extract or all grain

[dad_of_jon]

Thank you. So if the Malt gives something to for the yeast to turn to alcohol as well as a "fuller" beer and the hops add flavour and aroma what are the grains doing? Are they also flavour?

If your adding cold water to the wort does this remove the need to cool it?

You don't need grains for doing extract wheat,golden ales and saisons IMO. They do give more depth in flavours to the beers where malts are important though.

Muntons do extra light,light,medium,dark,extra dark and wheat spraymalt, plus when you can add in treacle ,golden syrup or dark candi sugar etc you have quite a few variables already to play with. However if you want the best chance of copying a commercial beer you'd need to go AG and match the yeast as well.

re: cold water you need to get the wort to fermenting temp asap. if adding cold water does that job done. I used bottled water and super chill them so when i top up to 20 litres or so I don't need any additional cooling :thumb:

 

[dad_of_jon]

I was knocked out by how easy it is to make golden syrup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsmTeszwwrY

200g plus 50ml - add your citric acid / lemon juice initially
Then the rest of a 1kg bag of sugar and 450-500ml of boiling water.

Doing this for Belgian Beers, but used it ages ago in Ben Turner's Bitter beer made with DME and Golding Hops.

Nice to know that. I'll still be buying a can of gs for £1 as it's a time saver. I'll probably give that a punt on one of those rare occasions when I have the house to myself for a whole day :wink:

 

[Global33]

You don't need grains for doing extract wheat,golden ales and saisons IMO. They do give more depth in flavours to the beers where malts are important though.

Muntons do extra light,light,medium,dark,extra dark and wheat spraymalt, plus when you can add in treacle ,golden syrup or dark candi sugar etc you have quite a few variables already to play with. However if you want the best chance of copying a commercial beer you'd need to go AG and match the yeast as well.

re: cold water you need to get the wort to fermenting temp asap. if adding cold water does that job done. I used bottled water and super chill them so when i top up to 20 litres or so I don't need any additional cooling :thumb:

Thanks. I'm not that bothered about cloning commercial beers, just making ones I enjoy drinking. Does skipping the grain then also speed up the process? I like all the beers you've listed (and would love to do a wheat one). Are their any good sites for recipes doing brews using extract?