DC Homebrewers
By Pete J.
With the upcoming AHA Club-Only Competition, now is the perfect time to make your next homebrew an extract beer. Most homebrewers’ first recipe is all-extract because of its ease of use, and frequently the result is not the most successful batch. However, with a few tips your extract beer can better than the all-grain beer that your neighbor spent all day mashing.
1. Use a full boil.
Most extract homebrewers start with smaller, half size boils. Again, this is a great way to get into the hobby as it’s much easier to heat 2.5 gallons of water to boil on the typical apartment stovetop, just as it’s easier to cool back down prior to pitching yeast. If you have the space in your boil kettle, using a full 5 gallon boil will reduce maillard reactions (which will keep the beer lighter in color and residual sweetness). A full boil will also improve hop utilization- your pale ales will be more appropriately bitter, with more of the hop flavor and aroma that distinguishes award-winning beers. If you only have a 4 gallon or smaller boil kettle, then adding your extract later in the boil can also solve some of these flaws. Simply add 1/3 of your extract with your first dose of hops to the initial boil to allow for hop reactions, and 2/3 of the extract about 15 minutes before flameout to reduce carmelization of malt sugars (be sure to stir until it’s fully dissolved). This often increases hop bitterness, so a rule of thumb is to reduce your hops by about 20% to reach the calculated IBUs.
2. Use a Partial Mash
A partial mash involves adding some base and specialty malted grains to your recipe- usually in a grain bag (brew-in-a-bag). The hour long mash, as opposed to simply steeping specialty grains for a shorter period, will add crucial nutrients to promote yeast growth. If you can’t do a partial mash, add a small amount of yeast nutrient to your beer. The partial mash technique also increases the number of recipes and styles that you can brew. If you can brew a partial mash, you can brew almost any beer.
3. Buy the Freshest, Best Ingredients
Malt extract, like almost all ingredients used in making beer, is best when freshest. Anything older than six months will have started to decline in quality. Don’t even touch those rusty cans on the top shelf! If there’s a question as to the age- ask your friendly homebrew store employee. The major online stores like Northern Brewer or More Beer go through large amounts of malt extract, so they are also great places to find fresh cans. If you’re in a pinch, dried malt extract will often last longer than its liquid brethren. And definitely skip the pre-hopped cans. Homebrewers today have access to hundreds of varieties of fresh, vacuum-sealed hops. Use as the farmer intended. Finally, remember that malt extract is just concentrated, dehydrated wort- same as that all-grain mash. And like that all-grain mash, many decisions went into the wort manufacture which affect its characteristics. These characteristics could have positive or negative effects on your beer, so do read the extract labels, and do try different malt brands if your recipe isn’t clicking. Fortunately with malt extract brewing, a new batch is just a boil away.
Additional Reading
John Palmer, “How to Brew”
Martin Lodahl, Brewing Techniques
Drew Beechum, The Maltose Falcons
