even partial mash brewers will save time and effort since heating water for, say 2 lbs. (0.9 kg), is going to be much faster than several gallons of strike water. Partial mashes can be performed in a saucepan or small insulated water cooler on the side while water in the main brew pot is heating. For those recipes that don’t require a mash, just steeping grains, the steeping process can be conducted while the water comes up towards a boil, but I’ll always remove the grains when the water gets to 170 °F (77 °C).

Eliminate the Boil?

Boiling is optional, although at least a pasteurization step should be performed. That means that heat requirements can be greatly reduced and subsequent chilling can be hastened with water consumption reduced. Boiling is performed for three main reasons: Sanitation, reduced dimethyl sulfide (DMS) levels, and to add bitterness from hops. A pasteurization step would take care of sanitation, DMS is not an issue with malt extracts, and hops can still add some bitterness if enough are added. There is a caveat here, the isomerization process of alpha acids from hops will be minimal unless the wort is heated to near-boiling. So unless you can find some pre-isomerized hop extract, I would not suggest brewing, say, a German Pilsner with a firm bitterness using this no-boil technique. But a brewer could conceivably bring the water to 170 °F (77 °C) (with steeping grain if so desired), stir in the malt extract and hops and/or other spices, let sit for 15 minutes, then chill, transfer into fermenter, and pitch yeast — think zero-IBU IPAs here! You could conceivably have 5 gallons (19 L) of wort ready to be pitched in an hour depending on heating and chilling capabilities. Unfortunately I hear it time and again from all-grain brewers: “I just don’t have the time to brew.” The reality is that you most likely do have time if you expand your range of brewing techniques to include brewing with malt extracts. Do yourself a favor and give extract a try. You may find that you end up extracting yourself from your exclusive all-grain brewing ways and brew more often as a result.

For many, what they look for in a beer changes with the seasons. As the summer air heats up, tastes often move toward easier-drinking ales and lagers. Beers that pair with barbeque, include fresh fruits, have crisp finishes and lower ABVs, and brews that go down easy whether manning a grill, tossing horseshoes, or lounging in an Adirondack chair by the lake.

While summer beer styles are all great, not everybody has time among the hustle bustle of summer to fit in enough all-grain brew days to try them all. Between family outings and other summer commitments, or just not wanting to spend a day in the sun manning a brew system, sometimes a quick one-hour brew day is the best option. For that reason, we decided to give our extract-based brewers some summertime love and asked 10 homebrew retailers to share their best-selling and favorite extract-based homebrew recipes. These recipes run the gauntlet in style, so there is sure to be something here for every homebrewer to enjoy this summer as they soak up the rays.

Related Link

• Want more summer recipes? Byo.com digital members can find six summer clones from Firestone Walker, Harpoon, Goose Island, Brooklyn, Magic Hat, and Anderson Valley at: byo.com/article/six-summer-beer-clones/