# Easy Guide To Extract Brewing



## bconnery (15/5/07)

I'm posting this here because the forum title is kits and extracts, even though KK is the icon in the topic list  

There has been a thread recently about all extract brewing. I did this for a few years now and feel that it is a great method for making tasty beers for those who can't, won't or haven't yet gone to all grain, which is great fun but is a lot of work and not necessarily for everyone... 

This post is likely to be PistolPatch long, so eventually I will pdf it, if people like it enough. Or PM me for the document if you find it useful

By now some observant people may have noticed this all sounds very familiar. Yes, this post absolutely is a version of my kit and kilo method post done for extract. Soon I'll probably do the same for mini-mash too J

The guide will be divided into 3 sections, equipment, recipe and method.

There are certain things I'm not going to go into, sanitation, temp. control, dry hopping, all sorts of other bits. Sanitation should be a given. This is really about a method of brewing that gives you a lot of scope for different beer styles and control over your recipes. 


*Big Disclaimer. *

This is all of course all an opinion. It is based on my experience with brewing and stuff I have read and applied. It is not intended as the gospel but I really do feel this method produces very tasty beers, and really starts to give you a good idea of how to formulate recipes and using hops and grains etc. 

I'm certain I'll leave something out so feel free to be critical, add, discuss etc


*Part 1 Equipment. *

A pot, 10-15L, or bigger but this will do, stockpot. 

Another large pot (any decent size saucepan from the kitchen will do for steeping grains

Large strainer. 

Fermenters, hydrometers etc. which are pretty useful regardless of your method J


*Part 2 the method. *

I'm going to do this with a recipe. 

This is a dark English Bitter. 


3kg LME 100g Crystal. 100g Dark Crystal. 100g Chocolate. 50g Roast Malt. 250g Carapils. 

10g Progress 70g First Gold. 20g Saphir ( I had this around. Substitute Goldings or something else from Germany if you like)

Nottingham yeast 

The day before place as much water in the fridge as you can. I fill up a bunch of water bottles so I have 15 odd litres of cold water to top up with.


Place grains in 2L of cold water and slowly raise temp so that it reaches around 76C. Exact temp doesn't matter, just don't boil them and it helps to bring it up as slowly as you can. 

As a guide I usually steep in 2L of water per kilo of grain, so that it is close to mashing levels, but with smaller amounts I tend to use 1-2L minimum...

Strain into stock pot. 

Rinse with 1-2L of water at around 76C. 

Place cans of LME in a sink of hot water for 10 minutes to warm. 

Bring a small amount of water, say 2-3L, to the boil in stock pot with grain runnings, so you should now have about 5-7L altogether. 

The amount of water from the grains will vary according to recipe, so always top up so you have about 5L minimum in the pot. The more the better kind of but leave room for the boil in the pot...

When the wort reaches boiling let it go for 5 10 minutes then start the hop additions. 

10g Saphir, 50g First Gold @45. 

You can use a hop bag. I usually just strain into the fermenter. 

A 60 minute boil is kind of the usual but with an extract brew it isn't quite as important. It's more about getting the desired level of IBUs.

Remove from the heat and stir in the LME @10. 

You should boil the extract for a minimum of 5-10 minutes. Longer is fine but you will start to darken your beer. You just need to decide if that's what you want

10g Progress, 20g First Gold, 10g [email protected] 



Cool using one of the various methods. Such as: place in a sink of iced water, replacing water as it heats. Cool this as much as possible as it easier to cool this and then top up with water.

Strain into fermenter. 

Top up to desired level, say 21L, in your fermenter using pre-cooled water and more if required. 

Cool, if it isn't already, to around 20C for an ale or else desired temp. 

Aerate, Pitch yeast, lock and you are away. 

If using dried yeast I don't feel you need to re-hydrate, although I do with Nottingham

Yeast choice and techniques are a whole other topic that is the same regardless of whether you are using extract or not. 

Keep cool using available methods, wet shirt, fridge, 100 can cooler etc. etc. 

So it's that simple. Boil adding hops at various stages, boil remaining extract, cool and ferment. 


*Part 3 Whys and wherefores. *

The reason for boiling is that it aids in protein coagulation, allowing the protein to sediment out (called the hot break), which in turn makes for a clearer beer. You can get a decent hot break with extract that has only been boiled 5 to 10 minutes.

http://www.bodensatz.com/staticpages/index...020413075309659

You also provide another method of reducing the potential for infection. Boiling even for 5-10 minutes helps to remove any possible nasties. 

Runnings from steeped grain must be boiled for 10 minutes minimum for the same reason I think. 

Boiling for 5-10 minutes is the minimum. You can boil for longer but your wort will darken. This isn't an issue for darker beers so you can boil for longer for these if you wish

If you are adding sugar do not boil for the full amount of time. There is no benefit to doing this. In fact, there can be some minor negative effects in doing so. The main reason the extract is boiled is for protein coagulation.. Since sugar is 100% carbohydrate and no protein, we don't have to do this. If you did boil the sugar for the entire length of time, the higher resultant specific gravity of the liquid being boiled would cause the hot break to be not quite as good as it could be. Also, the higher gravity will have a negative effect on hop utilization and could even cause the wort to darken more (called caramelisation), causing a darker beer.

Basically under this method you are using extract as a base malt, then controlling the colour and flavour using specialty grains, and hop levels as desired. There are lots of extract recipes around on the web so you'll have almost as much scope as doing AG. 

As I said, I've spent a few years using this and mini-mashes before I went AG and I think you'll find the extra little effort is well worth it!


Hops

Here's my hop guide. Not complete or definitive but I find it useful

You will be controlling your IBUs and flavours yourself now. A calculator such as beersmith or promash is useful here. You need to adjust for the fact that you aren't doing a full volume boil. 


Why grains and what to select. 

Certain grains require a mash. They don't have enough power to convert to sugar on their own. Specialty grains as they are usually called contain enough sugars and are used to add flavour and colour. 

Check out my grain guide for a starter on grains to use where and when and just read. Grumpys and Weyermann are good starter sites for some information, and this one as well

http://www.bodensatz.com/staticpages/index.php?page=Grains


Specialty grains give colour and flavour as I said, so adding them will allow you to utilize the extract as a replacement for base malt and experiment with creating your own beers. Also the practice of steeping I have outlined above is very close to a mash. Mini-mashing is essentially steeping to a controlled temperature level. It is simple with the same equipment outlined above to do a mini-mash and learn some of the techniques for mashing without going to new equipment.


----------



## Pandreas (16/5/07)

Fantastic Post!

As a new brewer with VERY limited experience it's great to see your charts describing the varying flavour & characteristics associated with different Hops and specialty grains. 

I still feel uncertain about how to make a DECENT beer using all-extract brewing and choosing my own DME, hops, grains & yeast. 

But, I reckon this information will go a LONG way in helping me put my next brew recipe together! 

Cheers!


----------



## bconnery (16/5/07)

Pandreas said:


> Fantastic Post!
> 
> As a new brewer with VERY limited experience it's great to see your charts describing the varying flavour & characteristics associated with different Hops and specialty grains.
> 
> ...



There was another post about extract brewing recently where I posted a bunch of recipe links which help with getting an idea how recipes involving all the ingredients hang together. 

Believe me you can make decent beer this way. Then add a mini-mash and you are really starting to get an idea of the whole process  

You may have seen that thread. If not, pm me your email (if you haven't already) and I can just send you my favourites from IE...

Cheers

Ben


----------



## bconnery (16/5/07)

Here's a page of links from an earlier post. Lots of extract with specialty grains recipes here, as well as AG...

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=207392


----------



## Rysa (16/5/07)

Bloody good breakdown!!
Thanks for the links and recipes too, just what i needed to get going on the path to better beers.


----------



## hopmonkey (16/5/07)

Good post, only thing that may be worth adding is the addition timings. We all now @10 means with 10 mins to go but at first look it may seem like 'at 10 mins of boiling'


----------



## petesbrew (16/5/07)

thanks for the hops and grain guides, Bconnery. Brilliant work there.
Safely stored in the work pc!


----------



## Prawned (16/5/07)

Awesome post, I think it has made me want to go out and buy a few big pots so i can give an all extract brew a go next!


----------



## bconnery (16/5/07)

hop_monkey said:


> Good post, only thing that may be worth adding is the addition timings. We all now @10 means with 10 mins to go but at first look it may seem like 'at 10 mins of boiling'



That's very true, and I always think about explaining that one, but then I think that soon enough most people work it out...

It's hard to tread the line between explaining nothing and explaining everything.




> Awesome post, I think it has made me want to go out and buy a few big pots so i can give an all extract brew a go next!



Do so  I really think you like the quality that can come, and also adds another dimension of fun and experimenting because you really have almost total control of your recipes.


----------



## Brewtus (16/5/07)

Great post. This is the half way that Kit brewers will move to when the wife and kids get used to the smell in the kitchen.


----------



## Tangles (16/5/07)

Nice work there BC. A great guide to extract brewing. You make it sound so simple. I'll probably get burnt for saying so but I just pour my boiled wort into the fermenter on top of 3 x 1 lt ice blocks then top up with tap water. I've found that this will bring my temp into pitching range. I've read that this can produce off flavours in the finished beer, I haven't found it to be a problem so far. Any thoughts?


----------



## Rysa (16/5/07)

A bit off topic but not too far, i've been buying a 12L container of water ($4.20) and putting it in the deep freeze a couple of hours before i make a batch, plus a bit of cold water from the fridge seems to get it down to 20>22C fairly well.


----------



## bconnery (22/5/07)

Rough as guts brewing said:


> Nice work there BC. A great guide to extract brewing. You make it sound so simple. I'll probably get burnt for saying so but I just pour my boiled wort into the fermenter on top of 3 x 1 lt ice blocks then top up with tap water. I've found that this will bring my temp into pitching range. I've read that this can produce off flavours in the finished beer, I haven't found it to be a problem so far. Any thoughts?



Just saw this. The main objection to this is the possibility of infection from water that has been in your freezer, which apparently are a microbioligists paradise... That being said, I have done this on several occasions with no issue. I read somewhere the suggestion for doing just this, but sterilising the container first. 

The other objection comes from the AG side of things, where everything is boiled so the idea of adding unboiled water in is foreign. But in the case of extract or mini-mashing, where you are always adding unboiled water, this practice is fine. If you steer clear of open freezing containers, I used to use an ice-cream container, then this reduces the risk further perhaps..


----------



## maltedhopalong (18/6/07)

3kg LME 100g Crystal. 100g Dark Crystal. 100g Chocolate. 50g Roast Malt. 250g Carapils. 

10g Progress 70g First Gold. 20g Saphir ( I had this around. Substitute Goldings or something else from Germany if you like)

Nottingham yeast 

The day before place as much water in the fridge as you can. I fill up a bunch of water bottles so I have 15 odd litres of cold water to top up with.
-----------------
Then it says to put grains in water... where are the grains? what are crystal, dark crystal and chocolate not to mention roast malt and carapils?? I'm guessing they're grains... what exactly is steeping???


I have had a look around for the answers to these questions, but it's very difficult to find where this gap in knowledge is explained. ie. I can read lots about AG brewers using these terms but they see no need to explain this and k&kk brewers don't know what it is either.

Sorry to drag it off topic, but i'm an k&K brewer and i wanna be able to customize my beers more, but clearly don't know as much about "extract brewing" as i thought ! LOL!!


----------



## Adamt (18/6/07)

Bang on, you guessed it! They are grains. You can get most (if not all of them) at a good home brew store.


-----
steep2 /stip/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[steep] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation,
verb (used with object)
1.	to soak in water or other liquid, as to soften, cleanse, or extract some constituent: to steep tea in boiling-hot water; to steep reeds for basket weaving.
2.	to wet thoroughly in or with a liquid; drench; saturate; imbue.
3.	to immerse in or saturate or imbue with some pervading, absorbing, or stupefying influence or agency: an incident steeped in mystery.
verb (used without object)
4.	to lie soaking in a liquid.
-----

The guide says:
Place grains in 2L of cold water and slowly raise temp so that it reaches around 76C. Exact temp doesn't matter, just don't boil them and it helps to bring it up as slowly as you can.

As a guide I usually steep in 2L of water per kilo of grain, so that it is close to mashing levels, but with smaller amounts I tend to use 1-2L minimum...
-----

Hope this clears it up...


----------



## maltedhopalong (20/6/07)

What are grain runnings?


----------



## bconnery (20/6/07)

maltedhopalong said:


> What are grain runnings?



The water that you have when you have steeped the grain. 

You might find this site useful. I've linked to the beginner section but it has a ton of info on beginner, medium and advanced techniques and all aspects of brewing. 

It is one of the sites I used to visit a lot when I started, and before I found this one...


----------

