Basic Pale/real Ale

[Mr.Moonshine]

I've been thinking of late that brewing up some easy drinking, not too costly brews for the family would be the go, and so decided to make up a few diffrent toucan brews. I started with a "generic dark ale" recipe I saw on here once, which called for;
-Coopers dark ale kit
-Coopers stout kit
-500g dark sugar
-both yeasts

That one is coming along well, so now I'm thinking of a slightly less dark beer.
Recipe in mind (for 24 litres);
-Coopers lager kit
-Coopers real ale kit
-Crystal malt (steeped at 75 degrees for 15 minutes)

I just don't know how much crystal to steep. I sourced up the figures on the coopers can IBU's somewhere here (link: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...=coopers+toucan), and the IBU works out to 40.08. How much crystal to malt up the brew with some caramel-y goodness without ruining the hop flavour and balance?

*Pardon if it's a fairly newbie question, just trying to get the hang of balancing out the beer*

Cheers

Mr.Moonshine

 

[Gavo]

How long is a piece of string? 250 grams would give you increased head retention and a better mouthfeel. The description on Craftbrewers website says to use up to 5%.

Cheers
Gavo.

 

[buttersd70]

I would say about the 250 as well, if not a little more, given that it's a toucan....

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

Cheers for the advice guys, I'll go with about 250-300g crystal in that case. Would that make the style closer to an amber ale, pale or real ale? Since last I checked, they all contain fairly hefty doses of crystal

 

[Gavo]

The style would depend on a number of things.
1. The EBC
2. The Hop and malt balance

My guess on the EBC would be a Pale Ale therefore the lean is more toward the Hops. In this case the IBU is also close to the bottom end of the PA style. I would be adding a short hop boil for flavour and a dry hop just before the end of the ferment.

Cheers
Gavo

 

[buttersd70]

Or go with 150g crystal, 150g carared and 50g choc, and make it an amber, and let the malt come through.

Either way, it will be beer. Being good tasting beer is more important than being a pale, an amber, or whatever. Good tasting beer is good tasting beer....pale, amber, real....are just labels.

 

[seemax]

+1 to above suggestion

I would do 300g crystal, 75g choc malt combined with a short boil of Goldings / Fuggles hops plus a dry hop for aroma.

Definitely toss the kit yeasts and go with S-04 or Windsor if you want a english/fruity ale.. or Nottingham for something cleaner.

 

[boingk]

Sounds good, Mr.Moonshine - killer monica by the way!

I've done something similar, you can find it here if you are interested. From memory it was quite a nice drop, and I'd say yours will be pretty similar. Main difference between the two would be hop flavour and aroma. I say go for it!

Cheers - boingk

 

[ford-ute]

I have tried a toucan in my time and all i use was

1 x coopers dark ale
1 x coopers real ale

I have also tried

1 x coopers dark ale
1 x cooper large

i used no other ingredience just the two kits and the dark ale yeast supplied and i found that the dark ale / larger combination better i never added anything else to it and it came out all right by memeory but some crystal would not hurt can only make it better

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

Jazzing it up a bit does seem like a good idea, but ingredients are in short supply 'round mine. I found some s.04 in my ingredients fridge, so I'll probably use that instead of the kit yeasts (Given the style/gravity, would it be appropriate to simply rehydrate, or should I make a starter?). The only special malt I've got handy is crystal, so I was angling at using only that, but if I can make it down to the LHBS this weekend I may be able to pick up some other malts. In addition to that, I've got some spare fuggles in the fridge, but it's only 10g or less, and I'm not sure it's going to make that much of a difference unless I dry hop it. Would it make sense to drop the total volume of the brew in order to kind of concentrate the flavour/bitterness?

Cheers for the advice,

Mr.Moonshine

 

[seemax]

Go with the S-04 and try and keep it around 18C. No starter required with dry yeasts, one packet will ferment 25L no problem.

Given you only have 10g I would probably dry hop in secondary.

Lager is about 20IBU and real ale maybe 25IBU.. that's already quite bitter, I wouldn't go less than 23L.

A warning, it will need IMO at least 10 weeks in the bottle for the harshness to round out.

 

[buttersd70]

Agree with seemax fully.

 

[rclemmett]

I've been thinking of late that brewing up some easy drinking, not too costly brews

Toucans...... Easy drinking? What do you normally drink? Moonshine?

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

Sounds like a plan, I'll probably go with that then. Weather is still pretty brutal here in melbourne (as with the rest of Aus, I hear), so I'll probably postpone putting this one on until the weather cools down and I can get it to 18 degrees without crazy cooling measures. I was eager to get a new brew on last night, so I put together a chilli and lemongrass ale with a coopers draught kit and 1kg of dex, as well as chillis and lemongrass, without realising I'd need to control the temperature so much until the heat breaks on friday. You live you learn

Actually Rob2, you're on the money there I make up a fair bit of moonshine (~60%abv) and it's normally a pretty popular drink choice, but it's been so hot of late drinking brutal sprits is out of the question ><. Besides, it's ale brewing season, gotta get some stocks up before winter

Cheers for the advice, much appreciated,

Mr.Moonshine