Extract Information

[l7edwards]

Hi All. I have been brewing very basic extracts for a while, generally with malt extracts rather than adding grains, which i now plan to do. My housemates and i are grabbing a keg setup very soon, so i'm going to put down a basic 'australian' ale, modelled on a coopers pale style recipe, and other aussie ales in the recipedb i read on here. Any recipe and procedure advice would be excellent and much needed!!!

Aussie Ale 11.5L 27.4 IBUs

1425g LDME

75g Wheat

11g Dark Crystal (steeped)

12.65g Por at 60 (8.3%AA)

Recultured Coopers Pale Yeast (2 stubbies, 1L starter)

NOTES:
- will steep the dark crystal grain in about 70* water for 30 mins (is this correct?), then strain, add to fermenter
- mix LDME and wheat with crystal in fermenter, top up to 11.5L
- pour about 5L of wort into pot for boil
- start boil, once rolling at POR at 60 mins
- after boil, put lid on pot and chill in sink of water and ice
- once chilled, add to wort
- pitch starter at about 24*C (approx), cool wort outside to about 16-18*C - ferment at this

Questions
- How does the recipe look? any suggestions?
- How is my procedure above?
- i have read in recent post that i can simply do a hop boil without malt - in plain water - does anyone recommend this?
- As some liquid will evaporate in the boil, should i add sanitary water to replace the evaporated water after returning the boiled wort to the primary wort?

Thanks heaps all! :beerbang:

 

[Swinging Beef]

- How does the recipe look? any suggestions?
- How is my procedure above?
- i have read in recent post that i can simply do a hop boil without malt - in plain water - does anyone recommend this?
- As some liquid will evaporate in the boil, should i add sanitary water to replace the evaporated water after returning the boiled wort to the primary wort?

Strange volume.. 11.5 litres, but there you go.
Ingredients look ok, but method seems odd.

If I can suggest to you:
Steep the Wheat and Crystal grians at your 70deg for 30 minutes in a stocking or grain bag.
Add your DME and hops to this, and boil for 60 minutes.
Cool this to pitching temperature.
Add your yeast.

I dont know about the hop boil without malt, Ive never heard of it.
Good luck

 

[Pennywise]

NOTES:
- will steep the dark crystal grain in about 70* water for 30 mins (is this correct?), then strain, add to fermenter
- mix LDME and wheat with crystal in fermenter, top up to 11.5L
- pour about 5L of wort into pot for boil
- start boil, once rolling at POR at 60 mins
- after boil, put lid on pot and chill in sink of water and ice
- once chilled, add to wort
- pitch starter at about 24*C (approx), cool wort outside to about 16-18*C - ferment at this

With the method your using you'll end up with more than 11.5 litres, it'll be closer to 15

 

[buttersd70]

Yeah, the water that the grains was steeped in needs to be boiled, in order to pasteurise it, otherwise you're quite likely to get an infection.

yes you can water boil. Although some people would argue against this. For a newbie, though, I would reccomend having your boil gravity roughly equal to what your original gravity will be, to make life easier. When a bit more experienced, then you can start fiddling with it. Just a suggestion.

Yes, boiling losses in extract brewing can be made up by adding back the water that has been evaporated. Usually with an extract, you are doing a less than full volume boil and topping up at the end anyway, so any water evaporated in the boil is just replaced as part of this. AG brewers on the other hand need to boil the full volume to form break, and to sanatise. So they will have a larger volume than required at the end, which is a proportiantely lower in gravity than is required in the fermenter, and after evaporation losses, and loss to trub in the kettle, they end up with their predicted volume (fingers crossed) at the predicted gravity because the wort will be a little more concentrated (toes crossed.). (many, if not most) Extract brewers don't worry about this, as I initialy said. (some AG brewers that went through extracts before going to grain actually prefer the method of boiling at final gravity, and topping up evaporation losses afterwards.)

If your pot is big enough to fit half the batch, all the better. Steep the grain in just under 6L of water at 70c. Or in 3L, and then rinse with another 3L. Some do it one way, some the other.
Check your volume after the grain is out, and top up to 5.75L if required. Add half the ldme and bring to the boil, add hops.
In the last 5-10 mins of the boil, add the rest of the malt to steralise it, chill a bit in an ice bath, pour into sanatised fermenter, top up to 11.5L with cold water and voila. You dont even have to chill the boil all the way, cos the cold water will crash chill it anyway. You only need to get it cold enough that adding cold water will bring it down to pitching temp.

With the recipe, though.....there is so little grain in here, its not even worth the effort. It makes up less than a percent....I would up the crystal to 75g, at least. That much dark crystal will impact the colour a little, so use a lighter crystal if you want a light colout beer. 300ebc crystal steeped at 75g in this recipe should give you about 9EBC depending on the LDM. But with 11g, you wont even notice it at all, in either colour or flavour.

You might want to do a flavour hop addition, either cascade, POR, or whatever else takes your fancy, otherwise it will be a pretty bland beer. If your boil grav is going to equal your OG (i presume your wheat is dry wheat malt) it should be 1050. For this, the amount of hops you said is 27IBU, which sounds fine. But I would add 10g for 60min, and 6g for the last 15. This will give 28IBU, and some flavour. Or alternatively, 26g for a single 15 minute addition will give you the same. Conventional practice is to boil for 60, but this doesn't really appy to extract....it only needs a short boil to steralise it, as the break has already been formed in its manufacture. Short boils have been done on BasicBrewing.com podcasts, with good results. Yes, its more hops. 10g more. cost vs time, with a high alpha like POR, I think it speaks for itself.

Hope this has been of some help.