Malt extract comes in dry (dry malt extract, or DME) or liquid (LME) form. Beyond that it gets pretty wide open, with varying kinds of starch sources, colors and flavors, but one point is common to all: malt extract is the concentrated, unfermented sugars for beer.
Malt extract is malt extract as far as I'm concerned, and everything else beyond "Pale or Light Malt Extract" is a bit of marketing. Essentially the base of all extracts is barley, which they use for much of the sugar converted as well as the enzymes to convert the starch to sugar in the adjuncts they add, such as wheat, rye, chocolate malt, and a long list of other types of grain that are either roasted so long their own enzymes have been denatured or not enough existed in the first place.
This page could be a long explanation of all the types of malt extract, what exactly they contain (if that information even exists), and how exactly to use them. No, this is instead going to be an explanation of how I use malt extract, which is much simpler than it seems.
From one online supplier, I see that they have 29 different kinds of malt extract. Yikes. From the very beginning of my brewing "career", I never used anything but pale malt extract. I learned this from some wise person on the internet, and I am passing it forward because there is some calming in it. For the bulk of my extract brews, I only used pale, golden, light malt extract. A exception there may be when making a wheat beer, the extract for which is typically 60/40% wheat to barley.
The reason for only using one type of malt extract is to simplify the recipe process. It takes quite a bit of time and patience to even make one brew, so why change everything in all of your recipes? There's no way to compare the difference and learn from it. Also, almost all of the differences between the malts, especially around color and flavor, you can do yourself by steeping grains before the boil. This gives you much more control over the process and recipe.
You may find a recipe somewhere that states "amber DME" or the like, and there's no problem in using that, except when you want to make it again and your brewstore is out of amber. Now what?
Keep it simple and for simple recipes with steeping grains, my recommendation is just stick to pale extract. We'll go over steeping grains, what can be steeped and what needs to be mashed later.
Dry and Liquid Extract
This is pretty simple, liquid extract is not completely dehydrated, and dry extract is. There are differences in these beyond that however. Dry malt extract is more concentrated than liquid (less water), therefore it takes less dry extract to give you the same amount of sugars compared to liquid extract. For example, it takes 7.25lb of liquid extract to give you the same fermentable sugars as 6 lb of dry extract. On the whole, however, the prices per sugar of each isn't really that different.
I lean more towards the dry extract camp because of 3 main things: 1) Depending on age, liquid extract can go bad faster than dry extract. This is not a big one, as the most common extracts will likely not be on the shelf that long, and good manufacturing takes care of these problems. 2) Liquid extract is easy to scorch in the brew kettle if you're not careful. Just be diligent of mixing during the boil and this should be a problem. However, because of the evaporation process of liquid extract, 3) it generally gives you a darker beer than you will expect, and scorching will compound that.
This page could be a long explanation of all the types of malt extract, what exactly they contain (if that information even exists), and how exactly to use them. No, this is instead going to be an explanation of how I use malt extract, which is much simpler than it seems.
From one online supplier, I see that they have 29 different kinds of malt extract. Yikes. From the very beginning of my brewing "career", I never used anything but pale malt extract. I learned this from some wise person on the internet, and I am passing it forward because there is some calming in it. For the bulk of my extract brews, I only used pale, golden, light malt extract. A exception there may be when making a wheat beer, the extract for which is typically 60/40% wheat to barley.
The reason for only using one type of malt extract is to simplify the recipe process. It takes quite a bit of time and patience to even make one brew, so why change everything in all of your recipes? There's no way to compare the difference and learn from it. Also, almost all of the differences between the malts, especially around color and flavor, you can do yourself by steeping grains before the boil. This gives you much more control over the process and recipe.
You may find a recipe somewhere that states "amber DME" or the like, and there's no problem in using that, except when you want to make it again and your brewstore is out of amber. Now what?
Keep it simple and for simple recipes with steeping grains, my recommendation is just stick to pale extract. We'll go over steeping grains, what can be steeped and what needs to be mashed later.
Dry and Liquid Extract
This is pretty simple, liquid extract is not completely dehydrated, and dry extract is. There are differences in these beyond that however. Dry malt extract is more concentrated than liquid (less water), therefore it takes less dry extract to give you the same amount of sugars compared to liquid extract. For example, it takes 7.25lb of liquid extract to give you the same fermentable sugars as 6 lb of dry extract. On the whole, however, the prices per sugar of each isn't really that different.
I lean more towards the dry extract camp because of 3 main things: 1) Depending on age, liquid extract can go bad faster than dry extract. This is not a big one, as the most common extracts will likely not be on the shelf that long, and good manufacturing takes care of these problems. 2) Liquid extract is easy to scorch in the brew kettle if you're not careful. Just be diligent of mixing during the boil and this should be a problem. However, because of the evaporation process of liquid extract, 3) it generally gives you a darker beer than you will expect, and scorching will compound that.
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