Converting Liquid/ Dry Extract

Physics, chemistry and biology of brewing. The causes and the effects.

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Gravity Thrills
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Piece-O-cake

Post by Gravity Thrills »

Your HSB guy did steer you wrong, and probably thought you were looking for an extract-to-all grain conversion. Liquid Extract is mostly malt and only a little bit water as it is (less than 10%). When a recipe calls for 6.6 lbs of liquid, substutute straightaway with 6 ibs even of DME - the 0.1 lb difference per pound is the water weight in the liquid extract.

Brew Well, Young Jedi
Jim
BillyBock
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Extract Ratios

Post by BillyBock »

The ratio you're looking for is about 75%-80%. For every 1# of LME, use about 0.75# to 0.8# of DME. So in this case you should've used around 4.8# of DME. The contribution of the LME to the brew's gravity (assuming 5 gals) should've been around 1.043. Since you used 4.2# of DME, this value equates to about 1.036. Just a wee bit lighter.

Sorry your brew doesn't have as much body as you were expecting. Was the extract the only ingredient besides hops?

The easiest thing for you to do is to punch in your original recipes with the tools on this site. Make note of the starting gravity and then replace the LME w/ DME in the recipe and adjust the values until you get the gravity again.

Hope this helps, and just chalk this up to a learning experience. As they say, homebrewers drink their mistakes :-)

Cheers!
v/r
Bill


It also helps to keep a little DME on hand to adjust the gravity of your wort before you start the boil.
BillyBock
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Almost Forgot

Post by BillyBock »

Most all LME usually gives about 36ppppg (points per pound per gallon). In other words, if you use 1# of this in 1 gal. of water, your gravity will be 1.036.

Not all DMEs are the same, however. The extract can range from 40ppppg to 44ppppg. I used to use Munton and Fison, and I believe it was around 40.

Moral of the story? Keep a ready stock of DME on hand to adjust the gravity of your wort prior to the boil. If she's a little low, add some DME. If the gravity's a little high, dilute it or keep it :-) I'm an all grain brewer, but I keep some DME on hand just in case I need to adjust gravity.
D_Gambrinus
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Converting Liquid/ Dry Extract

Post by D_Gambrinus »

I'm relatively new to brewing and I just started messing with Dry Malt Extracts. In my first attempt I received what seemed to be helpful advice from my local Homebrew shop about deciding how much DME to use when the Recipie was written for Liquid Malt Extract. It boiled down to using roughly 65% of what the recipie called for. (It called for 6 lbs of liquid Extract and the helpful guy at the store did the math and said that I needed to use 4.2 pounds of DME.) I went home and carefully weighed out the extract... Well, the time for drinkin my brew is here and it's not quite what I expected. It borders on being drinkable at all. It tastes like a good beer thats been watered down significantly.

I have since done research that leads me to believe that the guy at my store was gavely mistaken about the conversion from liquid to dry malt extract. Anyone got a good formula that won't ruin another brew.
D_Gambrinus
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Thanks

Post by D_Gambrinus »

Thanks guys, its a mistake that I will not make again.
l48shark
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Thanks

Post by l48shark »

That makes perfect sense. I like liquid extract and all of my recipes call for 6.6 pounds because my brewshop sells 3.3 pound bags and I use 2. But I have always wondered about the 0.6 remainder. So it's the water? Thanks.

Cheers,
Ford
Gravity Thrills
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Oops!

Post by Gravity Thrills »

Wow. In my extract days i always believed the 1:1.1 liquid extract to DME ratio was valid but never really looked into it. Yup, 1# of liquid extract will give me 35-36 points per gallon of water, and 1# of DME will give me about 10 points more. Maybe that's where I was sent awry - my supply shop owner back then told me 10% difference between liquid and dry extract, and actually meant 10 points of gravity difference.

back then I mostly used a pound at a time of DME as a kicker in a batch w/a 6.6# can of extract. When I would notice a slightly lower than expected OG I just figured I added a bit too much top off water and never worried about it.

You can learn something new every day around here if you don't watch out around here :-)
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