Moving past kits, brewing from recipes

Been brewing extract kits for a couple of years now. I've steeped specialty grains and just brewed my first mini-mash kit last week.

I picked up a copy of Brewing Classic Styles and want to brew some recipes from there. I'm lost on how to brew with odd amounts of LME. Let's use the American Amber (pp. 137) as an example of what I'm talking about.

The recipe calls for 6.6 lbs of English Pale Ale LME and 0.7 lbs. of Munich LME. How does this work? I buy my ingredients from Northern Brewer, who only sells LME in 3.15 lb. and 6 lb. containers. Do I buy another container and just weigh it out?

Also, to complicate the question, how would I convert these recipes for mini-mash?

I have that book somewhere... I think there is a section about partial mashing in the back.

In any case, my LHBS sells LME from bulk, so I tell them how much I want & they open the tap on one of their big drums of extract into an empty container.

if you don't have that option, you could buy more than what you need & store the rest (sounds messy).

Good luck!

Well. You *could* use dry instead or in addition to liquid. I think (get someone else to confirm this; I'm a noob), that 1.25 parts dry is equal to 1 part liquid and 1 part liquid is 4/5 parts dry.

So 6.6 lbs of LME could be substituted with 6 lbs LME + .48 lbs DME. Dry should be available in 1 lb bags and easier to measure and store. .7 LME would be .56 lbs DME.

I'm not sure I'd *want* to but the other option is buy and store the extra.

==============
(added) Okay, You'd have to get some advice on what DME can sub for Munich LME as there is no Munich LME that I know of. My Amber Kit from my local store has 6 lbs. Amber LME and 1 lb. Light DME. The 1 lb. of Light DME (equaling of 1.25 lbs of LME) is probably a decent substitute for the .6 lbs of Amber LME + .7 lbs of Munich LME in your recipe. Or maybe there's a better substitute. You may need to search alternative recipes and "mix and match" to find the closest fit.

I have this book and love it. I have been wondering how to handle the Munich LME too since I only use DME (ease of handling and better shelf life). I love to hear what the pros say.

You'd have to weigh out the amounts of the LME you'd need. This means you'd need a scale of some sort to weigh it out, and don't forget to Tare out the weight of the container. I would think a small to medium sized bowl would work fine.

If you need to do conversions on the fly from LME to DME to AG, a good software tool like Beersmith can remove the guesswork and calculate out the amounts you'll need.

mdawson9 said:

I have this book and love it. I have been wondering how to handle the Munich LME too since I only use DME (ease of handling and better shelf life). I love to hear what the pros say.

Click to expand...

I don't know the perfect answer, but you could always replace Munich LME with light DME and a BIAB partial mash of some Munich malt. You would have to do some math to convert.

Love that book too, but as you've noticed not all the recipes list a partial mash version (some of the stouts do). I think the easiest way to convert to mini mash is to start with the all grain version then replace whatever portion of base malt you can't mash with appropriate extract.

For example with the amber you listed the all grain version says use 9.25 lb British pale, 1 lb Munich malt, plus the rest of the specialty malts that total 1.75 lb. So you would mash the specialty malts, munich, and as much British pale malt as you could fit, then convert what is left to pale extract using the rough formula 1 lb grain = .75lb LME = 0.6 lb DME. Let's say your max mash is 6 lbs, your recipe would look like:

1.75 lb specialty malts (crystal + victory)
1 lb Munich
3.25 lb British pale malt
3.6 lb pale DME OR 4.5 lb pale LME (replaces the extra 6 lbs base malt)


As far as selecting the extract, in the beginning of the book they talk about how to choose to try to match the style of the beer. You probably will be better off using dry with odd quantities as it keeps longer and is easier to measure out.

Awesome guys, thanks for the help!