Extract Lager Recipe - Advice

[sgw86]

Hi All,

Having been doing K&K for the last few months I am ready to step up and try Extract. I have steeped grains and boiled malt/hops in previous Kit recipes to enhance them but never done a full Extract recipe.

My main mis-understanding seems to be with the method and length of boil etc.

What I am trying to produce is a nice refreshing session lager beer (similar to an Aussie Lager in style). I do tend to drink a lot of CD and Broo in hot weather, so something similiar in style would be great (understand this forum isn't about replicating Commercial swell or trying to get an exact replica of a commercial beer).

I have been doing a little searching and believe I have the ingredients, though require some help on the method.

What I am thinking is (please correct ingredients where you believe they should be)

2.5kg Light Malt Extract (Liquid or Dried?)
75g Crystal Malted Grain
500g Dextrose
25g Pride of Ringwood Hops

If somebody could possibly layout a method for the above recipe that would be greatly appreciated. I will be using a large saucepan for the boil. Also should I be adding the grain/hops in a grain bag or just directly to the boil and then straining into the fermenter?

Appreciate the help/advice.

Cheers,

Sam.

 

[iralosavic]

My advice is to download the kit & extract recipe designer speadsheet. Enter your ingredients and put pride of ringwood in at a single 60 minute addition, adjusting until reaching 18-20ibu.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Look at Nick_JD's All Grain Aussie lager recipe.

For the pfaffing about (and the increased cost) of a full boil extract plus grains recipe - you may as well make it using BIAB.

Linky.

An aussie lager recipe, given POR needs a 60 minute boil to get in style, is better either as a kit beer (aka, you don't have to do the 60 minute hop addition, because the kit has done it for you) or all grain (if I'm having to do 60 min boil - why use extract when it's no more convenient).

Since it sounds like you'd like to learn how to use grains anyway, maybe doing so, with a pictorial guide would be just as easy, and potentially better for your longer term brewing career.

Even if you stay with the extract recipe - it's a great reference and it'll give you an idea of how to treat grain for your future reference.

Not trying to start a Kit vs extract vs AG flame war - just saying that either way the OP goes, the extra education can't help him and he is asking to be educated.

Goomba

 

[manticle]

Hi All,

Having been doing K&K for the last few months I am ready to step up and try Extract. I have steeped grains and boiled malt/hops in previous Kit recipes to enhance them but never done a full Extract recipe.

My main mis-understanding seems to be with the method and length of boil etc.

What I am trying to produce is a nice refreshing session lager beer (similar to an Aussie Lager in style). I do tend to drink a lot of CD and Broo in hot weather, so something similiar in style would be great (understand this forum isn't about replicating Commercial swell or trying to get an exact replica of a commercial beer).

I have been doing a little searching and believe I have the ingredients, though require some help on the method.

What I am thinking is (please correct ingredients where you believe they should be)

2.5kg Light Malt Extract (Liquid or Dried?)
75g Crystal Malted Grain
500g Dextrose
25g Pride of Ringwood Hops

If somebody could possibly layout a method for the above recipe that would be greatly appreciated. I will be using a large saucepan for the boil. Also should I be adding the grain/hops in a grain bag or just directly to the boil and then straining into the fermenter?

Appreciate the help/advice.

Cheers,

Sam.

How big is the pot you will be boiling in?

1. Make sure your grain is cracked. Get some water (probably 2-3 times volume for weight of grain so 150-300 mL should be fine)
Heat to about 65 degrees. in a different pot to your main boil pot.

2. Add cracked grain, let sit off the stove for 30-60 mins, well hydrated.

3. Take 100g malt for every litre of water you can fit in to the pot (minus 600 mL plus 1 litre minimum for boil/headspace). Stir in with a whisk or similar, bring to boil.

4. Strain the grain liquor into your main boil pot and rinse the grain, through the strainer with another 300 mL of water (again into the boil pot). Discard grain (compost, chickens, bin, small child, vegetarian lion etc)

5. Bring to the boil, let boil a couple of minutes then add your hops. Do you know what level 25g will give you in a 1040 wort? (as suggested above - the spreadsheet will help - if your wort is 1080 you will get far less bitterness, if your wort is 1010 you will get loads more. My amounts will give you a roughly 1040 wort so use that in your calcs).

6. Boil for 50 minutes. Add the rest of your malt and your dextrose. Do you know what gravity that amount of malt will give you for your intended finished volume? Again the spreadsheet.

7. Pour into your clean and sanitised fermenter, strain the hops out if you like (doesn't really matter too much).

8. Top up with desired volume of cold water. You can boil the night before and cool if your water is massively chlorinated or massively hard. If it is good, soft water, you can go straight from the tap.

9. Let cool to pitching temp or close to (cover with glad wrap seal if you have to wait a while) aerate (you can use the whisk you used to mix the malt as long as it very clean and has been well sanitised) and add your yeast. For this beer, use a couple of packets of dried lager yeast (make sure they are within date, fresh and well looked after- eg kept in the fridge at the HBS).

10. Ferment cool if you want a clean lager. By cool, I mean the liquid itself is 7-12 degrees. If you want more along the lines of CD, you might ferment a bit warmer, maybe up to about 16-17 and just serve cold. I believe that's what they do at the brewery but your equipment and processes will differ so, so wildly from theirs that I can't promise the same result. Fermenting cool will give you clean beer.

11. Let the beer warm to about 18-20 degrees for a couple of days after you hit final gravity. Leave another 2-3 days.

12. Stick the whole fermenter in the fridge for a week or more if you can/like. 2 days is better than none, 18 days won't hurt a bit.

13. Bottle. Won't be CD but will be an easy drinking aussie style extract lager depending on your recipe specs.