going extract

[eddie66]

Hi all,
I've done 25 + kits, mostly with good results but reading the posts on here i fancy having a go at extract brewing so have ordered a 15l stock pot off ebay & boddingtons and wadworth's 6x kits from brew uk. i have the basic kit for kit brewing so with the pot i hope this will suffice.Any advice gladly recieved.

Brewing : Wilco pear cider +1l added ribena boiled 30 mins
Conditioning : Wilco sweet newkie brown
Drinking : wilco cerveza[brewed with med dme, came out like summer ale ] wilco golden ale [very good after only 2 weeks]
Planning: first crack at extract & wilco hoppy bitter + dried elderflowers. :

 

[andyakameatloaf]

I'm eager to move up to extract brewing myself, but I'm a bit of a newbie with only 3 brews under my belt (albeit an eager one).
I've read up massively on it and even got as far as pricing up stock pots, but i decided to continue with kits for a while longer yet to get some experience with it.

I eagerly await to be in your position, so let me know how it goes, and best of luck mate! :

 

[jonnymorris]

I eagerly await to be in your position...

If you have 3 kits under your belt and know how to sanitise your equipment, read a hydrometer and rehydrate yeast... you are ready. What's holding you back?

 

[Duxuk]

One thing you'll need is something to strain the hops out with. I use a colander. You can, of course, buy a bag to boil the hops in. I like to rinse them to try to extract more flavour, since your often boiling the hops in much less than your final brew length, so efficiencies may be low. Good news is extract brewing produces beers better than the bottled beers you can buy. I have recently discovered the benefits of adding hops at flameout, and leaving to steep for 20 minutes. The flavours you get are immense compared to adding at 5 minutes from the end.
I also like to steep some crushed crystal for half to one hour at about 68C. This allows you to add complexity and sweetness and, in my opinion (though I may, of course, be wrong!) gives a better result than using dark or medium extract. So my beers are often just light DME, crushed crystal, hops and yeast.
GO FOR IT! you won;t regret it. :

 

[andyakameatloaf]

I eagerly await to be in your position...

If you have 3 kits under your belt and know how to sanitise your equipment, read a hydrometer and rehydrate yeast... you are ready. What's holding you back?

time and money, i'm afraid.

I'm out of pocket at the minute and due to move house in just over 1 month.
When i get settled up tyneside I think I'm gonna have a crack at doing another IPA, then get a brew pot sorted to move onto extract i think.

 

[windymiller]

time and money, i'm afraid.

Its a serious consideration here too. I don't understand why buying the raw ingredients costs quite a bit more than buying a kit, in the UK at least. Up here, a Muntons kit costs not very much more than a tin of Muntons extract. By the time you add yeast and hops, its more than, even using just 1oz of hops per brew.

I have found that the kits are very good, and the results of using them are little different from extract brewing. The main thing about extract brewing being that you can control, or even eliminate the hops and reduce the bitterness, making a more palateable brew, depending on your taste. But its none cheaper than doing a kit.

I was considering buying malt extract in 20+ litre drums, then looking at bigger batches to get it used up before it goes off. But with regular trips to New Zealand, its actually easier, and even cheaper to take tins of extract and kits back from there.

 

[Underground]

Not extract brewing, but maybe an illustration of a worthwhile experiment? In my very limited experience, I have found that kits were super quick and hence easy to get on, whereas AG was a little more time consuming but ultimately, I enjoyed the process and it only cost me the price of a mashing/sparging bag (although admittedly, the recipe seemed light on grain so I ended up adding 750g of amber malt after a week but...) - I am lucky insofar as I own a 15l jam pan, so I scaled a recipe for the volume of water I could boil, mashed in a 5 gall bucket covered with my down jacket, sparged using water from the boiled kettle (cooled with cold water to correct temp) poured through the bag of grain in a colander, and just boiled on the hob.

Fast forward a bit, fermented, 'secondaried' in a couple of 5l mountain water bottles from Sainsb's, and it's ace.... like 'proper' beer rather than homebrew - as I know it from prior experience at least (i.e Boots kits circa 1995)

 

[cwiseman77]

Without the space to go AG I'm on probably my 10th extract brew. Really enjoy the process and being able to formulate my own recipes. I found the quality of beer superior to kits I done and more fulfilling.

 

[andyakameatloaf]

I am lucky insofar as I own a 15l jam pan, so I scaled a recipe for the volume of water I could boil, mashed in a 5 gall bucket

You've got me thinking now.
So if i were to start extract brewing. how would it work with the pans? you said you scaled a recipe? How would i go about that?
Also, am i right in saying that since the malt extract is fermentable, you wouldn't need to add any other sugars, so your recipe would consist of just extract, hops, yeast and water?
And how much KG of malt extract would you need (roughly) for, say, a 1.065 OG?

I've had a quick play on Hopville and can get a recipe together to use up some high-alpha Citra I already have, but it reckons for 1.065 OG i would only need 3KG of light extract and 1KG of dark. This seems ridiculously low considering its common to put in 1KG as the fermentable when using a beer kit?

 

[cwiseman77]

For a 23l batch you would use between 2.5-3kg of DME. Although I've never brewed a beer with an OG of 1065, usually between 1040-50. You basically follow the recipe for a full 23l boil but do a concentrated boil, I usually do about 10l. You *** the wort to the FV and top up with cold clean water to reach 23l.

 

[cwiseman77]

Here's a really good "how-to" for extract brewing. This is pretty much the way I do it but if doing a lighter beer I add half the DME at the start and half at the end. http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2672

 

[andyakameatloaf]

Here's a really good "how-to" for extract brewing. This is pretty much the way I do it but if doing a lighter beer I add half the DME at the start and half at the end. http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2672

fantastic, thats clearedall up for me. Thanks! :

 

[cwiseman77]

:thumb:

No problem, good luck when you give it a go!

 

[Pearlfisher]

I've had excellent results using these and are reasonably priced - http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/bee ... 1_211.html

They're much more interesting to make than normal kits and IMO are far superior to even the top of the range two can kits.
You only need a 10L pan.

 

[Sandimas]

They're much more interesting to make than normal kits and IMO are far superior to even the top of the range two can kits.
.

+1 I still make the odd kit from time to time (mainly lager-type beers) but it's extract now for ales, it's like the beer you can get from the pub only often better I found kits OK if you like malty beers, but never found one that had much hoppiness. I dry-hopped a Wherry once, which was good, but cost as much as an Extract kit by the time I'd bought the hops.

Yes, Extract is a bit more expensive than kits (ingredients for my latest brew cost me nearly £30), but generally you're looking at a difference of less than 20p a pint for a far superior beer. And these beers are on average £2.30 a pint cheaper than my local!

 

[Maxxyjazz]

This might be a stupid question, but is it better to steep your grain in a small amount of water before topping it up to boil volume when you take the grains out. I can't see how it matters really but some people do it that way.

M

 

[andyakameatloaf]

Yes, Extract is a bit more expensive than kits (ingredients for my latest brew cost me nearly £30), but generally you're looking at a difference of less than 20p a pint for a far superior beer. And these beers are on average £2.30 a pint cheaper than my local!

The last kit i made was a Coopers Aussie Pale Ale dry hopped with Citra. For the can, Brew Enhancer, some more Brew Enhancer (bit of an investment - to prime with) hops and postage it was £34.

If an extract recipe will set me back around the £30 mark im very much comfortable with that :)

 

[cwiseman77]

Yes, Extract is a bit more expensive than kits (ingredients for my latest brew cost me nearly £30), but generally you're looking at a difference of less than 20p a pint for a far superior beer. And these beers are on average £2.30 a pint cheaper than my local!

The last kit i made was a Coopers Aussie Pale Ale dry hopped with Citra. For the can, Brew Enhancer, some more Brew Enhancer (bit of an investment - to prime with) hops and postage it was £34.

If an extract recipe will set me back around the £30 mark im very much comfortable with that :)

Brew.UK do them for about 20 quid, I done 2 of their recipe packs before having the confidence to go it alone. If you're buying hops, DME, grain etc... in bulk its even cheaper. The DME is by far the most expensive part. I enjoyed doing the brewuk extract recipe packs, they came with really straight forward instructions and was a good stepping stone to doing it myself. Their summer ale is especially good http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/beerkits/brewextract/summer-ale-recipe-pack-new.html :thumb:

 

[RobWalker]

forum sponsor the home brew company sell them for just over £20 and high quality kits too :thumb:

 

[andyakameatloaf]

i didn't even know such things existed!
Cheers guys, once i move i think i'll try one of these before moving to my own recipes