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Handling Bulk Liquid Malt |
You may have thought about buying a bucket of liquid malt extract (LME) for your brewing needs. Buying liquid malt extract in bulk has a couple of advantages: it's cheap, even cheaper than bulk dried malt extract and you end up with a new bucket once you have used up the contents. The disadvantages are risk of contamination, using the contents up fairly quickly and how to get the extract out of the bucket. Handling larger quantities of LME can be tricky but can be done. Maybe you're a kit brewer wanting to customise your kits with malt extract or an extract brewer or maybe a barley wine brewer looking at upping the OG of your batches without boiling for days.
If you brew kits at say, one per fortnight, a 25 kg bucket of malt will last you a year if you use a kilo per batch. Don't forget that the yeast supplied with most kits does not do a good job on attenuating (using up) an all malt brew. Use Safale or Saflager dry yeasts or use a liquid yeast. They are expensive but it is easy to get at least 15 starters from one liquid yeast. Dried malt extract is easier to measure out and handle but is hydroscopic (absorbs moisture from the air very quickly) and forms into lumps. It is more expensive than LME.
OK, you have decided that you will buy a bucket of liquid malt extract and use it up in a year. How are you going to get the extract out of the bucket. Easy, you buy a honey gate. This is the lever operated valve that is used for dispensing viscous liquids such as malt or honey. Adds more cost to the initial purchase and you need another bucket to bolt the honey gate to and pour your malt into. Using a honey gate makes dispensing malt a snack to do. This is the best option but maybe you just want to try a bucket of malt without the added expense of a honey gate.
There is another way to use up your malt extract without using another bucket by transferring the contents to smaller containers. Round up out of the cupboard a collection of plastic containers Glass ones too but they need to have a wide mouth and large enough to take about 1 kg of extract. Sniff the containers. If they smell off or have strong plastic smell, don't use them, you don't want your beer taking on a plastic nose or taste. Chinese food containers are OK. Preferably you want enough containers to decant about a third to half of extract out of your bucket. Weigh each container with the lid on and write this weight on the container in felt pen. Wash and sterilise the containers and lids, drain upside down in the sun to dry. UV from the sun kills wild yeasts and drying upside down stops any stuff dropping into the clean and sanitised containers. When ready spread out the containers upside down on sterilised bench top next to where you are going to decant the malt.
Before taking the lid off think about how to minimise the chance of infection. While the malt is exposed try not to breathe into the bucket or worse still, sneeze into it. Try not to lean over it, small particles and hairs may drop into the malt. Have everything ready so you can minimise the exposure of malt to air. If you are an advanced brewer with lots of gadgets including CO2 cylinders you may consider replacing the air in the bucket with CO2 gas which is heavier than air and will displace the normal air mix in the bucket above the surface of the malt.
Put the bucket of malt on a chair next to your sanitised work area. You might like to put an old towel on the floor to catch any drips. Have ready your empty containers and paper towel and sanitising solution, bleach or alcohol or whatever else you use. Wash your hands. Take the lid off and lay it right side up on your sanitised bench. Gently start pouring out of your bucket of extract into your first container slowly, get the feel of how the viscous fluid pours, how to stop the flow and gently speed it up. Do this with a larger container rather than a small one. Hold the empty container about 10-20 cm from under the lip of the bucket as the stream of malt narrows away from the rim of the bucket. Get the feel of balancing the bucket, container to be filled, lowering and raising the bucket and container at the same time. You will soon get the knack and be pouring like a pro. Fill up all the containers. Don't worry about any drips on the outside, you will clean them up last after decanting as much as you can, wiping the rims of all containers with sanitising solution and putting on all lids, bucket of malt first. Now clean up any spills after putting on the lids. Try to do the procedure and have all lids on as quickly as possible to minimise the time that wild yeasts may drop on the surfaces.
Hopefully, your bucket should have been filled under sterile conditions and have no sign of infection. Malt extract is a feast for any wild yeast that lands on the surface while you are decanting into smaller containers. The quicker you handle the malt and get the lid on the bucket the better to lessen the chance of infection.
Infection will show up as mould on the surface of the malt. Infection is common on malt extract. It can be dealt with by: scooping off the contamination with a sterile spoon and spraying the surface with alcohol or a solution made from a camden tablet in a spray bottle sprayed on the surface and interior of the bucket and lid. Make sure that when you use your malt extract it is boiled as part of your wort solution for at least 10 minutes. When adding extract to wort for boiling, remove the saucepan from the heat source, stir and dissolve the extract and then put the saucepan back on the heat source to avoid scorching the extract and adding burnt flavours to your brew. Boiling for 10 minutes will kill the infection.
Store your malt extract in a cool, dark place and use up sooner rather than later.
To use only part of a container of extract put the container on a set of scales and dollop out with a large sanitised spoon, twirling the spoon to transfer to your brew. Don't dip the spoon into the wort until you have finished measuring out the malt, then stir the spoon in the wort to dissolve the LME from the spoon. A bit of maths will tell you how much you have used. Put the container to be used from on a set of scales as you dollop out and watch how much you use on the scale.
Remember that 1 kg of DME equals roughly 1.3 kg LME if you are converting recipes. Using a honey gate to dispense the LME will also subject the malt to infection as there will be some air drawn into the bucket as malt is poured off. Use a refillable kitchen sprayer and use either one one of the following or your favourite steriliser that doesn't require washing off, 70% alcohol or camden tablet dissolved in water. Don't forget to crack the lid on the bucket as you dispense malt through the honey gate, otherwise no malt comes out the dispenser.
Happy brewing, Phillipa (& Blue).
