I Have Two Tins Of Left Over Malt

[ekul]

I was digging around in the shed yday looking for some spare space to stick another 50 bottles and i found a tin of coopers mexican cervesa and a tin of coopers pale lme. It seems a shame to waste them.
I was thinking of making a 46L batch of coopers pale ale half with grain and the other half cans. I've already done 2 or 3 cpa ag and they have turned out very drinkable, i won't be going to extracts in a hurry thats for sure.

How much extract can be used before the beer starts tasting like i made it from extracts? I've made a few extract brews and they were very nice but my ag brews taste 'fresher' with a far more complex flavour.

I was thinking of doing

46L batch

3.5kg BB ale malt
1.5kg coopers pale lme
1.5kg Can of coopers cervesa

1.6kg BB wheat malt (double the amount in the
.06 dark crystal (thomas faucett i think??)
1.3kg sugar h34r:
50g pride of ringwood hops @60min
Recultured cpa yeast

Or would it be better to leave out the can of cervesa and scale BB ale malt up? Is cpa a good recipe for this or should i do something a little more hoppy like a golden ale to mask the flavour?
Or should i just give the cans to a friend who brews extracts and continue on my merry ag way?

I tried putting it into beersmith to work out gravities but for some reason beersmith doesn't take any notice of the ingredients i add so alcohol is always .6% and og is 1.010. I usually use beersmith for calculating IBUs so haven't ever noticed this before. All the grains have a red exclamamtion mark next to them instead of the little picture of grain that they should have. If anyone can help with this i would appreciate it. I didn't end up putting the extract in as i could see that it wasn't taking any notice of the grains so i thought there was little opint. i'll try it now.


thanks!

 

[manticle]

I recently made a kit with a whole lot of spec grain + flavour hops which I later added a minimash to (as well as some various bits and pices). It's a mongrel hybrid of a beer but after tasting initially too sweet it has settled into a really nice (albeit strange) beer with no major extract 'twang'. I think you probably have enough grain in there to counter any of that.

Just go for it - it will give you something to drink while you let your other full mash beers condition properly (which is what mine is for and it's working)

 

[Silo Ted]

Make a big chocolatey porter with lots of dark grains, that will bury the kit twang.

 

[argon]

Use em to make big starters for your AG beers... the cerveza is a good light malt for lager starters and the pale would be perfect for ale starters.

Just mix em up to make wort to 1040 and you're away

 

[Swinging Beef]

Hmm.. I hate to sound like a beer snob, (actualy, I dont care, I sound like a beer snob most of the time), but mate, if you have been making good AG beers, you will just be sad with the results of these unless they make up less than 15% of the bill.
So, unless a massive IPA, Barley wine or Imperial Stout is onthe cards, give them to a mate who is slightly interested to get him on the road to home brewing.

 

[ekul]

Swinging beef- When you say 15% what does that mean? Like if i have 4kg of ale malt going in and a tin of malt is that 20%, because of weight or 50%, because its contributing 50% of the gravity points?

What type of beer did you make manticle? Was it a heavy beer like a stout or something a little more light? I like the idea of knocking out something thats not bad while all the other good beers condition. My beers don't usually get older than a month! It would also allow me to get in front. I do a brew a week but with mates drinking them all the time they never last long.

Silo ted, what is a brand of porter? I see them being made here every now and then but i don't think i've ever tasted one.

And argon, thats a good idea. I usually use dme for making starters because it easy to measure out but waste not want not!

Anyone else?

 

[Swinging Beef]

Swinging beef- When you say 15% what does that mean? Like if i have 4kg of ale malt going in and a tin of malt is that 20%, because of weight or 50%, because its contributing 50% of the gravity points?

It was a guess, but yeah.
Say 1/7th of the mass of the brew could be extract and I dont think you will notice.
6kg grain, 1kg goo. Nice big fat IPA.
Try to hide the extract twang, which you can probably notice in prehopped extract now that you been doing AG for a while, behind roast, bitterness or late hops.

 

[bignath]

I tried putting it into beersmith to work out gravities but for some reason beersmith doesn't take any notice of the ingredients i add so alcohol is always .6% and og is 1.010. I usually use beersmith for calculating IBUs so haven't ever noticed this before. All the grains have a red exclamamtion mark next to them instead of the little picture of grain that they should have. If anyone can help with this i would appreciate it.

If beersmith is displaying red exclamation marks then i reckon you probably have beersmith set to Extract in the drop down box called "Type" at the top, in recipe view. Change it to All Grain and you should be set.

bignath

 

[ekul]

If beersmith is displaying red exclamation marks then i reckon you probably have beersmith set to Extract in the drop down box called "Type" at the top, in recipe view. Change it to All Grain and you should be set.

bignath

thanks, that makes alot of sense as it also won't let me change my mash! I will check it out when i get home.