Styles Well Suited to Extract?

[jpcoote]

I've got a tiny kitchen and no yard. This is a problem because I've always been an all-grain brewer. Now I'm limited to all-grain brewing whenever I can use my friend's set up. So, in order to allow myself to brew more often, I'm thinking about splitting my time between extract and all-grain.

My question here is this: Are there any styles that lend themselves particularly well to extract brewing?

For example, I would imagine that a Maibock with its malt focus and decoction mash would be much better done all grain, whereas something like an IPA with a high ABV and hops focus could taste just as good using extract as any all grain recipe (keep in mind though I'm not much of an IPA drinker).

Thoughts?

 

[podz]

Stout and hefeweizen are both pretty hard to screw up with extract.

 

[unionrdr]

I've done APA's & IPA's AE & PM. They both have there good points. English styles can be done well nowadays AE with the new extracts coming out.

 

[captwalt]

I agree with podz, Stouts come out how I like them with extract and wheat DME has always worked great for me. The one complaint I have with extract is that the FG seems to be pretty high for my liking on other styles.

 

[helibrewer]

I've got a tiny kitchen and no yard. This is a problem because I've always been an all-grain brewer. Now I'm limited to all-grain brewing whenever I can use my friend's set up. So, in order to allow myself to brew more often, I'm thinking about splitting my time between extract and all-grain.

My question here is this: Are there any styles that lend themselves particularly well to extract brewing?

For example, I would imagine that a Maibock with its malt focus and decoction mash would be much better done all grain, whereas something like an IPA with a high ABV and hops focus could taste just as good using extract as any all grain recipe (keep in mind though I'm not much of an IPA drinker).

Thoughts?

I would try some Belgians if you like them...very simple grain bill, extract and sugar. The use of sugar helps with the extract fermentability and nothing to steep with the simple grain bills. since they are lightly hopped it eliminates the hop utilization conundrum too.

 

[podz]

I agree with podz, Stouts come out how I like them with extract and wheat DME has always worked great for me. The one complaint I have with extract is that the FG seems to be pretty high for my liking on other styles.

That's the dilemna with extracts; if you want a low terminal gravity then you need to use sugar. I don't believe in using sugar in beer, so I just accept a higher terminal gravity when doing extracts.

 

[SquidPope]

That's the dilemna with extracts; if you want a low terminal gravity then you need to use sugar. I don't believe in using sugar in beer, so I just accept a higher terminal gravity when doing extracts.

I've seen people recommend using more extract instead of added sugar to produce a lower final gravity; would that not always be a good choice, then?

 

[unionrdr]

I don't know why so many have trouble getting FG's in the recipe range. I only had that happen once early on. Fresh extract is always good to, as is a healthy yeast pitch. Rehydrating dry yeast helps a lot in my opinion.

 

[drummerguysteve]

I've had great luck with Berliner Weisse using extract. I don't use hops in mine, so there's no need to do a 90 minute boil. I boil for 10 minutes, cool, pitch lacto, and then pitch a fruity brett strain (trois/custersianus/etc) after about a week. They're drinkable in about 2 weeks, and sour as heck.

I've also made a great hefe with hopped extract, a little sugar, and weheinstephan yeast. Again, no need for the long boil. If I'm doing an extract batch, I like to be done in about an hour, including heating/cooling/cleanup. It's a great way to get a quick batch in when I've got other things going on. It's also a great way to try out new yeasts/bacteria.

Regarding the high FG, sours are nice because your bacteria will eat through those dextrines.

 

[fosaisu]

I've also made a great hefe with hopped extract, a little sugar, and weheinstephan yeast. Again, no need for the long boil. If I'm doing an extract batch, I like to be done in about an hour, including heating/cooling/cleanup. It's a great way to get a quick batch in when I've got other things going on. It's also a great way to try out new yeasts/bacteria.

Interested to see several people recommend hefes, I've brewed damn good extract and PM brews of all kinds but still feel like my hefes have an "extract" taste to them, which I've been blaming on the wheat extract. Guess I'll have to keep trying!

 

[giraffe]

Hefes work great, If you can steep some crystal, most english bitters work great too, especially if you can get a marris otter based extract.

With extract, you are never going to get as dry of a beer for dry beer styles. If you attempt them, you need to a add sugar, or a bit more sugar than the recipes call for. So for like an IPA, id recommend like 5-10% sugar. If you are adverse to plain white sugar, you can make your own invert 1, 2, or 3 from unrefined sugar. Its easy, and can be done in a heavy pan on the stovetop.

Belgains can work well too, if you pitch enough yeast. Dont be afraid of dark candi syrups, or sugar in general. If you make an all extract/ no sugar tripel, its going to be mud.

 

[jpcoote]

Thanks for all the feed back! Just to be clear, I'm not necessarily looking to do all extract. I can definitely steep whatever grains would be needed beyond the base malt. Would this open up a lot more styles?

 

[giraffe]

Yep. Pretty much anything not super dry, or requiring base malts not available as extract in your area, or lots of unmalted grains (belgian wit, will for example, probably will be mildly disappointing.) Some specialty grains such as amber and brown malt, dont steep super well in quantity, so historical porter may be off the list.

If you can do a couple of lb minimash/BIAB, then you shouldnt have a problem with most things.

 

[flars]

I disagree on not being able to brew dry styles of beer with extract. I think this goes along with the myth extract brews often finish at 1.020.

I have my fourth petite saison in a fermentor right now. The first one I fermented at 65° with WY3711, finished at 1.006. The next two I fermented at 72°, finished at 1.003. Any drier than that would eliminate all the body.

 

[giraffe]

It goes along with you not being able to control the mash temp. You can compensate with sugar, or an aggressive yeast strain. But making something like a biere de garde is always going to be difficult with extract to get it malty with a very dry finish.

 

[nmendres]

So far, I brew only extract w/ steeping grains. I consistently get FG's below 1.012, some below 1.006. I aerate my wort a lot and pitch healthy yeast, typically liquid yeast. IMO, getting FG's @ 1.020 and above for normal recipes (stouts, porter, IPA's, Hefeweizens...) means you're not doing something right.

 

[Joe9216]

IPA's are great for extract as the hop flavor can mask some of the imperfections. but I do pretty much any style and they turn out good. Ive accomplished extract IPAs, APA, Pale ales, Siasons, witbier, hefes, fruit beer, stouts, and holiday beers that have been well received by both me and my drinking friends.

 

[gfinockio]

I think the lesson here, after reading back most of the posts made in this thread, is that almost any style of beer can be made with extract.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I think there's certain styles that are easy (a good Hefe with extract is simple as pie- 100% wheat extract and that's it). If you want something really dry (Belgians, for example), yeah, you're going to have to add sugar. I mean, you should be adding sugar to most Belgian beers anyway. And then there's certain styles (Witbier, Oatmeal Stout, Dry Stout, Lambic, etc), where you're traditionally using flaked or raw adjunct grains (flaked wheat, flaked oats, flaked barley, raw wheat respectively). My personal opinion here, but abstaining from the respective adjuncts leaves something missing from the finished character, and those adjuncts really can't be steeped (well, they can but shouldn't, you'll get unconverted starch if you steep em without actually mashing w/ base malt, so just a partial mash would be fine)

 

[CrookedTail]

You can brew most styles successfully with extract. Things to consider:

1) LME should be treated like any perishable food item. It should be refrigerated, and used fresh. If you can't get fresh LME from your supplier, then use DME.

2) Cut down your boil times. Extract is wort that has already gone through a full kettle boil. Boiling it further increases the chance of caramelization, and therefore off-flavors. You can often get away with a full length boil, but in the last year I've cut my boil times to no more than 20 minutes. To compensate for this shorter boil time, add more hops to get the right amount of bitterness. In hoppy styles this works great, as you get more hop flavor and aroma as a result.

3) If you can do a full volume boil, great. If you can't, boil as much as you can.

Some styles are insanely easy to brew with extract. Pale ales and IPAs are real easy. Steep a little caramel malt, along with your base extract, and then hop the hell out of them.

Weissbiers are ridiculously simple: Wheat extract, a little Carahell malt, your hops, and a good yeast strain.

 

[podz]

1) LME should be treated like any perishable food item. It should be refrigerated, and used fresh. If you can't get fresh LME from your supplier, then use DME.

This is nonsense because all food items are perishable, even those with a 20 year shelf life. If you're going to paint a picture, don't use a biased brush.

You can make a kick-ass beer from a several year old can of pre-hopped extract. If the can isn't rusted or swollen, then there is no problem.

Saying that LME needs to be refrigerated and less than a few days old is like saying that you need 185 immunizations just because you had a mosquito bite.

 

[fosaisu]

This is nonsense because all food items are perishable, even those with a 20 year shelf life. If you're going to paint a picture, don't use a biased brush.

You can make a kick-ass beer from a several year old can of pre-hopped extract. If the can isn't rusted or swollen, then there is no problem.

Saying that LME needs to be refrigerated and less than a few days old is like saying that you need 185 immunizations just because you had a mosquito bite.

DME is of course also perishable. But it seems to do significantly better sitting around for many months than does LME.

I've only ever used LME poured from a bulk cask at my local home brew shop into a plastic bag that is then heat sealed, but I can say that the few times I've let one of those bags sit around for several months before brewing, the quality of the beer suffered.

 

[Qhrumphf]

The manufacturers say (this is right on Briess's website, for example) that the more you age lighter LME, the more it will darken. Fresh LME will give you the color you want, older LME will not.

LME is less stable than DME. Much like may other things in the food industry, dehydrated stays stable longer. I don't know about the whole refrigeration thing, but there is definitely a shelf life consideration when using LME.

 

[dkevinb]

If you're OK with steeping grains/mini-mash it's hard to think of a beer you can't make with extract. The one major caveat is that there isn't the variety in extract as there is in base malts.

I do a lot of APA's, IPA's, ambers, brown ales, ESB's, cream ales, because those are styles I like. I don't know what some of these folks mean by "dry", but my ales typically finish in the 1.008 - 1.012 range depending on what I'm brewing. I don't know why I'd want them to be any drier than that.

Malt extract is a food product. Any food product with water in it is going to be more unstable than a dry food product. Briess recommends storing all its extracts in cool, dry places, and also recommends refrigerating LME if you're going to have it around for more than a couple of weeks. As with any food product fresher is better.

 

[bozizle]

You can brew most styles successfully with extract. Things to consider:

1) LME should be treated like any perishable food item. It should be refrigerated, and used fresh. If you can't get fresh LME from your supplier, then use DME.

2) Cut down your boil times. Extract is wort that has already gone through a full kettle boil. Boiling it further increases the chance of caramelization, and therefore off-flavors. You can often get away with a full length boil, but in the last year I've cut my boil times to no more than 20 minutes. To compensate for this shorter boil time, add more hops to get the right amount of bitterness. In hoppy styles this works great, as you get more hop flavor and aroma as a result.


3) If you can do a full volume boil, great. If you can't, boil as much as you can.

Some styles are insanely easy to brew with extract. Pale ales and IPAs are real easy. Steep a little caramel malt, along with your base extract, and then hop the hell out of them.

Weissbiers are ridiculously simple: Wheat extract, a little Carahell malt, your hops, and a good yeast strain.

I am a bit curious about the shorter boil for an IPA I use a bitter and then heavy late additions. What are you using for the bitter and how much?

 

[Joe9216]

ive done ipa's both ways. long boils with stepped additions, and short boil heavy additions. it all depends on what your looking for in taste wise. Here is a great article that was first featured in zymergy that is all about hop flavor and aroma.

 

[CrookedTail]

This is nonsense because all food items are perishable, even those with a 20 year shelf life. If you're going to paint a picture, don't use a biased brush.

Of course DME is also perishable. However because the moisture has been removed, it is much more shelf-stable than LME.

I'm not biased towards one or the other. I prefer to use fresh LME over DME, as I perceive it to have a better flavor.

You can make a kick-ass beer from a several year old can of pre-hopped extract. If the can isn't rusted or swollen, then there is no problem.

I'm assuming you're saying this because you've done it. If so, what style of beer did you brew?

Saying that LME needs to be refrigerated and less than a few days old is like saying that you need 185 immunizations just because you had a mosquito bite.

LME should be refrigerated if you don't plan to use it right away. If it sits in temps above 70-80 degrees for long periods of time, maillard reactions will occur. This will cause the extract to darken, and over time develop off-flavors.

 

[CrookedTail]

I am a bit curious about the shorter boil for an IPA I use a bitter and then heavy late additions. What are you using for the bitter and how much?

I hop-burst, so I am adding more hops later in the boil than normal. This provides the bitterness needed, and loads the beer with hop flavor and aroma.

Check out the thread on the 15 minute Cascade Pale Ale
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/15-minute-cascade-pale-ale-210253/
This is where I got the idea to try this. I've since applied the method to other styles, with good results.

 

[podz]

I'm assuming you're saying this because you've done it. If so, what style of beer did you brew?

Stouts and doppelbocks, on multiple ocassions.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Stouts and doppelbocks, on multiple ocassions.

Which are styles where darkening extract and maillard reactions either wouldn't be noticed or could be beneficial. Definitely not representative of all styles.

 

[CrookedTail]

Stouts and doppelbocks, on multiple ocassions.

There's the reason why right there.

You brewed dark beers that have roasted specialty grains in them with very strong flavor compounds. In substantial amounts roasted barley, black patent malt, and the like will cover up most off flavors.

Brew a seven year old can of pre-hopped ESB. Or better yet, brew an old light lager kit. Just when you thought that style couldn't get any worse....