Liquid Malt Extract

[Benoit]

Oh wise men of StillSmart, please teach me all there is to know of this!
I bought a large tub of Suma brand LME a while ago & was rather disappointed to see its only about half fermentable sugar. Then I hunted around a bit more, found some from reputable home brew suppliers etc (my god it's expensive) before finally realising I could mash in with my boiler & gave up on the idea. I found the tub whilst looking for paint in the man cupboard & thought it better to make use of it than let it go off in there.
Reading around it seems people here haven't had much luck with it producing anything notable on its own, am I best to just use it to bump the sugar in a normal barley mash? Not coming from a home brew background I'm a tad short of ideas! Also while I'm here, how does it stack up against things like spray malt?

[chill]

Frank is your man here,
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=524&p=11603

[RumJohn]

@Benoit: The malt extract is used in place of or along with malted grains to convert starches into fermentable sugars.

Read up on the process. You might find that your output from grain based washes can be increased.

[chill]

@RumJohn I think you are thinking of Diastatic malt extract. LME is just concentrated, unhopped malted barley mash.

[Myles]

There is potential for confusion here.

LME - Liquid Malt Extract is a concentrated version of a wort. Already converted you just need to dilute it.

DME - Dried Malt Extract is a dry form of LME.

Both LME and DME will not convert anything as they have no active enzymes left.

DIASTIC Malt Extract does have enzymes and will convert starch.

You can get both dry and liquid diastic extracts, but check that it actually says it is diastic and still has active enzymes.

[Mash]

+1 chill.

This is used as an adjunct in a AG mash. Something I keep saying I am going to do!!

[RumJohn]

@Chill: It would appear so. Might also explain my lack of success with some grains here. Mind you, a label in Chinese doesn't help much either.

[Benoit]

First reply nailed it, thanks chuck! Frank seems happy using it with his mash, although he's using much more LME than I was planning on. His is predominantly LME boosted with real mash rather than the other way around but it gives me hope for a little extra yield from my peated malt, I'm going to use some in my rye too.
At the prices that this stuff goes for I don't think it will ever become a staple in my ingredients cupboard, researching into making higher gravity washes seems the more cost effective option although I'm sure it will lead into buying more equipment....it pays for itself in the end though right?!

[Easydrinker]

Back in June 2014 I used some of this brand LME, to try and save the effort of an all grain mash for a brew.
I used 1.5Kg of this with 3Kg sugar per 25 litre bucket and 100g of yeast.
Ran it through and with my pre-existing feints receiver.

The result was OK. But I decided to go back to AG for future Whiskies.
HTH.

Robert.

[Benoit]

Thanks Robert, I knew I'd read something on here that made me rethink using it on its own. I'm sure there was something along the lines of "unremarkable" in the tasting notes that put me off, if it's not imparting much flavour on the wash then it will make a good sugar substitute.
One thing I notice from Frank's notes is how much he uses, certainly not a cost effective option for me really when some of this is over £10 a kilo. I'll look into how it's made, I'm sure there must be more to it than simmering wort until it thickens up!!