# The Taste Of Home Brew....carlton Dry Style



## jamieh (26/12/09)

Hello fellow brewers,

Im going to throw this question out to everyone...or who ever can come up with a good recipe...my brother in law bought me a slab of Carlton dry for xmas...ive had this lager before and loved it...as to why i got him to buy me the slab haha....now..with its smooth finish and crisp taste, what i would LOVE to know is what would be the closest home brew kit and hops used for this type of beer...obviously wouldnt be able to make a replica of it but would like to make something of similar body and taste...let me know and ill be making asap!

Cheers.


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## dpadden (26/12/09)

Hey mate,

Whilst this is probably not the favoured drop of a few on this forum, each their own as they say. I used to love a Tooheys dry a few years back and brewed the Wal's Dry Lager kit from Country Brewer. They include dry enzyme with the kit that helps ferment more of the sugars and hence produce a drier beer.

This kit turned out great and recommend for this style of beer :beer:


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## dr K (26/12/09)

It is suprisingly simple to make a clean dry beer, now it will not be Carlton Dry, as you correctly recognise you will not be able to achieve in your shed what CUB do with billions of dollars of investment in ingredients and process.
step 1...get some sort of temperature control so you can ferment at say 12C, a temp controlled fridge is ideal but an insulated box, a thermometer and some PET bottles with frozen water will suffice.
step 2 ...go to decent homebrew shop (local or online) and buy some decent yeast nutrient and some proper lager yeast (dried is fine, saflager is a perfect starting point)
step 3..get a pretty bland kit lager and..zapzap..a kilo of sugar, plain old generic stuff.
step 4 ..do not listen to cries of protest that sugar will make your beer smell and taste like cider, certainly poor brewing practices, poor malt quality and poor yeast will, but not sugar.
step 5 ..do your normal hot water/kan bit but add the nutrient (the nutrients are designed for all grain so you will need a lot more for extract, in fact use a whole teaspoon) and aerate the crap out of it
step 6..pitch your 11gm pack of yeast at around the 12-15C mark
step 7..ferment as usual, but at 12C.
This should result in a clean, dry kit beer (say 1005 ish), if it is not dry enough, next time add some extra enzyme that you can buy from your brew-shop.

K


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## RetsamHsam (26/12/09)

dr K said:


> It is suprisingly simple to make a clean dry beer, now it will not be Carlton Dry, as you correctly recognise you will not be able to achieve in your shed what CUB do with billions of dollars of investment in ingredients and process.
> step 1...get some sort of temperature control so you can ferment at say 12C, a temp controlled fridge is ideal but an insulated box, a thermometer and some PET bottles with frozen water will suffice.
> step 2 ...go to decent homebrew shop (local or online) and buy some decent yeast nutrient and some proper lager yeast (dried is fine, saflager is a perfect starting point)
> step 3..get a pretty bland kit lager and..zapzap..a kilo of sugar, plain old generic stuff.
> ...



I would probably use two packets of yeast if pitching @ 12C and hoping to ferment down to 1005


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## bum (26/12/09)

RetsamHsam said:


> I would probably use two packets of yeast if pitching @ 12C and hoping to ferment down to 1005



I think dr K is referring to the repack versions available from certain LHBS/online. You'd certainly need 2 of the official Fermentis packs (7g?).


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## Thirsty Boy (27/12/09)

RetsamHsam said:


> I would probably use two packets of yeast if pitching @ 12C and hoping to ferment down to 1005



Thats what all the nutrients are for - plus the yeasties are working a little less hard in a beer with a high proportion of simple sugars. I'd save the money on the extra pack this time and maybe consider it if you dont get the sort of result you are looking for from Dr K's excellent instructions.

But then again, two packs certainly wouldn't hurt....


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## pickledparrot69 (27/12/09)

Sorry to hijack. I brewed a partial yesterday for my wife who wanted something similar to what the first post suggests but it is an ale. consists of 2k pilsner and 0.5k wheat mashed at around 63 then a can of copers mexican, 350g dextrose 7g cascade at 30 and 5g cascade at 10 using Californian ale yeast which was underpitchd so will be repitching today. The plan is for it to be a thin beer. I dont argue with the bad taste of the boss ha ha. Do not have any dry enzyme but some nutrient salts. Is this any good for this purpose or are you talking about the brown powdered nutrient for this purpose? There is also plenty of spare coopers yeast pkts that could be boiled up if this will do the trick in stripping the hell out of the sugars and body. The mash temp was low for this reason but if nutrient salts and more yeast will help then I might try it. The other times I have used the salts for ciders it seemed to leave an undesirable taste, like more sulpher than without it. 

Cheers
PP69


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## goomboogo (27/12/09)

What would be the guess on terminal gravity of a beer such as Carlton Dry?

Jamieh, the recipe and method supplied by Dr K will provide you with some of the characteristics you like in the commercial example mentioned. If you follow the instructions and manage the fermentation well; i think the 1005ish finishing gravity will be in the ballpark of the desired level of 'dryness'. But as mentioned in other posts, if you need it lower there are ways but hopefully you will find what you're looking for straight off the bat with this recipe. Let us all know what you think of your next brew.


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## duncanbrewery (1/5/14)

I know this is a old topic but i'm new to brewing and my first brew was a carlton dry style and it was bloody close everyone who tried said it was almost on par...
so i thought i would share coz when i was trying to find info on a dry this post was my bible and it didn't even know what i was doing..

1 tin coopers larger = very week not real over the top flavour good start for a aussie draught style
1kg dex = alco % with out adding more flavour
I stuffed the yeast pitch so i used 2 packs but if done right 1 is only needed 
1 pack saflager s-23 yeast = lower ferment temps to achieve a much cleaner beer taste pitch yeast at 17.5c and drop to 11.5c
1 pack yeast nutrient = helps yeast eat the sugers
1 pack dry enzyme = dry taste (not sure what it really does)
23l water ferment at 11.5c for 21 days and cold keg age the beer for 2 to 3 weeks

so the beer was a little week in flavour next month when i do it again in gonna replace 1kg dex for a mix that i made up myself just got the sugers off ebay the ferment mix that im gonna use is
400g dry light malt extract = in the hope i get more flavour
500g dextrose
250g maltodextrin = in the hope to get the thick head and thicker mouth feel
and im only gonna use 21 litter water to try to get a more condensed beer... 
all in all the beer was very crisp and clean loved it and im gonna make this years to come.. trying a VB at the min lol 

i will record gravity on the next one i hope it helps someone. i use a temp controlled fridge to ferment temps very important on this one..
any questions just ask


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