All Malt - No Hops - Bad Idea?

[mwd]

I think you will find that Manticle is pretty much on the money with the alcoholic cordial description. IMHO.

Hops and Malt were designed by the gods to go together just like papaya and lime juice. :wub:

 

[manticle]

I did not accuse Manticle of anything personally, nor did I intend to and I am sorry that he feels that way. I cannot help thinking that given how quickly he jumped to his own defence that a there is something at the back of his mind.

Didn't take it personally - I was talking about the forum in general. Someone made a joke, big deal.

Both Cocko and hb79 often post stuff that is helpful and supportive as do many members of the forum.

cheers.

 

[Rurik]

To Bum I am not on a high horse I am calling a situation as I see it.

To Manticle - So ridiculing someone is fine because you help at other points?

 

[bum]

I know you're not on a high horse - because you fell off of it when you contributed to the "problem" you identified. Not that hard to get your head around, is it?

 

[Cocko]

To Bum I am not on a high horse I am calling a situation as I see it.

To Manticle - So ridiculing someone is fine because you help at other points?

Are you helping?

 

[Rurik]

Mmmmm there may be some point to the last post I am not helping this person with their original post. So I might stop posting hear if anyone wants to take it up with me feel free to PM me or start another thread I dont care which. I do tend to think though you are all riled by this in the same way a school yard bully is when confronted. Kudos to you all you have won another fight against someones capacity to respond with good consideration with IMO.

 

[jakub76]

1.5kg of the Black Rock malt extract,
Ale yeast,
Hops
Water up to 12 liters.

How much hops, what type/aa, how long boil?

EDIT: Oh and yeah, really guys...take a long hard look at yourselves

EDIT 2: I know it's not convincing but by I meant "I'm Kidding!" I'm not serious about the long hard look, in fact this site would be pretty boring without all the drama. Rock on :kooi:

 

[Ivan Other One]

I have a can of Black Rock AMBER - which is all malt. I am wondering if using that (1.5kg), along with either an ale or lager yeast and 12 liters of water is a bad idea or not. I am wanting to get something really malty.

Thanks.

Fellow brewer,
After reveiwing all the replys that you received to this post, well,,,,IMHO, just give it a go. You wont know if you don't try. After all you will be the one who either drinks it.

With a just a couple of years af K&K brewing under the belt (Or adding to the size of my belt ), Had never thought of doing a brew this way.
But can let you know that a few brews made with the usual can of brew mix and just adding malt have turned out rather bland and lacking a bit of tang that a true beer should have.
Using just the can of Black Rock Amber, to 12 litres, personally would do a short boil ofabout 50 grams of either cascade or goldings 100g Dry malt in about a litre of water. And then make the rest of the brew as planed.

Good luck with it mate and give us a taste report.

Cheers Ivan :icon_cheers:

 

[juzz1981]

Yeah, manticle. Take take take. That's you, user!

Couldn't be further from the truth, Manticle has helped me numerous times and with great in depth replies. Not to mention other AHB users, thanks Manticle :super:

 

[Silo Ted]

ubergrafik, is this your first go at making beer? Some more background would be good, you would be surprised at how many helpful responses you will get. What sort of beers do you like drinking would be the big question. I would guess its not an IPA style If its your first, I'll be happy to help you out with some hops for free if you live near me, I have a heap of American Amarillo that are getting on a bit, still fine but I bought far too many about six months ago that I will never use.

Heres what I would suggest. for starters dont muck around with half a batch, go to bunnings and get yourself a 25 litre water barrel and a tap for under $20. This might seem a lot of money to spend but remember that it will last for years and hunfreds of future brews if you look after it. Dont worry about things that you read about airlocks, a sheet of plain old gladwrap for the lid will be fine. Its actually a preferred method for many experienced brewers.

Make sure you have about 25 longneck bottles for the finished beer. You can buy the caps for a couple of dollars at the supermarket, but you will need a capping tool. Someome might loan you one of those for an hour as well.

For the recipe, based on a not too bitter beer with some malty flavour.

Your can of amber malt
A pack of BE2 from Coles, which I think is a blend of dry malt, dextrose and maltodextrin. Costs about $8.
A packet of ale yeast, which again I might be able to help you out with if youre local.
Some white sugar to bring the alcohol up to full strength. Use cautiously. Say 400 grams
Hops. Dont waste your money on those teabags, buy a 100g lot for $10, this will get you through two or three beers, depending on their AA%, or in laymans terms the bitterness strength.

Now, to put it all together. This isnt the best or the preferred method for most, and I might get crucified, but a simple method might be as follows.

Put your BE2 blend in a saucepan, add four litres of water, mix until theres no clumps, bring to the boil. Reduce to a just boiling temp, then add hops. Amount will depend on the hop style, but lets say 15 grams of moderatly high AA%. Keep boiling for 45 minutes. This is your hop bittering addition.

10 minutes before the end of the boil, or 35 minutes after the first addition, add another 15 grams of hops. This is your hop flavour addition.

Add the can of liquid malt to your sanitised fermenter. A mix of bleach and vinegar to sanitise, but follow the rules on home made sanitiser very carefully. Too much bleach will ruin a beer. Theres probably a recipe for making this somewhere, you should find it if you can, or ask.

Add your hot saucepan of BE2 and hops to the fermenter to dissolve the liquid malt in the fermenter, then add another two litres of boiling water using the empty can to get the rest of the goop out. You will need thick gloves, the can will be too hot to the touch.

Mix like crazy, then fill with cold water. Then let it sit covered overnight in a cold place, winter is a good time to bring the temp down.

The next day sprinkle the yeast packet over the top, cover the barrel with gladwrap and for the next three weeks watch the crazy fermenting action take place. Two weeks into the process you could throw in another 15 grams of hops, this is called dry hopping, and provides the aroma, but also a bit more flavour, with very little added bitterness to what you already have.

Ideally you would want to use a tool called a hydrometer which measures the unfermented sugar in your beer, and the rule is if the measurement is stable after a few days its good to bottle. A cheap one from Kmart would probably cost you about $10, again this is a one time investment.

On bottling day, add carbonation drops, also available from Coles, to your sanitised bottles, fill them with a tube attached to your barrel tap, then cap the bottles. Wait about six weeks, then refrigerate overnigh, standing the bottles upright and enjoy. You will at this point be planning your next brew.

This isnt the ultimate way of doing things but I reckon its a good start, and without complicating things for you. Later on down the track you can do other things like adding a bit of malted grains, getting away from the sugars and going for dry malt or using two cans of liquid malt, changing the hop variety which makes a huge difference. FYI there are probably a hundred hop varieties out there, and countless combinations. Thats what makes brewing fun for me at least, the limitless possibilities.

Your biggest concern and one that can never be understated, is cleaniness and sanitisation of everything that comes into contact with your brew. Many a beer has gone bad due to bad practice, but a little bit of care and forthought will avoid any infections ruining all your hard work.

Lets hope I havent wasted mine and your time if you are already experienced in the process, but it sounds like this is your first go at it. Good luck, either way.

 

[manticle]

Mmmmm there may be some point to the last post I am not helping this person with their original post. So I might stop posting hear if anyone wants to take it up with me feel free to PM me or start another thread I don't care which. I do tend to think though you are all riled by this in the same way a school yard bully is when confronted. Kudos to you all you have won another fight against someone's capacity to respond with good consideration with IMO.

Your point 'how about helping as we've all asked silly questions before' was fine - a reasonable point actually. It was the addition of 'for once instead of just trying to get your post count up' which was a bit ridiculous. The whole schoolyard analogy thing is a bit tedious too.

Anyway to expand on my question (which was genuine) -OP: what kind of commercial example (if any) would you base your desired outcome on? Beer is almost always bittered with something as all malt will be very sweet. All malt extract of only one kind will be very sweet, possibly cloying and very one dimensional. I don't want to tell you not to do it in case that's what you're chasing but I can't imagine it having a drinkable outcome.

There are ways to get a malty beer - omitting hops doesn't seem like the best one to me.

Some Scottish ales (for example) are very lowly bittered and very malty - I'd look at combining a couple of different malts and steeping a little bit of crystal and chocolate grain then doing a boil with a small amount of english hops to hit 15-20 IBU. This will be sweet, quite malty but not just malt cordial and will be quite easy to do.

You could experiment and see if you'd like it unhopped- personally I think it would be a waste of ingredients unless that cordial is exactly what you're chasing.

 

[Pennywise]

Good lot of help you lot are. Why not try helping some one for once rather than getting your post count up.

Bloke, he's been a member longer than you. Doesn't seem there was a lot of effort on his part to learn anything in that time. I wasn't having a hard go at the dude, just a bit of light harted piss (ed) taking . Ubergrafik, appologies if you took offence as much as captain knucklehead here, my intention was to take the piss, not have a go, although prolly poory done in a slightly drunken state. Good to see you've decided to chuck some hops in there, and have decided on a type of yeast. Let us know how it goes :icon_cheers:

 

[kelbygreen]

maybe try using some hops that dont give much flavour off like northern brewer, not sure that is the best as I only just bought some for that reason but havnt used it. so if you get a neutral hop you should taste more malt then say using a strong hop like chinook I found that way overpowering and only used 20g lol

 

[Pennywise]

Yep, agree with that NB would be a good choice for a 60 min only addition. Also a low attentuating yeast would be good

 

[Dazza_devil]

The beer off my starters isn't something I would look forward to consuming but it's palatable non-the-less.
I'm sure there are plenty of other things out there that you can bitter and flavour fermented malt with though, pretty sure it's been done before,
That said, I'm pretty happy that someone accidently on purpose dropped a shit load of hops in their beer once upon a time.

 

[Shed101]

I'm pretty happy that someone accidently on purpose dropped a shit load of hops in their beer once upon a time.

I think you've misunderstood - it wasn't an accident.

They got their information here

 

[Ivan Other One]

Couldn't be further from the truth, Manticle has helped me numerous times and with great in depth replies. Not to mention other AHB users, thanks Manticle :super:

+1
Manticle and many other long time brewers are what make this site invaluable for the brewing experience that they share with us.

There will always be those who agree to disagree as well as those who like to have a bit of niggle.If folks can't take some things with a grain of salt then maybe they should just have a strong cup of wet cement and HTFU!!!

In the end we all want to make our home brew the best it can be and it's up to the individual to decypher the good form the relatively small amout of rubbish.

Those new to the site will get a better response to their questions if they add their location to their user name profile as climate has a huge bearing on brewing methods.

Lastly, well done TED, as our post was one of most informative response seen here for a little while.

Cheers, Ivan. :icon_cheers:

 

[Swinging Beef]

I reckon its an awesome idea. Experiment, make something wonderful and tell the world... make something shit and keep it to yourseld.
Beer was made for hundreds, if not thousands, of years before hops were discovered to be their perfect partner.
All I would recommend is to use a very characterful yeast.
Something with a bit of Brett in it or some lacto.
That would provide you with dryness and some bitterness/sourness.
Having said that... it will not really be a malt driven flavour, but it will in some ways emulate the beer flavours of the ancient world.

 

[MHB]

I reckon its an awesome idea. Experiment, make something wonderful and tell the world... make something shit and keep it to yourseld.
Beer was made for hundreds, if not thousands, of years before hops were discovered to be their perfect partner.
All I would recommend is to use a very characterful yeast.
Something with a bit of Brett in it or some lacto.
That would provide you with dryness and some bitterness/sourness.
Having said that... it will not really be a malt driven flavour, but it will in some ways emulate the beer flavours of the ancient world.

Actually we have good archaeological evidence dating back some 30,000 years; it appears that making bread and beer are why we became agrarian rather than nomadic. In every case the "beer" was adulterated with some bittering substance, hops are just the best at the job.

I'm all for learning and experimenting, but FFS guys working with stone tools figured out that bittering beer was a good idea I guess some people are just slower on the uptake than others.

I doubt anyone will make a second batch of un-bittered beer.

MHB

 

[Nick JD]

I made a batch of unbittered malt alcohol once as a mixer for a friends home made bourbon. He wanted something with a low alcohol level, sweet, caramel and highly carbonated.

It only tasted weird (by itself) if you thought of it as "beer". With bourbon it tasted fantastic.

Now, someone will come in and inform me that, actually, the Belgians have been doing this since 1567 and it's name is Le Maltnon Bier du Coq, brewed for the Queen's poodles.