Liquid Malt Extract (LME)

Liquid Malt Extract (LME) is a concentrated wort that you can use to make your own beer at home or add to other beer kits to add extra body, flavour and sugar.

The Liquid Malt Extract is made by cooking malted barley in water (mashing) for a period of time, just like they would in a brewery.  This causes the starches in the grains to turn to sugar which dissolve into the water.  You now have a liquid called wort.  This is now reduced to remove most of the water so you are left with a treacle like, thick viscous liquid we call Liquid Malt Extract.

To use LME, you simply add water.  A 1.5kg can of LME can be topped up to 11.5 litres with water to make 11.5 litres of wort, that's 20 pints. You can add hops by just dropping them in, or you can pre boil the hops in a litre of water and substitute a litre in the topping up for the litre of hopped water.

Liquid Malt Extract is made from many different malts and grain bills, so you can use LME as a base for making beer at home or mix them together to make many different styles of beer including pale ales, IPA, brown ale, mild, stout, etc, etc.

If you have a beer kit that needs 1kg of sugar, you can substitute the sugar for 1.2kg of Liquid Malt Extract.  This will add extra body, flavour and colour to your finished beer.

Cans of pure liquid malt extract can be used as a 'blank canvas' for you to make your own special beers. Here you can find different types of malt extract from pale to amber to dark. You can use these with your choice of other ingredients like hops, spray malts, beer enhancers and yeasts to create your very own unique beer. These are great if you want to move away from all inclusive beer kits and start combining ingredients from your own recipe.