Dry malt extract only?

Gee117 · May 5, 2017

I'm total noob at brewing beer so forgive me for stupid questions

I have 2 bags of dme light and medium,
Could I make a simple beer from just 1 packet of dme (500g) for a 1 gallon batch and maybe some suger?

Also could I have any tips you guys think is essential to beer making and making a decent drinkable deer

Could I also get advice what hops I could add aswell

Thanks in advance

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wfr42 · May 5, 2017

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=56344&highlight=turbo+beer

Have a read of the linked thread - you'll need some hops too!

Iirc it produced beer, just not the best end product.

Pawlo7671 · May 5, 2017

Yes of course, boil the dme in the biggest pot you have the bigger the better, add hops for 60 mins then 5mins towards the end of the boil. A middle of the road type hop in that its good for bittering or flavor with an Alpha acid content of around 10% The smaller your pot the more hops you will need. Need to know more about your equipment

DoctorMick · May 5, 2017

Pawlo7671 said:
Yes of course, boil the dme in the biggest pot you have the bigger the better, add hops for 60 mins then 5mins towards the end of the boil. A middle of the road type hop in that its good for bittering or flavor with an Alpha acid content of around 10% The smaller your pot the more hops you will need. Need to know more about your equipment

If it's all extract you don't even need a 60 minute boil, you can do 15 minutes but with a bigger hop addition to hit the desired ibus. Just using the sme you could do a very nice pale ale.

@dad_of_jon is a very knowledgable extract brewer so he should be able to offer good advice...although you may end up with a 12% Belgian Ale with loads of kandi sugar!

Gee117 · May 5, 2017

Pawlo7671 said:
Yes of course, boil the dme in the biggest pot you have the bigger the better, add hops for 60 mins then 5mins towards the end of the boil. A middle of the road type hop in that its good for bittering or flavor with an Alpha acid content of around 10% The smaller your pot the more hops you will need. Need to know more about your equipment

I have 3 glass Demijohns 2 plastic brew buckets all 1 gallon and I got a 23l pressure barrel, I probably will not use it for now until I'm sure of what I am doing.

As for hops who could I use?

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Gee117 · May 5, 2017

Pawlo7671 said:
Yes of course, boil the dme in the biggest pot you have the bigger the better, add hops for 60 mins then 5mins towards the end of the boil. A middle of the road type hop in that its good for bittering or flavor with an Alpha acid content of around 10% The smaller your pot the more hops you will need. Need to know more about your equipment

I have 3 glass Demijohns 2 plastic brew buckets all 1 gallon and I got a 23l pressure barrel, I probably will not use it for now until I'm sure of what I am doing.

As for hops I have no idea about them, any you can suggest to go with a medium barley

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terrym · May 5, 2017

@Gee117
First, for extract brewing you don't need to boil all the wort with the hops. I make 16 litres of extract beer using a 5 litre pot and a 3 litre pot which equates to about 6-7 litres of wort which I then make up to the 16 litres in the FV using water.
Second you don't need to boil all the malt extract with the hops. A proportion is all that is necessary. This improves the bitterness extraction. That's also what I do.
You don't say what sort of beer you want to make. If you tell us, someone on here can make suggestions for a recipe if you still want to go ahead with your one gallon of beer.
However if you are serious about starting homebrewing your best option imo is to go and buy a kit and use the DME to enhance that. You are more likely to produce something that is drinkable as a first attempt. So tell us what you like and someone on here will suggest a range of kits you could select from.
In the meantime here are kit reviews, and a basic guide to kit brewing.
Beer Kit Review A - Z
and
Basic beginners guide to brewing your own beer from a kit - The HomeBrew Forum

Pawlo7671 · May 5, 2017

Gee117 said:
I have 3 glass Demijohns 2 plastic brew buckets all 1 gallon and I got a 23l pressure barrel, I probably will not use it for now until I'm sure of what I am doing.

As for hops who could I use?

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How big is your boil pot ? As for hops, you could go crazy thinking about all the different hop profiles there are, genraly higher alpha hops are used to bitter with the lower AA ones used for flavor and aroma but you can get away with a mid point hop like cascade, citra, centennial, chinook, Hallertauer. Experimentation is the key, messing around with each hop addition, let me know what size your boil pot is and i'l run it through beersmith

Gee117 · May 5, 2017

terrym said:
@Gee117
First, for extract brewing you don't need to boil all the wort with the hops. I make 16 litres of extract beer using a 5 litre pot and a 3 litre pot which equates to about 6-7 litres of wort which I then make up to the 16 litres in the FV using water.
Second you don't need to boil all the malt extract with the hops. A proportion is all that is necessary. This improves the bitterness extraction. That's also what I do.
You don't say what sort of beer you want to make. If you tell us, someone on here can make suggestions for a recipe if you still want to go ahead with your one gallon of beer.
However if you are serious about starting homebrewing your best option imo is to go and buy a kit and use the DME to enhance that. You are more likely to produce something that is drinkable as a first attempt. So tell us what you like and someone on here will suggest a range of kits you could select from.
In the meantime here are kit reviews, and a basic guide to kit brewing.
Beer Kit Review A - Z
and
Basic beginners guide to brewing your own beer from a kit - The HomeBrew Forum

Thank you, I drink mostly stouts but I'm not too fussy, I like most beers.

And I have made kits from the LME before it turned out okay, from what I've read on the Internet Is I need to boil the dme for 45mins or so but like you said I can only do it for 15 or so, then add some DME near the end?

ATM I only have 1 light DME and 1 medium DME both are barley

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Gee117 · May 5, 2017

Pawlo7671 said:
How big is your boil pot ? As for hops, you could go crazy thinking about all the different hop profiles there are, genraly higher alpha hops are used to bitter with the lower AA ones used for flavor and aroma but you can get away with a mid point hop like cascade, citra, centennial, chinook, Hallertauer. Experimentation is the key, messing around with each hop addition, let me know what size your boil pot is and i'l run it through beersmith

My boil pot is about 5L

Thanks I'll do some reading on different hops

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terrym · May 5, 2017

Gee117 said:
Thank you, I drink mostly stouts but I'm not too fussy, I like most beers.

And I have made kits from the LME before it turned out okay, from what I've read on the Internet Is I need to boil the dme for 45mins or so but like you said I can only do it for 15 or so, then add some DME near the end?

ATM I only have 1 light DME and 1 medium DME both are barley

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My suggestion is to go and get yourself a Coopers Original Stout kit, and set yourself up to make 19-20 litres of stout with it.
This kit is certainly one of the better kits and will benefit from using all the 1kg DME you have. Look at the reviews to confirm this.
Get your technique right first and then move on to extract brewing.

Pawlo7671 · May 5, 2017

Gee117 said:
My boil pot is about 5L

Thanks I'll do some reading on different hops

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If you boil 500g of your dme in 4.5l of water, start with 10g cascade boil for 55 mins then add 5g cascade for remaining 5 mins. keep topping up the water in the boil pot from a kettle. This will give you a beer of around 4% abv adding 100g of dextrose after the boil will up this to around 5% abv.

Gee117 · May 5, 2017

Pawlo7671 said:
If you boil 500g of your dme in 4.5l of water, start with 10g cascade boil for 55 mins then add 5g cascade for remaining 5 mins. keep topping up the water in the boil pot from a kettle. This will give you a beer of around 4% abv adding 100g of dextrose after the boil will up this to around 5% abv.

That's brilliant thank you!

Question - can I make some thing like a pale ale with just 1 pack of medium barley Dme and suger no hops or anything? Or would it taste bad?

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Pawlo7671 · May 5, 2017

Gee117 said:
That's brilliant thank you!

Question - can I make some thing like a pale ale with just 1 pack of medium barley Dme and suger no hops or anything? Or would it taste bad?

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You need hops in there, IDK what it would be like without hops but I guess malty and sweet. You need hops, please use hops

Pawlo7671 · May 5, 2017

terrym said:
My suggestion is to go and get yourself a Coopers Original Stout kit, and set yourself up to make 19-20 litres of stout with it.
This kit is certainly one of the better kits and will benefit from using all the 1kg DME you have. Look at the reviews to confirm this.
Get your technique right first and then move on to extract brewing.

+ 1 for this....Walk before you run fella

terrym · May 5, 2017

Gee117 said:
Question - can I make some thing like a pale ale with just 1 pack of medium barley Dme and suger no hops or anything? Or would it taste bad?

Since you seem keen brew a fermented malt liquor without hops (in spite of being advised early on in this thread that hops were required) I suggest you try gruit which was historically used to preserve ale (as it was known then in the British Isles) before hops were used, hops having been adopted in line with brewing practice on the other side of the English Channel in the Middle Ages.
So with acknowledgement to Wikipedia....
"Gruit (alternately grut or gruyt) is an old-fashioned herb mixture used for bittering and flavoring beer, popular before the extensive use of hops. Gruit or grut ale may also refer to the beverage produced using gruit.
Gruit was a combination of herbs, commonly including sweet gale (Myrica gale), mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), horehound (Marrubium vulgare), and heather (Calluna vulgaris). Gruit varied somewhat, each gruit producer including different herbs to produce unique flavors and effects. Other adjunct herbs included juniper berries, ginger, caraway seed, aniseed, nutmeg, cinnamon, and hops in variable proportions."

Gee117 · May 6, 2017

terrym said:
Since you seem keen brew a fermented malt liquor without hops (in spite of being advised early on in this thread that hops were required) I suggest you try gruit which was historically used to preserve ale (as it was known then in the British Isles) before hops were used, hops having been adopted in line with brewing practice on the other side of the English Channel in the Middle Ages.
So with acknowledgement to Wikipedia....
"Gruit (alternately grut or gruyt) is an old-fashioned herb mixture used for bittering and flavoring beer, popular before the extensive use of hops. Gruit or grut ale may also refer to the beverage produced using gruit.
Gruit was a combination of herbs, commonly including sweet gale (Myrica gale), mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), horehound (Marrubium vulgare), and heather (Calluna vulgaris). Gruit varied somewhat, each gruit producer including different herbs to produce unique flavors and effects. Other adjunct herbs included juniper berries, ginger, caraway seed, aniseed, nutmeg, cinnamon, and hops in variable proportions."

Thank you, I dont intend to try and make one with just DME I was just asking the question to try and get a better understanding of the process.

I have used the kit av before and they have came out alright, reading through some websites they don't state that you need hops and dme.

Sorry if it came across as me being persistent Im I'm just trying to grow my understanding of using dry malt and thank you for the information

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MrRook · May 6, 2017

Some time next week I'm going to brew an imperial pilsner with dme only. The idea is to use up a bunch of my home grown sterlings. I'm going to boil 3 gallons of water with 3 pounds of Briess pilsen dme for 30 minutes and add another 3 pounds for the last couple of minutes.

Dry malt extract only?

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