27+ litre Brew recipes for a noob !

[Zabowski]

Hi guys - long tim ereader first time poster !!!

Well not really. I have just got back into homebrewing after a 20 year break. Used to brew a lot in my university days but gave it up and am now just trying to get back in.

I have done my first 4 brews - 2 in the bottle being 1) Irish Stout (with a bit of extra dark crystal grain and hoping); and 2) a porter with a little extra grain and hops. Two in the tubs still 1) ESB Nut Brown Ale with nothing added and 2) a Celtic Red kit from Brewcraft with an extra kilo of light dried malt made up to 27 litres.

Basically I am doing it with my neighbour and his view, which I have come to agree with, is that we have the capacity in the tub to do up to 27-29 litres so lets do it and save some time. Given we get half a brew each it is a good idea BUT I have not yet worked out exactly how to work the recipes.

This forum has been brilliant in getting me back into brewing and updating my techniques - so thanks for that. There has clearly been a massive improvement in the quality and availability of brewing products since my last forays and the interweb has certainly created an easily accessible font of information.

The last of my brews - the Celtic Red now incporporates the new techniques and info I have collected from this site so it includes a bit of pre-boil, quick lowering of wort temperature after mixing, reydration or yeast prior to pitching and a crude "swamp cooler" to keep my fermenter around 18 degrees during fermentation. I actually only filled to 21 litres initially to avoid any of the krausen coming out of my air vavle but after 3 days of fermentation i topped her off to 27 litres last night. I am hopping the extra kilo of LDME will give me a decent brew but am keen for any tips.

I have searched for a bit of info on what other people have done to do 27+litre brews but there is little info i could find.

My neighbour and I have very similar tastes, which is great, we both like relatively low hopped, almost slighty sweet beers like celtic reds, irish stout, scottish heavy, olds etc. In summer we do like a good lager but me especially has a very, very sensitive palate and find a lot of boutique or craft beers just waaaay to hopped - no balance.

I did live in England for 5 years fromn 2000 to 2005 and was a regular at CAMRA events so do love a good real ale type brews if any are recommended.

Thanks in advance for any help !

 

[JaseH]

I do 27litre batches for all my brews, like you, I figure its about the most I can get into my 30L fermenters.

I use Beersmith to manage my recipes, if I'm reproducing a recipe designed for less than 27L then its easy to scale up the ingredients using the software.

 

[Weizguy]

I do 27litre batches for all my brews, like you, I figure its about the most I can get into my 30L fermenters.

I use Beersmith to manage my recipes, if I'm reproducing a recipe designed for less than 27L then its easy to scale up the ingredients using the software.

+1 for using some good brew software. I use Beersmith, but try 'em all for a few recipes to see which one suits.
There should be plenty of info regarding setup and use of the various brew software, so please research before asking. (It's the polite thing to do).

Good to see you come out into the light, Zabowski. It's better out here. :beer:

 

[manticle]

You can use your kit as a base and simply add more fermentables and some appropriate hops to balance the extra volume.
You can go full extract and do all your own hop additions.
If you feel so inclined, you can start full or partial mashing and again, add hops to get the balance right for your volume.

As mentioned, using some software or a spreadsheet will help you get the balance right for your beer. Have a look at some of the vital statistics for the types of brews you want to make. Take a commercial example, find out the OG, FG and IBU level and replicate it in the software. This will give you a starting point - the rest will come from tasting, learning and tweaking.

 

[danestead]

As for only filling up to 21L then topping up after 3 days to 27L, Im thinking you would want to be quite careful you arent splashing or introducing oxygen at this stage but maybe one of the more experienced and regular posters on here could chime in with their thoughts?

 

[yum beer]

Play around with Ians spreadsheet, which is stickied in the kits sub-forum.
You can plug in your ingredients and adjust your volumes.
It also has the IBU's for heaps of cans already, so you can start at 23 litres, see what IBU's you would normally get, then crank the volume to 27 and add extra malts, grains, sugars and hops as needed to get back to that same start point.

or

Split the cost of a big stockpot, lpg burner and go nuts full volume BIAB and make whatever you want.