Good House Ale Reccomendations

[kungfutigerrob]

Hi Ya'll

I'm a newbie at brewing, been doing it for 6 weeks so far, and I've only just tasted my first effort, which is a Mangrove Jacks Classic Blonde with 200 gms of steeped Caramunich 1, 1kg of brew booster, 20gms of Amarillo hops (pellets) added at 10 minutes into the 10 minute boil of the grain liquor.

Fermented with Safale US-05 yeast at 18 degrees for 2 weeks, then bottle carbed and left to mature for 4 weeks.

It tastes great to my untrained and VB/Fourex tainted taste buds, though disappointly lacking in substance and oopmph.

I now have a second fermenter so that I can boost production, and I have bottled a Wal's Lager, steeped 250 gm Pilsner grain, 1 kg brew booster, lager yeast that came with the can.

I also have a Kilkenny style beer that is maturing, a Double Choc Stout Fresh Wort kit that has been in the fermenter for 2 weeks now, so will be bottled very soon, and a Coopers Munich Lager that consists of a can of Coopers Lager, 1 kg of Beer Enhancer 2, 200gm of steeped Caramunich, 30gm of Hallertau hop pellets and Saflager S-23 yeast.

I've been reading this forum for atleast two months now, and my head is starting to spin from the information overload.

What I'm trying to do is step away from the beer enhancer and ease myself into partial mashes, then BIAB ala Nicks $30 thread.

But one step at a time, I'm still learning what all of the abbreviations mean.

My next concotion is what I need advice on.

In my innocence, and after heavily reading the knowledge that this forum delivers, I have decided to brew a One and a Half Toucan which consist of:

One and a half cans of Coopers Real Ale (2.55kg)

Steeped for an hour @ 66 degrees
500gms Caramunich 1
500gms Carapils
500gms Carabelge
After sparging with hot water and given a bit of a squeeze, rolling boil for 15 minutes

30 gms Centennial hops @ 10 minutes
30 gms of Amirillo hops @ 10 minutes
30 gms of Amarillo hops @ 5 minutes

Yeast 15 gms of Saf-04

I have all of these ingredients, I actually have 15 kg of the grains (3 x 5kg milled), plus half a kilo of each hop in pellets and 3 cans of Coopers Real Ale.

I'm trying to make a full flavoured, slighty red ale with a creamy head at around 4.5 % to be my house ale.

So, what do you think? Any and all suggestions for tweaking this recipe are most welcome.

Thanks, Rob

 

[Pennywise]

Firstly, welcome to the forum :icon_cheers:

No need to steep the grain for that long (although it wont hurt) as they're not base malts and don't need converting, a quick steep for 20 mins will be fine, 66c is fine. That's a fair bit of specialty grain in there, I'd prolly knock them down to 250g each, but I've not used that much with this kit so hey, might be ok. Also I personally don't think those hops suit this kit, I'd go for something like Styrian Goldings or East kent Goldings, but that's not to say you wont like it so just IMO. Yeast is a good choice. Any other fermentables going in there? Some LDME would be my choice, instead of using 1.5 kits I'd just use 1 & throw in a kilo of dry malt extract or a tin of Coopers un-hopped light malt extract. I've brewed this kit quite a few times and really liked it, usually this is how mine went

Real Ale kit
1kg LDME
200g sugar/dextrose
300g med color crystal malt, or a little less of darker crystal malt
yeast wise I normally use a liquid yeast but S-04 will work fine
EKG or Styrian Goldings boiled for 10 mins in the grain steeping liquor, about 3L

My 2c :icon_cheers:

 

[keifer33]

Sounds like you've got the bug. A few things to note:

If you are intending to do partial mashes you will need to learn to maintain the temp for an hour or more so this can be a good learning attempt but what your proposing isn't a partial. As pennywise has stated around 20 minutes will be fine. To do a partial mash you will need to mash a base malt such as ale or pilsner in place of either all or a portion of your 'brew enhancer' or malt extract.

 

[J Grimmer]

Sounds like you've got the bug. A few things to note:

If you are intending to do partial mashes you will need to learn to maintain the temp for an hour or more so this can be a good learning attempt but what your proposing isn't a partial. As pennywise has stated around 20 minutes will be fine. To do a partial mash you will need to mash a base malt such as ale or pilsner in place of either all or a portion of your 'brew enhancer' or malt extract.

I will add its not too difficult to do this, as you will have most of the equipement in your kitchen.

Jan

 

[kungfutigerrob]

Thanks for the advice.

As you can probably guess, I don't know anything about grains or base malts, but I'm here to learn! I thought Carapils and Caramunich were malts - I'll have to do a bit more reading and researching into this.

I think I'll halve the grains and steeping time, and go a bit easier on the hops. I'm doing two brews in the next couple of days, so I'll experiment a bit with the advice given and get some crystal malt into it.

Thanks again!

 

[Nick JD]

I thought Carapils and Caramunich were malts...

They are.

There's two basic types (and a couple of subtypes) of malted grain: base malt and speciality (spec) malts.

Base malts have had the grain soaked so it begins to germinate - then just before the root pops out of the grain, they kill it by drying it out in a kiln. The more heat/time it's kilned for, the darker and maltier it gets.

Spec malts are base malts that have been mashed a little bit - so their starches convert to sugaz - and then kilned to change their colour and flavour.

The reason you don't need to mash a spec malt (just steep) is they are full of sugaz, not starches.

At least that's the way I think it all happens. Someone well-versed in this is bound to correct me if I'm incorrect.

 

[Bizier]

Most grains you encounter will be malted except roast barley and things listed as 'unmalted'. Unmalted ingredients have generally come about because of economics, though now they are a part of some styles like Irish stout or Classic American Pils.

I would suggest that specialty malts can be either diastatic (though generally only slightly) or not, and that they can also be starchy and might need to rely on the base malt for conversion. A good example is Dingemans biscuit malt.

To clarify, crystal or caramel malts (that means your cara-whatevers from Weyermann) don't need to be mashed, because their starches have been converted to sugars by the maltster. Highly kilned malts also can be steeped to extract flavour, this is your black/roast/chocolate/carafa type malts. Carapils is an exception, but I assume it produced similarly to a light crystal except the maltster targets long-chain dextrin production with high temperatures.

From here

Dextrin malt is essentialy undermodified malt that has gone through saccharification and then dried.

EDIT: Basically it means that you can steep caramel or roast malt with no dramas. If you want to play with malt like Munich or Biscuit, you will have to mash, either by itself or with an amount of base malt there to provide diastatic enzymes. This could be as simple as chucking 100g of each biscuit and pilsner malt in a pot on the stove in some water, and switching it off when it gets to around 70C. If you are only mashing a tiny amount, you can use a relatively high temperature between 68-72C, which will give you quick conversion and allow you to play around basically any type of malt you wish.

 

[kungfutigerrob]

Hi again

After taking in all of the great advice, I've ditched my original recipe and gone with something that actually might work:

1.7 kg Coopers Real Ale
1 kg LDME
200 gm Dextrose
300 gm Carabelge
300 gm Caramunich 1
300 gm Carapils
30 gm Amarillo hops
20 gm Centennial hops
15 gm Saf-04 yeast

I'll give it a shot. That's the beauty of homebrewing - experimenting and designing your own brew to suit your tastes.

Any suggestions are welcome, if I've made some very newbie mistakes in my attempt to boost a kit Ale to something that has a lot of oomph and taste.

Once again, thanks for all of the great advice.

 

[Bizier]

I haven't used those particular crystal malts, but still be aware that you might be getting into territory which will leave you with a sweet finish to the beer. That said, in my experience, the Weyermann crystals are very good at not being too sweet. You have to be wary because the kits will never finish bone dry, maybe because they are designed to go with simple sugars. I made a similar pale ale with cascade on my 5th or so batch and someone said it tasted like soft drink.

You don't specify what you are doing with the hops, but a short boil/dry hop/both would be good and will be very fruity and American.

I suggest switching to US05 yeast, but I am biased.

And as you have noted, if you play around with what you think will work, you will learn a lot about what different ingredients give, and might learn new things you like. Just don't ask how to make XXXX without expecting flak

I like that you have bulk ingredients after 6 weeks of brewing. You will go far brother.

Look at kit recipes in the database and look for similar 'darkness' crystal malts to yours, and simillar style hops, though it is an idea to match the IBU calculations with software if they are vastly different AA% or your bitterness could be far out.

 

[drsmurto]

Hi again

After taking in all of the great advice, I've ditched my original recipe and gone with something that actually might work:

1.7 kg Coopers Real Ale
1 kg LDME
200 gm Dextrose
300 gm Carabelge
300 gm Caramunich 1
300 gm Carapils
30 gm Amarillo hops
20 gm Centennial hops
15 gm Saf-04 yeast

I'll give it a shot. That's the beauty of homebrewing - experimenting and designing your own brew to suit your tastes.

Any suggestions are welcome, if I've made some very newbie mistakes in my attempt to boost a kit Ale to something that has a lot of oomph and taste.

Once again, thanks for all of the great advice.

Ditch the carabelge and carapils. Switch to US05. Will make a nice beer.

900g of crystal is a crazy amount. 300g max in a ~5% ABV beer.

 

[kungfutigerrob]

Will do, thanks :icon_cheers:

 

[O'Henry]

Ditch the carabelge and carapils. Switch to US05. Will make a nice beer.

900g of crystal is a crazy amount. 300g max in a ~5% ABV beer.

Do you mean 300g in an extract beer, or all 5% beer?

 

[gjn200]

Hi again

Any suggestions are welcome,

My Super simple house Red

3kg Amber Liquid malt
.5kg Light dry malt
200g Bairds Medium Crystal
100g Special b
100g Bairds Chocolate malt
25g EK Goldings pellets @45
25g EK Goldings pellets@0
S04 Yeast

Made to 21.5 litres.

 

[drsmurto]

[quote name='O'Henry' post='806411' date='Aug 16 2011, 04:28 PM']Do you mean 300g in an extract beer, or all 5% beer?[/quote]

It was a rather sweeping generalisation as the mash temps, hopping rates and IBU will have an impact on the amount of crystal used but given kit brewers can't play around with mash temps i find the FG gets too high when using more than 300g of crystal in a 5% kit beer (20L).

 

[O'Henry]

Cool, I thought that was what you were saying, but just wanted to check. My fav beer of late was around 4.5% with Pale malt, 450g Crystals and 50g Roast Barley, lowish IBU (~30 at a guess). It was spot on. But that said I didn't do gravity checks. My test was it was very drinkable (party keg between two in a night).

 

[enuun]

something my family always enjoys

Coopers IPA made to mimic an American hop bomb
1kg DME
Nottingham Yeast
20g cascade 10mins
10g cascade dry hopped days 1-3
10g cascade dry hopped days 4 to finish
5g cascade dry hopped in serving bottle (I serve via the TAD systems of 6litre bottles)

On simpler days it would be

Coopers Real ale
S-04 yeast
500g Dme
300g Dex
300g golden syrup
10g EKG or fuggles 10mins
10g dry hopped

I love hops