Beer Enhancer

[Todd Owen Ridling]

I am very new to the home brewing. Have only done 2 brews with the Liquid malt extract from the cans, with the enhancer. 

I want to try with DME with the hour boil process. Do I still need the beer enhancer for this? Or is the DME sufficient enough? Am going to try with steeping grains also.

All new to this so sorry if the question is a bit stupid. Thanks in advance!

[Cain Harland]

At best beer enhancer is just DME more often its DME + dextrose, some times some other crap. You should be fine doing a straight swap and the beer should be better for it. Depending on the DME you may end up with a slightly thicker, sweeter less alcoholic beer.

[Todd Owen Ridling]

Thanks Cain.

Can you recommend Which DME to use? As I prefer my beers at least 4.5% and over.

[Cain Harland]

I have very little experience with DME. I think the lighter the more ferment able it will be. I would be inclined to use to use the light stuff for just about everything most beer styles use a light malt for the base with relatively small amounts of specialty grain. Some folks do a partial mash using light DML/LME as the base then steep just the specialty grains.

There are a few calculators and recipe builders on line you could use to calculate ABV and OG based on quantity of LME (just enter a kit as LME for the calculation) and DME

[Crusader-Rob]

go have a read of www.howtobrew.com

this will give you an insight into the best process ,and like cain said, ignore the enhancer stuff. go all DME/LME. add some hops and boil away.

the link above has a good process for extract brewing and a good recipe for beginners like yourself. its cinncinati pale ale.

[Todd Owen Ridling]

Awesome. Thanks Crusader-Rob.

[Crusader-Rob]

no Problem.

its a great source for learnign all the basics, and learninghow to get into AG as well.

Read it from cover to cover. (they do a paperback, which is slightly different as well)

[Todd Owen Ridling]

I just brought a copy of trade me.

It is the paper back version.

Do you know if it is much different to the hard back? Cheers.

Also I did read part of the book on line. 

It says to steep the grains for half an hour in boiling water.

So after that do you start the hour long process, with adding hops etc.

It did not mention this in the part I read. Not that I saw anyway. Cheers again.