Advice needed on canned liquid malt extracts

[Andris]

Hello guys,

I have rather odd situation at hand - the only homebrew shop we have does not offer any kinds of brewing sugars/ect (well, its popular here to brew stuff with plain sugar), what I could find there is whole range of Coopers canned liquid malt extracts and thats what Im planning to use instead of sugars in nearest future.

 

So, is there a sort of substitute table for brew enhancers vs canned malt extracts? Or a general rule of thumbs for using canned malt extracts?

Well, any input will be appreciated cause at the moment I'm bit puzzled in situations like recipe sais "brew enhancer2" and I got only choice of 3 cans (well, wheat will make it 4th)! :-)

 

thanks in advance!

[MatR1]

So do you have plain liquid malt extract available or just pre hopped cans?

 

If you've only got pre hopped cans then what type are they?

 

I generally just use the unhopped cans with some dry malt extract. Very rarely will I use any sugar / dex.

 

Let us know what you can get and we should be able to recommend something.. [happy]

[Andris]

well, its all canned Coopers malt extract range - Light malt extract, amber, dark and wheat, that's it, no dry stuff, not even brewers sugar (well, I wonder if its popular here to brew with ordinary sacharose and hence noone really bothers to import it)

So, at the moment Im kinda twisted - we have great german made fruit sugar (fructose), but price for clean refined ones are almost same as the can of malt extract and I somehow don't think fructose will do justice to beer, maybe cider...

[MatR1]

Excellent.. [biggrin]

 

You can use 2 of those tins.. 2 in a 20L will give you approx 1045 OG and about 4.3% ABV before bottle priming.

 

Depending on what you want you can mix them up.

 

2 x Light = Pale Ale or Lager depending on yeast.

2 x Wheat = Hefeweizen

1 x Light 1 x Amber = Amber Ale

etc. etc.

 

You will just have to do a small boil with hops. Now I'm assuming you can get hops there? If not that's just shot my theory down.

 

You can still use sugar but keep it to a minimum. If you must add sugar it may be best to convert it to invert sugar (see link below)to avoid the cidery taste sugar (sucrose) can add. Or use your german fructose.

 

If you can get some hops and decent yeast you will be making some great beer. [biggrin]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_sugar_syrup

 

[Andris]

thanks, I think you bit misunderstood the situation (oh well, english isnt my 1st language) but you gave some new perspective *smile* - I can get my hands on most kits, but the sugar choices are limited to those 4 cans including wheat beer... so, what Im wondering what would happen (taste/beer body wise) if I use cans of malt extract instead of sugars/beer enhancers as suggested on the kit for brewing, and yep, got my hands on hops as well.

[MatR1]

ok. Using all malt will give you a fuller bodied beer with a better flavour profile.. My prefered choice..[rightful]

[Andris]

thanks, that clears things a bit.

[MatthewS4]

I aways brew with malt and no sugar as I prefer the full body taste. Sugar gives alcohol and no body/mouth feel, malt extract gives you both.

 

Here is something else you may find handy, as a general rule this is how much the extract ferments compared to sugar.

 

sugar = 100%

Dry Malt extract = 95%

Liquid Malt extract = 78%

 

So if the recipe calls for 1 kg of sugar, you need to add slightly more of the extract to make the alcohol % the same.

 

1.5kg tin of liquid extract is around 1.17kg of fermentable sugar.

[Andris]

Thanks :-) , that clears my head further, but, I think best way to know is to get it rolling... so, I got my second batch going yesterday.

So, to get "dryer" beer, I would have to stick with sugars, to get something bit fatter, malts is the way to go.

In your experience, do you add malt tea's to kits? How much and in how many stages?

Just wondering because I like my beer with sharp hop bite in the end.

[PB2]

Andris, boiling hops or reducing the total volume are two ways to will increase the bitterness.