Crystal Malt.
Black Malt.
Chocolate Malt
Roast Barley.
Extract brewing is the next logical step from brewing with kits. It allows you to use specialist grains and whole hops to create fresher and more varied styles of beer and give you a greater control over the brewing process.
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
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 60 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.
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