Howdy from a returning brewer in adelaide

[rheffera]

Howdy! I'm returning to brewing after many years. I gave up brewing back then as K&K (Coopers ale + dextrose or BE 1) turned me off of it as it had no taste.

However im returning to brewing as i was on the boards here learning about extract brewing and my brain went *POP* at the possibilities! too many possibilities! I feel a fool for giving it up without exploring! Bah, i was younger and stupider back then.

I have 3x 23L carboys and two of them are already full with something hehehehehe. I plan to do 4 brews and have them stored simultaneously which should do me till this time next year. I dont have temperature control so i am limited to brewing ale yeast at about this time of the year.

Today i put down my hoegaarden clone down: (My second brew!)

3.0 kg coopers wheat extract (650~g to get BV up to gravity)
0.25 g dextrose
28g EKG 5.6% @ 45m
8g EKG 5.6% @ 20m
30g cruched coriander & 35g orange zest @ 15min

5L boil

Dextrose & remainder of LME at flameout.

Danstar Munich dry pitched a bit warm at 28. in 23l wort. Rumour is that its a slow starter so perhaps i can get away with that?

I realize everyone says Saaz for hoe clones, but seeing as im not brewing again after my 4th this year, i thought i'd use them up rather than have them sit in storage for a year.

Funny thing happened as i was boiling this. I have a picture over my stove. the string decided to break. I got really lucky and the picture didnt smack my boiling wort, rather it smacked my spice rack causing spiced to fly everywhere! The peppercorn jar got flung upon slightly, thankfully none got into the wort however a fair bit got into my waiting dextrose and i had to bin the dextrose and re-measure.

I got lucky i think.

Im planning on doing this tommorow:

2.3 KG LDME (365 used to get BV to gravity) rest @ flameout

230g Carared
120g Chocolate malt
500g honey @ 45m
56g Cascade 7.2% @ 45m
28g Cascade 7.2% @ 5m
Danstar nottingham
22L batch, 5L boil. 1 L steep & sparge

the thing im unsure of is the choc malt quantity as i have the Joe white600 - 900 °EBC chocolate malt. The chocolate malt in the reciepe is 450 lovibond. The target EBC is about 28.

I realise that Lovibond= EBC/2.65+1.2 (?) So that means at worst my grain will be 233 lovibond, at darkest it will be 340 lovibond . From the spreadsheet 600 ebc chocolate it seems will hit 23.0 EBC at worst. Should i up the quantiy at all or leave it?

 

[dagryll]

Friendly lot aren't they? Welcome mate.

 

[Ross]

To convert Lovibond to EBC just x by 2. A good homebrew store should be able to tell you the exact colour of any of their grain they sell, but otherwise I'd just leave as is. If the beer doesn't quite reach the colour you want, you can always steep a little extra & add to your fermenter later.

Cheers Ross

 

[rheffera]

hanks guys.

The hoegaarden clone i put down has ocme out nice. Now to wait for it to mature.

I just pput down my 4th and second to llast brews for the year.

 

[Yob]

Give CM2's phone back…

 

[rheffera]

The one with honey in it is still fermenting away, and the coopers stout clone from the recipes is still bubbling very slowly after nearly two weeks in the fermenter. I put down my first batch that used a liquid yeast yesterday (Irish ale 1084) and its bubbling pretty quickly atm. Also note to self: when using 1.25 kilos of grains use a bloody grain bag...that was a pain to do without one.

ill have you guys know this forum is how i discovered extract brewing and is the reason why i got back into brewing. I was so excited about it i didn't sleep that night!!