Recommended brands.

[Asahikun]

Does anyone have any brands of extract they particularly recommend? I've only used Black Rock up to now and would like to try some others - especially since Black Rock is hard to get hold of here.

I am especially interested in makers that sell "Gold" kits; ie ones where no sugar is needed. If not, I will either have to buy 2 tins or buy some unhopped extract to add since I don't want to add any sugar. My only experience is with LME but I'm willing to try DME.

Any suggestions?

P.S. They have to be available in the UK.

[Fast_Eddy]

Munton's makes an excellent high quality extract - both LME and DME.

[Asahikun]

Thanks for the suggestion. That's great because they seem to be readily available here.
I'll give them a try.

[Asahikun]

I just ordered Munton's IPA and Santa's winter warmer. The winter warmer comes in a rather heavy 3.6kg of LME. Might have to up that to 6g.

Any other suggestions as to which brands are good? Especially from other Brits on the board...Stronk, if you read this, any ideas?

[noby]

I use John Bull, with no complaints so far; both in the kit form and the unhopped LME.
I usually only use the LME and speciality grains now.


Cormac.

[Asahikun]

Thans for the idea. Have you ever tried Muntons? Just wondering how they compare since I've just ordered a couple boxes.

[axis714]

Muntons here as well no complaints all DME and LME excellent IMHO

[stronk]

I use muntons DME, it's the bee's knees. It is slightly more expensive than LME, but it has the advantage of being storable once open. I have several different types of the stuff, which makes tweaking extract recipes very easy.

Whereabouts in the UK are you?

[Asahikun]

Originally posted by stronk
I use muntons DME, it's the bee's knees. It is slightly more expensive than LME, but it has the advantage of being storable once open. I have several different types of the stuff, which makes tweaking extract recipes very easy.

Whereabouts in the UK are you?

So do you use LME extract kits and then tweak them with Muntons DME? Which LME do you use?
I just started a batch of Muntons Premium IPA. A bit worried though because I put the brewbelt on it too soon and the temp went off the scale while I was at work :( Managed to get it down again - just hoping that it hasn't done too much damage.

I'm just North of Oxford in a small town called Bicester. I thought that there would be more homebrew shops in this country. Thank the BeerGods for the internet! Whereabouts in London are you?

[stronk]

Fulham. I feel your pain about the brewing shops. The only one I know of in London is on the other side from me (about an hour's tube journey away). Luckily, that shop is also the best specialist beer off-license in London, so I never waste trips!

I have just discovered another brewing site in the UK, which I haven't tested yet: http://easybrew.co.uk. Up until now I have been using art-of-brewing, who have been very good. I'm going to do a stout in time for christmas and I think I'll have a go with the new site.

FYI, if you're looking for specialist beer in the UK, you can get deliveries from Norfolk, ordering off www.beersofeurope.co.uk. Flawless service and a huge range of beers. They also sell extract kits (although their brewing equipment section has been empty since it was put in months ago).
But, since you live near Oxford, you shouldn't have any problems finding good beer on your doorstep anyway (Oxford is my favourite UK city at the moment).

[Asahikun]

I used to have Art of Brewing bookmarked but seem to have to deleted it - something about the site must have got up my nose. I've only used Stonehelm (http://www.stonehelm.co.uk/index.html) so far since they're based in Oxford. It seems that they don't have a shop you can go to but you can order online and they visit local markets. Unfortunately, it's always in the week when I can't visit.

I'm very new to this area. What beers do you recommend I try in Oxford?

I'd never thought I'd say this, but I've found a way in which brewing is easier in Japan (where it is barely legal) than it is here: bottles. In Japan I could buy a case of 20 brown 500ml bottles (with the plastic case) for £1 (one pound in case you think it's a typo). Here it's a whole battle to collect enough in time for bottling day.

[mortong]

I'll jump in on the Muntons bandwagon. After a lot of experimentation with most types my LHBS has, I've been the most impressed with Muntons light DME. It's my base malt on all batches now.


I use muntons DME, it's the bee's knees. It is slightly more expensive than LME, but it has the advantage of being storable once open. I have several different types of the stuff, which makes tweaking extract recipes very easy.

DME is also more efficient than LME, I forget the ratio, though....


Link to How to Brew (http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html)

[stronk]

What beers do you recommend I try in Oxford?
Well: first things first, you have to go to the Oxford beer festival (October 21st-23rd [next Thursday to Saturday]). Look it up on www.camra.org.uk

I'm not yet as familiar with Oxford beer as I'd like to be, but off the top of my head I can recommend most of the beers by Wychwood. I think they're based near Oxford; try their flagship beer, Hobgoblin, but out of the cask, not a bottle.
be warned that the Hobgoblin pub in the middle of Oxford was sold by the brewery when I last went there and didn't have any wychwood beers at all.

[Asahikun]

Oxford beer festival! Cool, I'll be there. I should obviously be checking the CAMRA website more often.

I tried Hobgoblin for the first time a couple of weeks ago in a pub and I loved it. It's got a really distinctive taste that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I just had to keep on ordering pint after pint to try and work out what it was :D The next day I tried it out of a bottle, and yes, it was like a completely different beer. Not bad, but nowhere near as good.

Will you be going to the Oxford Beer festival?

[stronk]

I will be there at some point. I'm going to stay with a friend and meet up with some first-year student buddies at the festival.

If you can, try to get there on the first or second days, as the really good/famous beer tends to be used up quickly. According to the site (http://oxfordcamra.org.uk/festival2004.php), they only have 9 gallons of most of the beers, and that won't last long.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll make it until Saturday, but I'm a mild-lover and they are usually the last to go.

If you liked Hobgoblin, try Adnams Broadside and Fullers ESB: lovely malty beers, somewhat similar to Hobgoblin.

[Asahikun]

I don't think I'll be going till Saturday either because of having to travel in. I noticed that about the 9 gallons, but maybe they'll let me suck the dregs out of the kegs!

I love Fullers ESB. It's only in bottles right? I've only tried bottled Broadside once. I hate bottles that I can't use for homebrew - for some reason I couldn't cap them. I'll have to give that one a go on draught.

[stronk]

Adnams bottles are a bit of a bitch to cap, I agree (though it is possible). ESB only in bottles?! You're obviously suffering delusions from not drinking enough beer! It is first and foremost a cask ale and secondarily a bottled beer.

For almost every beer, the cask version is better than the bottled version. For example, the bottled version of Old Speckled Hen tastes pretty much the same as the bottled version of Abbot Ale, which tastes remarkably similar to the bottled version of London Pride; I could go on... The point is that all three taste completely different from the cask, both from each other and from their bottled versions.

If you have to have bottled beer (which is unfortunately, often the case if you don't travel around the UK a lot), don't go for bottled ales. Go for interesting styles, especially foreign ones. There are some very good imported german wheat beers around, as well as a few good pale ales from the US and Australia.

[Asahikun]

Originally posted by stronk
ESB only in bottles?! You're obviously suffering delusions from not drinking enough beer!

I have never been to a single pub where it's sold on tap so I just assumed.

I'd better work on those delusions.

[Asahikun]

Stronk,

So did you go? Any beer left?
I turned up at about 2:30 on Saturday afternoon and there was very little left - they had, infact, stopped charging anything to get in. I had a couple of beers that I really liked, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were called. That kind of says it all about how that afternoon and evening progressed!

[stronk]

I got there too late (as I said on the other thread). I couldn't get in until as late as 8:00, so there was pretty much nothing left. I had a snoop around at the belgian counter, though.

At least I'll have learned my lesson for next year (and I may even get to go to the GBBF next year too)!

[YamahaXS]

I like Munton's too, and also Northwestern Liquid Extracts.

[Yodar]

Tho seriously brewing with extracts and added grains I find an Irish LME product from Mountmellick produces the lightest color beer of any extract brew so far even with a full boil. A very transparent amber-yellow.

With added grains it retains a nice head too. Far superior to Coopers and Briess

yodar

[msk]

As a related question, is the Munton's DME and LME the equivalent to the "spray dried malt extract" substance?

I got the Munton's IPA Bitter kit-in-a-can, and it says to use a bunch of sugar or "spray dried malt extract" [and then later it says "spraymalt" which I am not certain is the same] in order to allow the kit to ferment. No wonder the bottom-end kits are so cheap. . . I wonder what all that bulk is if it is not fermentable malt. . .

Is the DME and LME fermentable all by itself? I thought it was.

How much is substituted for sugar? The instructions do not say if equal amounts are substituted and if equal amounts means less alcohol.

I thought I was joining the big leagues, but all I did was get more confused.

[toneyc]

Spraymalt and spray dried malt are just DME, Dry Malt Extract. That's how it is dried, through a spray process. LME, or Liquid Malt Extract, uses a different process. We try not to use table sugar in our beer because it doesn't make great beer. You *can* use it, and it does make beer, but you'll find using LME or DME makes better beer. I'm not sure what the equivalent sugar amount is, but three parts DME equals 4 parts LME, generally.

:)
Toney.

[DecoJuicer]

Originally posted by msk
I thought I was joining the big leagues, but all I did was get more confused.

Welcome to the big leagues. :D When I first started brewing, I felt like I was walking around n a dark room, feeling for a light switch. When I finally found the switch, and the light came on, it was amazing.

But the I found myself in a small room that was labeled "homebrew from a can." There was a door on the other side of that room that was labeled, "design your own extract recipes." I opened the door and guess what?? No lights in there either. It is a much bigger room, but I found a dimmer switch in there. I can already see a door on the other side of this room called "all grain." The darkness from that room is actually swirling out from under the door. I'm scared.

But not to worry, you came to the right place. The guys here have flashlights and they are usually more than hoppy(get it, hoppy) to help. Ask questions, read some books(Homebrewing For Dummies, The Joy of Homebrewing), find somebody near you that is a homebrewer and ask to make a couple of batches with them.

Go ahead and ask as many questions as you want. It's either learn from somebody else's mistakes or learn from your own, and it is much less expensive to learn from their mistakes. I made a serious pest out of myself when I first came here, now I'm just a minor annoyance with my questions...like a mosquito at a campout.

[zoom6zoom]

So you're saying that some of the folks here are like beacons in the darkness, and some of us are just flashers?

;)

[DecoJuicer]

Well, I'll let your police record speak for itself.:eek:

[Harvest]

I used Muntons LME for years, mostly because it is what is available in my area, but have recently switched. There is a guy selling Briess 3.3lb cans of LME on Ebay, and the more I buy at a time the cheaper the shipping. 10 cans are about $8/can as opposed to the $10.99-12.99/can I paid at my local shop, they get real cheap if I buy 20. I still use the Muntons DME from my local, but I have found the Briess to be a high quality and reliable base.

[mookow]

Originally posted by Harvest
I used Muntons LME for years, mostly because it is what is available in my area, but have recently switched. There is a guy selling Briess 3.3lb cans of LME on Ebay, and the more I buy at a time the cheaper the shipping. 10 cans are about $8/can as opposed to the 10/99-12.99/can I paid at my local shop, they get real cheap if I buy 20. I still use the Muntons DME from my local, but I have found the Briess to be a high quality and reliable base.

My LHBS sells 33# jugs of Munton's LME for $56.75. Granted, you may wish to float a small amount of 100 proof vodka on top of the remainder after each use, but it's still a pretty darn good deal.