Malt Extract

Malt extract is created when the sugar solution is drawn off of Malted Barley, pasteurized, and run into vacuum chambers for dehydration. By boiling off the water under a partial vacuum, the wort sugars are not caramelized by the heat of full boiling and a lighter tasting extract is produced. To make a hopped extract, Iso-Alpha Acid extracts of hops are added along with hop oils to give a complete hop character to the final wort extract. These hop extracts are added at the end of the process to prevent loss during dehydration. Malt extract takes a lot of the work out of brewing.

Malt extract is sold in both liquid (syrup) and powdered forms. The syrups are approximately 20 percent water, so 4 pounds of Dry Malt Extract (DME) is roughly equal to 5 pounds of Liquid Malt Extract (LME). DME is produced by heating the liquid extract and spraying it from an atomizer in a heated chamber. Strong air currents keep the droplets suspended until they dry and settle to the floor. DME is identical to LME except for the additional dehydration and lack of hopping. DME is not hopped because hop compounds would be lost during the final dehydration.