WHY MAKE MALT EXTRACT A PART OF YOUR BREWING PROCESS

Brewing with malt extract liquid is the starting point for many new brewers. Today most of the homebrewers use malt extract as the base for their beer.

I bought my first malt extract, Mahalaxmi Malt Extract, when I tried brewing for the first time. Even though the process of making malt extract is very much similar to the start of all grain brew days, still brewing with extract offers many advantages over all-grain brewing with less time and equipment required.

To produce beer in a faster way, without any doubt, malt extract (usually made of barley malt) is best for beginner homebrewers as it eliminates some of the variables such as hitting mash temperatures and volumes. For experienced brewers, liquid malt extract can be used to supplement sugars and flavours and assist in reaching target gravity if your brew has fallen short.

To design a great beer recipe with malt extract it is important to understand how and in what ways liquid malt extract can be used. There are various reasons to keep malt extract present in your brewing process. Those reasons include;

Adjusting Gravity Mid-Brew

For many brewers, brewing can be seen as a ‘see what you get’ exercise. We plan our recipe, we know what the process is, and we also know about how we want everything to turn out but then again at the last everything is in the hands of homebrew gods as to whether we hit the goal or not. It doesn’t have to be like that though. With a little planning you can make adjustments to your gravity during your brew session. This is where it can really come in handy to have some malt extract on hand.

Making a Yeast Starter

A yeast starter is  basically a solution that enables the yeast cells to propagate. It is not meant for drinking but instead, you add it to your wort to ferment a better beer avoiding problems like off-flavours or a slow start. 

Making a yeast starter with malt extract makes life much easier for brewers as it means that you don’t need to create the wort from scratch every time you want yeast to pitch. Instead, you can heat water, add your malt extract, boil this mixture, cool it to pitching temperature and then add your yeast. You also won't need to add yeast nutrient like you would if you used dextrose to make a starter. 

Brewing Part-grain

Just like how biscuit manufacturers use biscuit confectionery grade malt extract, Home brewers also malt extract in their home brewing process. But are you an all-grain home brewer? If yes, and you still want to add malt extract in the brewery then you can choose it for those days when you want to brew but just haven’t got enough time for a full mash-boil-cooling stage. 

Malt extract brewers produce fantastic beer. So, next time you brew, why not try one of our Liquid Malt Extracts to boost your brew.