# Morgans Caramalt



## Nick JD (6/11/08)

G'day, newbie here chiming in and wishing I'd found this forum earlier... 

I've been brewing K&K for twenty years and reading all your wisdom, finally got brave enough to "make one up" with extracts and hops. 

1.5 kg Coopers Light Malt
500g Dry Light Malt
1 kg Morgans Caramalt
Teabag of Cascade Hops
Saflager yeast

...best beer I've ever made. That Caramalt is probably why. Now I have to learn more about hops.

Again, brilliant forum. Cheers,

Nick.


----------



## davewaldo (6/11/08)

Sounds like you've got some great flavours in there... however, how did you get any bitterness without boiling any hops?

Or did you boil the teabag? In which case did you have much flavour an aroma?

What sort of flavours did you find the caramalt to give?

Oh, and a very BIG welcome to the forum! :beer:


----------



## RobboMC (6/11/08)

Hi Nick,

I assume that's 1.5kg of Coopers kit can of some sort.

At first you get the thought "why add sugar to give alcohol when you can add malt and get flavour AND alcohol"

Next you have the thought "why add plain malt for flavour when you can add flavoured malt and get more flavour "

I'm now trying to take plain malt OUT of my concoctions and use these Morgans flavoured malts 100%.

Makes really good beer, but not cheap.

Making up your own recipes is no problem, as long as you put good ingredients in you should always get good beer out, assuming good clean equipment and so on.

You are on the way to the dark side now, have fun and aim to make the best beer you can.


----------



## Nick JD (6/11/08)

davewaldo said:


> Sounds like you've got some great flavours in there... however, how did you get any bitterness without boiling any hops?
> 
> Or did you boil the teabag? In which case did you have much flavour an aroma?
> 
> ...



I put the teabag in a pot on the stove with 2 cups of water and boiled it for ten minutes and then threw the whole lot in. After reading about dry hopping, I think I might throw some un-boiled in too. Is that a good idea? Hops are new to me. That's for aroma, right? It's not a very bitter beer, which seems to complement the caramalt - but I _can _taste the hops. 

The caramalt gives it a bit of a nut-brown quality, but actually quite caramel. When I smelt the residue in the bottom of the can I must admit to taking to it with a teaspoon. I'd eat that stuff on icecream. :icon_drool2:


----------



## Nick JD (6/11/08)

RobboMC said:


> Hi Nick,
> 
> I assume that's 1.5kg of Coopers kit can of some sort.
> 
> ...



The light malt was this stuff:







I'm thinking about trying 3 x 1kg Caramalt cans and hops. What hops would be good? Would this be overkill caramel? Sounds good on paper...


----------



## RobboMC (6/11/08)

It's your beer mate, make it the way you think yo might like it!

If you liked the Cascade hops just use more, and boil some for 30 min and some for 5-10 min.

Dry hopping can be good, some prefer to make the tea-bag and throw it all in without straining.

Other good hops are Fuggles and Goldings for British traditions,
or Halletau for German flavour. 

Suggest you find a HBS and try each of them out, you might like some that others don't.

This shows just how quickly SOME bittering comes out of hops.

If it sounds good on paper then it probably will be good.

I've done 2kg of Caramalt with a can of kit and that was pretty good, so 3 cans with some hops should be great.
I'd use 1 or 2 cans in the boil and add the other(s) straight to the fermenter.

Also, learn about alpha-acid content of hops, the higher the % the less you need, and they seem to be the same price at the HBS, so the less you need the less it costs. Get some higher % stuff for the 30 min boil and keep the low % hops for the aroma ( 5 min ) additions.


----------



## Nick JD (6/11/08)

Cheers Robbo.

Got ya on the % thing with hops. Will look into alpha acids and hop timing ... so that's what the "bitter" is, eh? I saw a graph someone posted here with curves of bitter and aroma over time. Now, to put it into practice :blink: .

Got a simple brew down at the moment 2 x 1.5 Coopers light malt and Saaz teabag - smells delicious at the airlock. Probably under hopped but will rectify with more boiling next time.

Anyone used this stuff?






Is it 100% "malted" wheat? Or a combo (%:%)? I tried a really nice rasberry wheat beer while in Canada a few weeks ago and might try to emulate.


----------



## Jase71 (6/11/08)

Coopers wheat malt is 50/50 wheat & barley malt I beleive - as Im led to understand, you cannot have an all-wheat malt in your beer.


----------



## Interloper (6/11/08)

Nick JD said:


> Cheers Robbo.
> 
> Got ya on the % thing with hops. Will look into alpha acids and hop timing ... so that's what the "bitter" is, eh? I saw a graph someone posted here with curves of bitter and aroma over time. Now, to put it into practice :blink: .
> 
> ...


I used that with the Thomas Cooper Wheat beer kit...daaaaamn fine drinking and still around $1-$1.25 per litre.


----------



## Jase71 (6/11/08)

I have that exact brew just bottled, interloper. How long did you leave it conditioning before it hit it's best ?


----------



## Interloper (6/11/08)

Jase71 said:


> I have that exact brew just bottled, interloper. How long did you leave it conditioning before it hit it's best ?



Still going Jase. Sampled at 2 weeks (without rolling in yeast) and it was great. Young, but very smooth.

Now at 8 weeks it has come along beautifully - creamy, creamy head and lots of body and fine bubble. The girlfriend loves it and she doesn't drink a lot of beer (very discerning pallet when she does though). 

I have tried it with and without rolling the yeast and honestly I think the flavour is better with the yeast in the glass.(Safale Wheat Beer). Does that make me a filthy peasant? I don't know but I like the yeast from my commerical belgians and my coopers too! 

If this bad boy makes it to xmas it will be some fine drinking.

Definitely try it every week after 2 weeks in the bottle so you can provide some feedback - everyone says quaff this one young (or is that all wheat beers?)


----------



## earle (6/11/08)

> I'm now trying to take plain malt OUT of my concoctions and use these Morgans flavoured malts 100%.
> 
> Makes really good beer, but not cheap.



I still use the Morgans Masterblend malts in some brews but as you say they're not cheap, especially if you use 2. I am using them less now and have moved to steeping spec grains with even better results. There's more choice with grains and its much easier to mix a bit of this grain and a bit of that to get the recipe you want, compared to trying to use parts of several different tins.

Just for example you can get caramalt grain from craftbrewer for $4.20 per kg, even a few hundred grams of a spec grain can have a big impact on a brew.


----------

