Extract or grain?

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ringo8553

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What differences can I expect between the same kit that is offered in extract and grain, besides the price:)
 
One will contain a whole bunch of grain and the other will have either a liquid malt or powdered malt extract
He hehehhehehehehe
 
Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Crappy weather day in the northeast and I cannot brew until tomorrow.

The extract version will be easier and less room for error while the AG version will give you more control over the final product.

If your process and sanitization are good then you will probably not be able to distinguish difference in taste
 
Thank you! The first answer was much simpler..crappy day in New Joisey also..that's why I'm brewing today...
 
PB/PM BIAB is even easier,& you still gwet to dabble in mashing. With washed yeast & local spring water,i can do a 5 gallon batch this way for like $15.50 for an average pale ale.
 
The only difference you will likely notice is taste. While you can make awesome beer with extract all grain brews tend to taste better due to the use of fresher ingredients. It is like making marinara sauce with vine ripened tomatoes from your back yard vs using canned tomato sauce as your base. They will both likely taste good in the end however one will have an edge on the other in the taste department. Any who debate this are the same who would debate that a frozen pizza tastes as good as one fresh from the mom and pop pizza place that makes their dough fresh every day, makes good fresh sauce, and grates quality fresh cheese daily.
 
If you have to ask, you should probably go with all-grain because if you don't you'll probably be forever wondering "gee, what if I had done all-grain; I kind of wish I had done all-grain".

If it were me, I'd do extract first because it's easier and, it's my understanding, all-grain brewing *is* extract brewing except you have to/get to make your own extract.

The only difference you will likely notice is taste. While you can make awesome beer with extract all grain brews tend to taste better due to the use of fresher ingredients.

Grains aren't fresh! They've been treated, washed, bleached, filtered and dried before they get to you. Now you get to mash them and extract their sugars. Or you can let some-else do that and give you the same sugars as extracts.

Okay, now the sugars and extracts aren't as fresh but ... they're sugars! Not vegetables!
It is like making marinara sauce with vine ripened tomatoes from your back yard vs using canned tomato sauce as your base.

Actually sauce made from home-canned tomatoes (vine ripened from you back yard) *is* better than sauce made from fresh tomatoes. *Much* better. Properly canned tomatoes have been allowed to ripen to their fullest extent and canning at their peak prevents any lot of nutrients while allowing the sugars to come out. The "freshness" of a tomato off a vine is completely lost and wasted when you actually *cook* the damned thing.
 
If you have to ask, you should probably go with all-grain because if you don't you'll probably be forever wondering "gee, what if I had done all-grain; I kind of wish I had done all-grain".

If it were me, I'd do extract first because it's easier and, it's my understanding, all-grain brewing *is* extract brewing except you have to/get to make your own extract.



Grains aren't fresh! They've been treated, washed, bleached, filtered and dried before they get to you. Now you get to mash them and extract their sugars. Or you can let some-else do that and give you the same sugars as extracts.

Okay, now the sugars and extracts aren't as fresh but ... they're sugars! Not vegetables!


Actually sauce made from home-canned tomatoes (vine ripened from you back yard) *is* better than sauce made from fresh tomatoes. *Much* better. Properly canned tomatoes have been allowed to ripen to their fullest extent and canning at their peak prevents any lot of nutrients while allowing the sugars to come out. The "freshness" of a tomato off a vine is completely lost and wasted when you actually *cook* the damned thing.

Face palm. Devil's advocate.
 
Face palm. Devil's advocate.

I take "devil's advocate" to be a compliment. It's an important and essential principal in testing and assuring one's objectivity and validity.

And my wife would kill me if I wasted one of her tomatoes in a *sauce*!
 
gotta disagree the majority of extract brew taste canned. Comes across all styles. PM's or extract & grains are a vast improvement if properly done and often indistinguishable from an AG brew
 
gotta disagree the majority of extract brew taste canned. Comes across all styles. PM's or extract & grains are a vast improvement if properly done and often indistinguishable from an AG brew
Well, I was playing devil's advocate.

And I was assuming steeping specialty grains as part of an extract kit. Is all-grain that noticeably different?
 
gotta disagree the majority of extract brew taste canned. Comes across all styles. PM's or extract & grains are a vast improvement if properly done and often indistinguishable from an AG brew

If your's tastes canned,then your bying those cheap ones like they sell in England with no liner in the cans. Buy cheap,you get cheap. Cooper's has a liner,& if you think you can still taste the can,then it's all in your head. You can't taste the can in a lined can. A good process can make good beer out of AE. I've said it for some time now;blame the brewer,not the brew. Plus not doing late extract additions will give that extract twang,a sort of cooked extract flavor.
And if it comes in a bag or jug,it STILL tastes canned to you? Shows me preconcieved notions on your part. Get it in your head that it's got a wong in it,& guess what? It'll taste like it. PM & AG are good,but not a cure all.
It's amusing to me that young folks that can't burn water right wanna brew beer. Then come here complaining it tastes like this or loks like that. Brewing beer is cooking...need some basic cooking skills to brew beer with any hope of decent results.
 
Now I feel like making sauce!
I feel like getting sauced.

If your's tastes canned,then your bying those cheap ones like they sell in England with no liner in the cans. Buy cheap,you get cheap. Cooper's has a liner,& if you think you can still taste the can,then it's all in your head. You can't taste the can in a lined can.

I didn't get the impression that the OP was talking about pre-hopped extract kits such as Cooper's, so much as ingredient kits using LME and DME. I think he was expressly asking about recipes which have equivalent all-grain and extract/specialty grain recipes.

Now, it's possible LME and DME brewed beer taste "staler" and all-grain is "fresher" (but just how "fresh" can something that you boil, ferment and let sit for 6 weeks be? How "fresh" would you *want* it to be? Heck if you want it "fresh" there's a reason they call it "green) but I doubt it and that's not what I've read and I don't believe you and deep down I kinda suspect you're being pretentious. But I don't have the experience or authority to deny it.
 
Actually sauce made from home-canned tomatoes (vine ripened from you back yard) *is* better than sauce made from fresh tomatoes. *Much* better. Properly canned tomatoes have been allowed to ripen to their fullest extent and canning at their peak prevents any lot of nutrients while allowing the sugars to come out. The "freshness" of a tomato off a vine is completely lost and wasted when you actually *cook* the damned thing.

Now, it's possible LME and DME brewed beer taste "staler" and all-grain is "fresher" (but just how "fresh" can something that you boil, ferment and let sit for 6 weeks be? How "fresh" would you *want* it to be? Heck if you want it "fresh" there's a reason they call it "green) but I doubt it and that's not what I've read and I don't believe you and deep down I kinda suspect you're being pretentious. But I don't have the experience or authority to deny it.

Wait wait. So are you trying to say that if you are going to cook or boil something that it's ok to not use fresh ingredients? So every chef in the world should just be using frozen food to make their dishes because they are going to cook it? So every home and commercial brewer should completely disregard the freshness of his or her ingredients because it's going to be boiled and aged? So the quality and freshness of the grapes in a wine don't matter because it's going to be aged? Or are you just feeling high and mighty because you grow and can your own tomatoes?
 
So I did just see something in another thread that is valid here. Most base malts have a high diastatic power. In other words there is a higher potential for enzymatic activity to occur in order to convert starch to sugars. Most specialty malts do not have very good diastatic power and require the presence of a base malt to help pull out any fermentable sugars that may come from them. If all of your base comes from DME, you do not get this effect because all of the base malts diastatic power has been used in the process of creating the extract. What this all equates to in flavor, I can't say without a side by side comparison, but I'd guess it's noticeable. I feel like an all grain process would allow all the flavors to "stew" together a little better.
 
I feel like getting sauced.

I'm already there, but to the OP, if you have the means to do either. I would go all grain. Not because AG will taste better per-se, in the end, but for the fact that AG offers you more control in the end product to suit your taste. If your system is geard up and you know it. you can brew a maltier beer, a hotter beer, etc, based on your numbers. So, I'd go with AG strictly on that alone, you have more control. If I needed a good beer and didn't have half a day to brew, I'd go extract. It'll save you a couple of hours and if done right, will produce as good a beer as any AG beer on a 5 gallon scale.
 
Wait wait. So are you trying to say that if you are going to cook or boil something that it's ok to not use fresh ingredients?

No. I'm saying it's not such a simple fresh = good always. It *always* depends on the circumstances.

Rice, salt. Soy sauce. etc. don't need to be fresh. And some ingredients should be aged which is the opposite of fresh. And *many* *many* recipes (vanilla extract, tempeh, saurkraut) you are simply extracting the ingredients so they will last forever. Nothing is as nice as fresh vanilla sugar on your homemade creme brule and, yes, fresh vanilla beats extract all hollow, but when it comes to seasoning your baked cake and you need to infuse alcohol through the bean to extract the oils into a saturated liquid it doesn't matter if you did it the night before or the year before.

I don't know if beer falls in this category or not. I kind of thought it wasn't as you are essentially extracting sugar and not blanching broccoli. However the reading of done since this morning things there might be more to it and you could be right. I don't know.

However such statements are uniformly condemning the entirety of extract brewing which seems pretty bold.

Then again, maybe that's what the OP was asking.

And aren't burgundies made with rotting grapes? If not burgundy, some other wine? I don't think they are all made with "fresh" grapes. Well, maybe they are.

So I did just see something in another thread that is valid here. Most base malts have a high diastatic power. ...I feel like an all grain process would allow all the flavors to "stew" together a little better.

Well, that's plausible. Or sounds plausible.
 
I'm already there, but to the OP, if you have the means to do either. I would go all grain. Not because AG will taste better per-se, in the end, but for the fact that AG offers you more control in the end product to suit your taste. If your system is geard up and you know it. you can brew a maltier beer, a hotter beer, etc, based on your numbers. So, I'd go with AG strictly on that alone, you have more control. If I needed a good beer and didn't have half a day to brew, I'd go extract. It'll save you a couple of hours and if done right, will produce as good a beer as any AG beer on a 5 gallon scale.

I agree I would always do ag if I had 5 or 6 hours but when I don't a good extract kit is the way to go
 
It's also a matter of how much you want to learn and master and understand in your first session.

The pro of all grain is you get the whole experience and gamut of details all at once.

The con of all grain is you get the whole experience and gamut of details all at once.
 
And aren't burgundies made with rotting grapes? If not burgundy, some other wine? I don't think they are all made with "fresh" grapes. Well, maybe they are.

I know very little about wine but what I'm getting at is that I would like to think that they all <i>originate</i> from fresh grapes. And by fresh I mean fairly recently from the vine but mostly grown in such a way that they have gotten at least a little individual attention as opposed to in field one of a million mass grown grapes for wine that people that don't drink for flavor. By that definition, garden veggies are the freshest vegetables.

I don't know if beer falls in this category or not. I kind of thought it wasn't as you are essentially extracting sugar and not blanching broccoli.

I think it does to a certain extent. Like you said, all grain is processed. I'm sure the grain used to make DME is basically the same as we would use to mash with. So we can't expect freshness in the same way as veggies but there are moments in the the process where time becomes detrimental. One of these moments is at the end of wort production. Outside of contamination issues, I don't think you'd want wort sitting around too long before pitching yeast into it. I think you'd want to get it fermenting while the sugars have been recently converted and are "fresh" in the wort. Once all the elements are blended, then, does the term fresh begin to have less to do with time. Extract goes through a much more torturous process than we create brewing all grain. Then it's packaged as what equates to really think wort and shipped to sit on a shelf before you use it. While we may not be able to taste the difference, it is hard to say that that process is equally as fresh as mashing with "fresh" grain, boiling, and fermenting all on the same day.

And with that, I totally forgot what the point is I was trying to make.:drunk:
 
Yes, but the extract originates from the same fresh grains as the mashing does. Once extracted they are sugar and last forever. Basically beer making requires an ingredient that you have to make, malt sugar. In all grain, you are making the malt sugar. In extract, someone else made it. One can't claim one is "fresher" just because someone else made it. Your pizza place isn't making nasty pizza if he buys his sauce from the Italian restaurant next door who makes it fresh daily.

But then again... The malt extract has been pasteurized and condensed. And in the case of DME powdered. So, it's not as fresh as the stuff you mashed.

But then back once more... it's *sugar* ... If you are baking a cake will a cake using granulated sugar be less "fresh" than one using juice squeezed from sugar cane?

I *don't* know. But seriously, given the hundreds of thousands of brewers who use extracts isn't "all grain has to taste better 'cause it's fresher" a bit of an oversimplified blanket statement.

Now, of course if there's anyone out there who actually *knows* his ass from his elbow, 'cause I sure don't, feel free to jump in. Or you can continue to sit back and watch the two of us make further fools of ourselves.

====
Basically I *am* playing devil's advocate. (The more I think about it the more it seems like milk vs. powdered milk, which in some cases will be fine but most cases will be paltry.)

But the statement "all grains always taste better" is such an overstatement, and "any one who says otherwise will argue that frozen pizza's are as good as fresh baked" is such a false comparison (you aren't freezing your freakin' beer and thawing it before drinking!) that they desperately *NEED* a devil's advocate!
 
What we need here is someone that is a certified BJCP judge to chime in and help us in this debate.
Here is my thought/question:
Could a judge determine from taste or other characteristics that a beer is AG or extract?
 
Yes, but the extract originates from the same fresh grains as the mashing does. Once extracted they are sugar and last forever. Basically beer making requires an ingredient that you have to make, malt sugar. In all grain, you are making the malt sugar. In extract, someone else made it. One can't claim one is "fresher" just because someone else made it. Your pizza place isn't making nasty pizza if he buys his sauce from the Italian restaurant next door who makes it fresh daily.

It sounds like you're saying that tomatoes from the grocery store are equal to canned tomato soup. And that's not so. Sure, the tomatoes from the grocery store are hothouse tomatoes, but they are still totally fresher and different than canned tomato soup (canned LME).

Even the freshest LME can suffer from a "canned extract" taste, and is more susceptible to a twangy taste. There are work arounds, and there are some quality extracts, but my preference is at least to steep some grains or do a partial mash for the freshness malt flavor.


What we need here is someone that is a certified BJCP judge to chime in and help us in this debate.
Here is my thought/question:
Could a judge determine from taste or other characteristics that a beer is AG or extract?

No, not always. Sometimes a very good beer is made from extract.

I don't know of one all extract beer that doesn't taste like it- but I've judged beers in competition that were partial mash with much of the fermentables from extract and it was just like a well made AG beer.

The key is using some grains for steeping/mashing, not overboiling the extract (by adding all of it for the whole boil) and doing a full boil to avoid excess maillard reactions. I think using light/pale extract really helps too, as sometimes the darker extracts get almost caramelized in flavor.

I have had some very good extract beers in those ways, and as a certified BJCP judge I would not be able to tell the difference.

I've had others that tasted of cooked extract, and even with a canned twangy taste.

It really depends on the skills of the brewer, and the quality of the ingredients.
 
I enjoy reading these posts about how fresh the grain is that folks use. I can see a malting plant from the back of my house that is only 5 or 6 miles away and I see the train cars rolling in all the time and leaving. You know those train cars get hot as hades in the summer and freeze solid in the winter but that is the base for our "fresh" grain. Then depending on the time of the year the grain we use can be as old as 2 years just because grain is only harvested once a year.

Awhile ago my wife bugged me to the point that I broke down and cleaned my brew storage room. I found a bag of crushed grain that I had forgot I had. I have no idea how old it was other than over a year old. I brewed it and it was wonderful.

If folks really want to improve their beer look at using fresher hops and temp control along with improving their brewing techniques. I would not worry about how fresh the grain is because it simply is not fresh.

Now the extract stuff I have no clue about since I have not used it
 
I enjoy reading these posts about how fresh the grain is that folks use. I can see a malting plant from the back of my house that is only 5 or 6 miles away and I see the train cars rolling in all the time and leaving. You know those train cars get hot as hades in the summer and freeze solid in the winter but that is the base for our "fresh" grain. Then depending on the time of the year the grain we use can be as old as 2 years just because grain is only harvested once a year.

Awhile ago my wife bugged me to the point that I broke down and cleaned my brew storage room. I found a bag of crushed grain that I had forgot I had. I have no idea how old it was other than over a year old. I brewed it and it was wonderful.

If folks really want to improve their beer look at using fresher hops and temp control along with improving their brewing techniques. I would not worry about how fresh the grain is because it simply is not fresh.

Now the extract stuff I have no clue about since I have not used it

That's true- except when you crush the grain and expose the inside, THAT'S where the fermentables are, and not the husk. In the sack, uncrushed grain stays pretty usable and fresh. Once crushed, it goes bad quickly.
 
Idk,I've had crushed grains last over a month in the fridge still in their bags.
I have noticed that smaller amounts come in these thinner long zip lock bags from midwest. I put those in a zip lock freezer bag in the fridge with the air burped out. They've been fine so far. I did start buying my grains uncrushed so they'd be fresher when I crush them on brew day though.
 
I don't think the question is how fresh the grain is. We've established the grain itself is certainly not fresh in the common definition of the word. Yooper is right, as she usually is, that grain will stale once crushed. Same as coffee. The question is how fresh is your wort? Extract is essentially premade wort that will sit around until you use it. It needs to be used asap. A very common tidbit of knowledge. I'd hope we can all conclude that using the freshest grain or extract possible is ideal even if there is no obvious flavor difference. Yes, month old ingredients will produce great beer, but given month old or day old, I think we'd all opt for the day old. None of us strive to use stale ingredients.

As far as the final product, that almost entirely comes down to the brewer and the attention he or she has paid to their process. One could use malt right in the maltster's parking lot, as fresh as possible, then ferment at like 80 degrees and produce jet fuel. The next person over could use year old extract, brew to perfection, ferment it well, and ultimately produce a beer far superior to the jet fuel the all grain guy made.

Personally, I am a full blown DIYer. I have trouble purchasing furniture when I could easily build it. Same with temperature controllers, chillers, mlt manifolds, etc. It bothers me to use ingredients that someone else has created when I can do it myself. Granted, I haven't malted and kilned anything. I'm jaded in that sense. A deep down part of me sees using extract as cheating and always will no matter how open minded I try to be. When I first started, I brewed a handful of extract beers. All of them had that twang to them that I had assumed to be from the extract. 50 all grain batches later, I can say there was probably more to it than that but I still hold that notion that extract beer will always be twangy. I have not had one yet that doesn't have that twang. I have also not had one yet that has been fermented as well as many all grain brewers ferment. By the time most brewers get fermenting down, they have already switched to all grain.

Anyway, let's all go make some beer, however the hell we want to and love every second of it. :mug:
 
Extract twang is a cooked extract sort of flavor. Thanks yooper for that descriptor,I've been fishing for a shorter more accurate way of describing twang. But late extract additions have elliminated it for mine. And instead of steeping grains added to extract,I started doing partial mashes with extract. Even with Cooper's cans,which seems to be tha latest craze up & coming on forums ,youtube,& the like. My dark hybrid lager being one of them. That WL029 yeast is very interesting in this regard.
So it does indeed "boil down" to your process as to the quality one gets from a brew. A good process can make good beer regardless of it's particular constituents. My extract beers come out better now that I've gotten pretty decent at PM BIAB. The flavor is best described as more refined imo. So it's not how well extract ferments compared to PM or AG,but one's own process that'll determine quality. Blame the brewer,not the brew I say! :tank:
So let's go brew some BEEEEEEEEEER!:mug:
 
Personally, I am a full blown DIYer. I have trouble purchasing furniture when I could easily build it. Same with temperature controllers, chillers, mlt manifolds, etc. It bothers me to use ingredients that someone else has created when I can do it myself. Granted, I haven't malted and kilned anything.
Well, I can appreciate that. I'll *never* use a cake mix. But then again I've never ground my own flour (I'll though I think I will have to someday for the experience-- once).

But then again I'm happy with using commercial mayonaisse in products when I'm perfectly capable and frequently make my own. And I usually let the deli cure my sandwich meats because they do it better than I do. A *lot* better than I do.

A deep down part of me sees using extract as cheating and always will no matter how open minded I try to be.

No Festa Brew for you, eh?

Well, I feel the same way about pre-mixed pancake and cake dry mixed (one that mix the dry ingredients together; not the instant mixes) but then logic tells me I shouldn't; surely the art of cooking isn't in following a recipe from a book and mechanically *measuring* the ingredients so why should I care if someone else measured the ingredients. But then again if the art isn't there where is it? All the rest (adding the wet ingredients, stirring, and setting the oven) is all mechanics as well.

Well, anyway, I can definitely see the idea "but extracting the wort by mashing your grains is the whole *soul* of brewing" (well, actually the whole soul of brewing is the fermentation, IMO, and we don't participate in *that* at all).

Anyway it's not that that I objected to. It was the rather blase and blanketed and lack of nuanced statement that if you can't taste the difference you might as well eat a frozen pizza and claim its as good as fresh. I just felt such an indictment *needed* to be challenged. Or at least tempered.

Anyway, I stand corrected, apparently you can taste the difference (except when you can't).

By the time most brewers get fermenting down, they have already switched to all grain.

Probably. But lets not lose sight that this is a post on the *Beginners* Beer Brewing Forum.
 
I wouldn't say that's true 100% of the time. I moved up to PB/PM BIAB,but still like AE since my process improved that makes any beer brewed better.
 
It sounds like you're saying that tomatoes from the grocery store are equal to canned tomato soup.

No. but I *am* saying that for the purposes of cooking canned tomatoes are *better* than grocery store tomatoes. (Revelatory anecdote to come).

However tomato paste is, I have to admit, vile stuff. (But even still it has its purposes.)

So the question is, is LME more similar to canned tomatoes or to tomato paste. I'll admit, I began my arguments with the assumption that it was more similar to canned tomatoes but the reality is that as you are boiling away to syrup and pasturizing it, that it's probably closer to tomato paste. (Although powdered milk might be a better and more palatable analogy.)

But then again comparing wort to tomatoes is like comparing wort to tomatoes.

:off:==== Revelatory anecdote =====:off:

So a few years ago I'm making a tomato based pasta sauce. I'm using store bought tomatoes, of course, because I consider myself far too superior and sensitive a cook to use anything as declasse as canned tomatoes.

"Are those store bought tomatoes," my friend asks, "they aren't very good, you know."

I do know. It's a storage and shipping issue. They are picked under ripe and allowed to ripen and mature in storage and on the shelf. The result is that they tend to be rather flavorless. My grocery has a wide variety of tomatoes that range from terrible to somewhat acceptable. If you can become friends with someone who grows her own tomatoes-- do it, even if you have to endure endless stories and her cats and her ugly child's sousaphone recitals.

"Yeah," I shrug, "but what choice do I have?"

"You can use canned tomatoes," she suggests.

I make a chuffling noise. I really don't want to insult my friend but she has just revealed she is not the person I thought her to be. So I'm not really sure how to react.

"These tomatoes never had a chance to ripen," she says. "Canned tomatoes have all been ripened and have reached and been preserved at their peak flavor."

....Oh....
 
So the question is, is LME more similar to canned tomatoes or to tomato paste. ..

No, I'd liken it more to canned tomato soup. Here's one reason why- it's condensed greatly. In that aspect, it'd be like tomato paste.

The next reason is that few (if any) extracts I know are are "pure XX grain". What I mean is that pale extract might be US 2 row, plus some carapils. Or, some base malt (two-row) plus some crystal malt. Even the pilsen extract of some brands contains "other" grains.

Extract is condensed far below any brewer would ever make it, and then the brewer reconstitutes it. Also, it's got "other" grains and things in it. That's why I likened it to tomato soup vs. fresh tomatoes.
 
Fair 'muff. Tomato paste adds crap too.

Extract is sounding sounding less and less like the rehydratable "condensed malt" that I first took it to be.
 
Fair 'muff. Tomato paste adds crap too.

Extract is sounding sounding less and less like the rehydratable "condensed malt" that I first took it to be.

No, it is "condensed malt". But it's not usually 100% base malt- there are other malts in there too often as I mentioned. Also, the canned malt extract can taste different than the LME that you can buy in jugs at homebrew stores.

The stuff in jugs you can buy (vs the stuff in cans) is usually pretty good if the store is busy with a good turnover. Sure, it's still condensed but they have it in big vats that are airtight, and served it out with inert gas (argon? Nitrogen? I dunno) so it avoids oxidation and darkening better than the canned stuff that is usually imported and so already old when you get it.

In general, I'd suggest buying the palest and freshest extract you can find and stay away from "amber extract" or "dark extract" as those especially have other malts than base malts in them.

There are other work-arounds also, like adding the majority of the extract at flame out to avoid excess maillard reactions, so that extract brewers can make a quality and good tasting beer. It's just very important to start with the best quality extract and avoid the canned stuff (or worse, the prehopped canned stuff!).
 
Avoid them unless you're me.:D I make some good beers out of Cooper's cans since I started. Drinkin one that I added a partial mash to with kolsh yeast. You're only limited by your imagination & current skill level. Like minded friends can help if they're knowledgable,not just noobs with great expectations. You can always add a littl more bittering to such cans when tweaking fermentables & hops,adding decoctions,etc.
I've noticed as I learned & experimented,I gained experiences I otherwise wouldn't that work repeatedly for me & my process. This last time,one of the hybrid lagers I brewed used a Thomas Cooper's Selection Heritage Lager can. I turned it into a dark lager hybrid with grains & WL029 yeast. Smooth with a nice lil crispness to it & a hint of spice. Also very clear amber brown color. A little expensive,as that particular can is $25 just about anywhere,plus the other constituents.
So buying pale extracts to me also means,say,a pale ale can I add grains,hops,etc to to make it another style that is similar,but different. The late additions also are a very good idea. I can brew light lager/pilsner colored beers using the late extract method. Especially with PB/PM BIAB. Just learn what really works & what doesn't,& move forward from there.
 

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