Less Sugar/malt More Specialty Grains

[maark]

Hi all
I am just about to start my first real extract boil...If i dont mind making lower alchohol brews would i benefit from using less malt,say 500/750 g.and steeping more specialty grains for flavour?
From my research i can add 200 to 500 g of grain to a normal 1/1.5 kg of malt brew.obviously depending on hops bitterness..but i like the idea of adding more grain.so to offset the extra sweetness i was thinking of less malt to start with...

 

[jkirky]

Are you worried about your beer being too sweet from the specialty malt?

Rather than reduce the malt and reduce the ABV, you can add a few 100 gms, say 300gm of dextrose to help thin it out whilst still having the flavor from the malt.

Otheriwise you can balance it out with bittering hops.

Your probably best to post a recipe and we can comment on that...

 

[maark]

Are you worried about your beer being too sweet from the specialty malt?

Rather than reduce the malt and reduce the ABV, you can add a few 100 gms, say 300gm of dextrose to help thin it out whilst still having the flavor from the malt.

Otheriwise you can balance it out with bittering hops.

Your probably best to post a recipe and we can comment on that...

yes worried it will be too sweet from grains..

this is what i am thinking of brewing
1 morgans royal oak amber 38 IBU
1kg DME amber
200g crystal
300g carared
250g victory
100 wheat caramel
150g carapils
60g choc pale
30g fuggles 15 mins
us-05

if the grain will be too much then can i lower the DME to 500g..not real worried about alchohol %

 

[Nick JD]

That's a lot of spec malts in a batch. Rules are made to be broken, but ~10% (500g in a 23L batch) is an expected spec malt amount.

If you are using a lot of liquid and dried malts, then the beer is likely to finish high gravity and sweet anyway - as the malts are extra-thick to account for 1kg of sugar.

But the key point to make here is great beer is all about balance. 38 IBUs is not really bitter enough to account for all that malt extract and the spec malts. I'd take it back to about 300g of spec malts, or leave them there and replace half the amber extract with dextrose.

 

[RobboMC]

Based on the rule that if you ask 2 brewers the same question you will get 3 different answers -
if you want to use all that spec grain then go ahead, just be aware of what you are making.

My current drop had about 1.5kg of spec grains - AND 90g of extra hops.

Nick JD is right, it's ALL about balance. You seem to be at the point of needing the kits and extracts spreadsheet
that's been put around on here.

Morgans Specialty Malts were made from 1.35kg of grain for one kg of extract, I'm not as efficient as them and you probably aren't either, so perhaps work on about 1.5kg of grain being equivilent to one kg of dme,
meaning you're adding the equivelent of about 550g of dme. These are just rule of thumb numbers, please no-one have a go about accuracy or efficiency.

Now the kit is really made for a kg of Brew Enhancer, so your kg of dme is already maxing out the kit's bitterness, and your Fuggles is helping to balance that a bit. Personally, I'd go 90g of hops with a bit longer boil times.

The world is your empty canvas here, it's your brew mate. 20 min to 30 min boils incerase the bitterness.
But get the speadsheet and have a play and work out for yourself how to get the balance where you want it.
You will make many falls along the way, but learn you must rather than be told by us.

Cheers

 

[maark]

ok..thanks for the replies...
I have been playing around with the spread sheet and love it..but am unsure what amount of bitterness ..i thought 38 IBU was quite bitter..
Also I wrote the grain amounts wrong as i am double brewing and added those values.so really i will be using half that amount for a 23l brew ,about 500g.
I might go half the malt and dex

so now,for 23l

1 morgans royal oak amber 38 IBU
0.5kg DME amber
0.5kg dex
100g crystal
150g carared
125g victory
50 wheat caramel
75g carapils
30g choc pale
30g fuggles 20 mins
us-05

on spreadsheet it gives me 45 IBU..30 EBC...at OG 1045..FG1009
just not sure what 45 IBU would be like..
Also i do love malty beers