All grain quality from extract beer?

[Ducatiboy stu]

Bribie

Milo is made at Smithtown, about 20min grom Kempsey

 

[carniebrew]

Is it possible to get near all grain quality in kit or extract beer?
Ive done four kit brews so far and cant stand to drink a whole glass of any one.
My lasy was a brown/dark ale mangrove jacks and breiss munich lmd with 100g of casc and cent.
I like hoppy beers and so far 100g of hops just isnt doing it for me. I may need to almost double this amount.
How much hopps do people use for a good hoppy brew similar to hop hog, alpha queen, roadtrip, hop zone and epic or green flash IPA?
My toucan was just ok. Too bitter, not good ballance and the weird twang flavor!
Only the amarillo FWK was decent.
Cheers.

Mate, why even call it "all grain quality"? It's easy to make a crap all grain beer. What you really need to ask is if it's possible to make top quality beer using extract...and the answer is absolutely. But you have to get your process and recipes right.

Read the intro (for free) of Brewing Classic Styles, every recipe in there is an award winning extract brew, from Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer themselves. If that doesn't convince you that extract can make **** hot beers, then nothing will.....

Even ignoring that book, make a self hopped extract version of Dr Smurto's golden ale using (fresh) Coopers extract tins, and if you can't get through a glass of that, going to all grain is unlikely to help...you gotta be messing it up somewhere...

 

[dammag]

Have a look at post 5833 in the "What's in The Glass" thread.

Answers the question.

 

[Bribie G]

Bribie

Milo is made at Smithtown, about 20min grom Kempsey

:icon_offtopic: until Trainee Abbott sends it to China.

 

[bmarshall]

I have keg king temp control with fridge and heat pad. I ferment at 19+/- 0.5. US05 or BRY 97. I use a 15l pot and boil with 10l. I only boil the lme or dme for the longest hop addition. I add hopped can to brew pot at end of boil then dump into fermenter.I buy hops from hopdealz. Sanitation is always done to everything. I add to fermenter 10-13l of cold water from a plastic jerry i leave in brew fridge over night to knock the temp out of the boil. Useally comes down to 30 deg then cool for couple hours till i pitch at no more than 24-25 deg. The Twang i get is like a bitter metalic unplesant taste.

 

[dammag]

I'd say get an experienced brewer to look at your method and taste your beer. Lots of people have much worse practices than that and still make good beer.

 

[yum beer]

Is your plastic jerry 'food safe' or is it 'fuel' type. Is it sealed air tight and all air removed before sealing up and putting in fridge.
Every thing else seems to be OK.

 

[bmarshall]

Yeh should be food safe. Jerry can is a willow brand.
Ive got a couple of FWKs just to replenish the stock as i need the bottles from my last disaster.
I have byo mags with recipes ill have to follow.

 

[unclebarrel]

Hi bmarshal,
My only advice would be to move away from kits and go all extract.
Kits have their place, don't get me wrong but I found that kits didn't give me what I wanted.
With unhopped extract you get to choose your bittering hops, and try compliment with flavour/aroma additions.
Maybe think about adding spec grains to liven up the flavour a little.
I use Ianh's spreadsheet to try get close to style and balanced as I can.

Good luck with it !

UB

 

[carniebrew]

Get rid of the hopped can, you're basically doing full extract now anyway. Add some specialty grain to your recipe too.

Try chilling your pot in an ice bath post boil, before straining into fermenter and adding top up water. Actually does your top up water taste OK straight out of the tap? If not you might want to pre boil it (but hopefully you don't have to).

You could even freeze 2l of boiled water and add it to your pot to speed up the chill. Try to get it lower so you're pitching around 20 instead of 25. You want to pitch as quickly as you can after top up, but at the right temp.

 

[manticle]

If you freeze it, make sure you do it in a sanitised, covered container as freezing will not kill bacteria.

 

[unclebarrel]

Good points carnie and manticle.

I use a couple (if necessary) 2L ice-cream tubs. Sanitised then filled, lid on and frozen.
Stick fermenter in laundry tub full of cold water and dump in 1 or 2 of the large ice blocks.
I find it brings down to pitching temps in pretty much under and hour.

As long as you are clean and sanitary in all dealings you should not get infections….I haven't…..


…so far !! haha



All in lieu of acquiring a wort chiller of course !

 

[DU99]

cooper's and morgans are not the only extract maker..black rock make a good unhopped extract....and you can it cheap here and buy in a mixed lot..

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

If you freeze it, make sure you do it in a sanitised, covered container as freezing will not kill bacteria.

I often wondered about that.

 

[indica86]

I often wondered about that.

Just like yeast isn't killed in the freezer...

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Yeast will survive being frozen if used with glycerine

 

[manticle]

Freezing will send most microflora dormant. The defrosting process can rupture cell walls and obviously we want our yeast numbers to be at the highest level and in the healthiest state possible prior to use so freezing is not a good process (except using glycerine as stated). However low temp will not immediately destroy yeast, unlike high enough temp will.

 

[unclebarrel]

+1 for the Black Rock extracts DU99.
I have used the ultra light a couple of times. I like the pale colour it has.

 

[carniebrew]

Yeast will survive being frozen if used with glycerine

That's liquid yeast. Dry yeast can be frozen, if it's in the original packaging:
http://www.danstaryeast.com/articles/freezing-dry-yeast

Freezing is considered (by Danstar anyway) to be better than keeping it at room temp, but in the fridge is optimal.

 

[zeggie]

I reckon my worst all grain has been superior to my best extract/kit.

All grain is so easy I wish I jumped into way earlier.