Beginner question about dried malt extract brewing

[cornishpasty]

Hello all,
I have been brewing (slowly) for around a year and have done 4 batches and a kit. All my batches I have used liquid malt extract and a small amount of steeped grains (chocolate malt etc.). The kit tasted fantastic but all my brews have had the same strong liquorice flavour which I can't get rid of. I thought at first it was my tap water (which is well treated because it is hard), so I now use only bottled mineral water. But this hasn't made any difference.

I now want to try a brew using dried malt extract. I wonder if the LME I have bought has been past it's best. My question is can I use DME for the whole recipe? I know that I have to take into account the different gravity points DME will give over LME so I'll need a slightly different quantity.

I'm concerned because everywhere I look people only seem to use DME as well as LME, not DME on its own as the main malt. It always seems to be marketed as an "enhancer".

Any help would be brilliant!
Graham

 

[marksa222]

Yes i'm sure you can. I'm pretty sure I watched a tutorial on youtube a while ago which only used dme. I haven't done it myself because I went straight to biab after a couple of kits. Have you consider this route? If you already have a pot big enough for extract brewing, you could quite likely make all grain brew in a bag for the cost of a bit of voile.

Regarding the off flavour, i'm sorry ive not come across this myself. Have you tasted the beer before bottling? From a sample tube for example? If so, is the off flavour there? I'm assuming you haven't kept the bottles exposed to sunlight? If you've used real hops in your extracts, id imagine they'd be more likely to develope an off flavour than a kit which may have just hop extract. All just guesses though i'm afraid. I even consulted my how to brew book for you, but no joy sorry.

 

[Legion]

Hi, I have brewed beer with only dry malt extract and a 15 min boil for the hops and it turned out great.

 

[marksa222]

There's some really helpful pointers in the photos section of this site by the way.

 

[MisterFister]

Of course you can use all DME to make beer. The Brupaks Brewers Choice kits are all DME kits that you an choose to use Sugar or Additioanl DME or LME to supplement the kit. I have written a review of the German Pilsner kit including how I made it up As legion has said, you can get away with a much shorter boil (or even no boil if using hopped extract), although a short boil using fresh hops is a great way to produce a good beer. . . . People trying my beer did not realise that it was a kit