Extract Brewing Ingredients

 Malt extract. This is concentrated brewers wort, it can come in liquid form, LME (liquid malt extract) or a fine, dry granular form sometimes called spray malt or DME (dry malt extract). Being dry, as a rule of thumb 1kg of DME = 1.5kg  of LME.

Extract is available in blends of extra light to dark with several shades in-between, there is also a wheat malt extract available.

Specialist Grains.  Unlike pale malt which makes up the bulk of the grains used in English ales, these grains that don’t need to be mashed. They have been treated by the malting house so that the startch has already been converted to sugar. In order to extract this sugar the grains should be steeped (gently simmered) in hot water for 30 mins at a temperature of 60-70 deg c. They are then removed and the extract added to the wort before the boil commences. In order to easily remove the grains they are often contained in a nylon or muslin grain bag .

Specialist Grains include: 

Crystal Malt. Black Malt. Chocolate Malt and Roast Barley. 

Hops. The full range of hops are available for use to the extract brewer. They are added to the wort once it has come to the boil and are boiled for 90 mins to extract the hop bitternes and flavour. Some recipes call for hops to be added part way through the boil particulary the last 15-20 mins, these are known as late copper hops and are added to restore hop flavour driven off during the boil. Hops can also be added after the boil and are allowed to steep in the hot wort for about 30 mins, these hops restore lost aroma. This is known as dry hopping. (Another method of restoring hop aroma is to add hops to the cask, this is also known as dry hopping).

Yeast. This converts the sugars in the wort to co2 and alcohol and is available to the home brewer in dry and liquid form. There is a far greater range of liquid yeasts available to suit every style of beer imaginable. Generally considered better than dry yeasts, each individual liquid yeast adds its own subtle flavour and introduces yet another variable that the home brewer can. However, liquid yeasts are around five times the price of a dried yeast though so dried yeasts tend to be used more often, besides there are some very good dried yeasts on the markets they include Danstar, Gervin and Safale yeasts, all give excellent results.

Extract Brewing Pages Courtesy of Chris