My Light Ale Recipe

[Nizmoose]

Okay so I have been trying to come up with a crowd pleasing beer mainly for my two younger brothers and their mates, they are 18 and 19 so as you can imagine they don't enjoy getting hops punched in their face. This Light Ale is my second attempt at a crowd-pleaser, my first was terrible, It was a coopers cerveza tin with rice malt and it was riddled with green apple. What was my response when the brother tried it? Well it was their favourite of my beers so far! -_- and no dont worry my other beers were good they just had hop flavour. Anyway here's what I'm looking at. I was going to do 10L but my brothers are getting through the shit beer too quickly so I'm doing 20L:

3kg Briess Golden Light LME
100g Dextrose
20g Centennial 9%AA @ 60 min (22IBUs)
10g Cascade 7%AA @ 5 min (1.75IBUs)

Vital Statistics
-OG: 1.048
-FG: 1.012
-EBC 7
-ABV 5%

So there it is, I wanted something with low bitterness but at least a hint of flavour hence the cascade addition so that I can drink it on a hot day and enjoy it as well.
My first ever beer had 20g Cascade at 5 minutes and that was really nice but a bit too much hops for the brothers so I halved it and hopefully that'll hit some sort of sweet spot.

Just wanted to run this by people before I commit to it, anything wrong? anything I should change?
Cheers!

 

[BrosysBrews]

Why not save money and make it extra shitty and go 2kg generic DLME and 1kg Dex? Gauranteed they will love your flavourless, bodyless beer!

 

[fletcher]

steep a bit of crystal malt also to give it a malty roundness. don't go over the top. just 100-200gms. will even it out and taste like a simple pale ale. it'll be nice I reckon.

 

[Rurik]

I cannot see a lot wrong with that. I would use white sugar instead of dextrose but that is my problem not yours. You could add some crystal or even some sort of roast malt for colour but I would not bother. If I was doing it AG or a partial I would but I don't see the need with an easy extract. Ferment out with US05 or similar and you will end up with a summer beer.


If you wanted to go a partial you could use.

2 kg Malt Extract
1.2 KG of Base Malt (I would use MO but that is personal preference)
200g of Medium crystal or some sort of CARA
100g of white sugar

Then your hop additions.

Step the grain at 65-67deg C for 90 min then follow your normal process of boiling and hop additions.

 

[Nizmoose]

Thanks for the suggestions guys

Why not save money and make it extra shitty and go 2kg generic DLME and 1kg Dex? Gauranteed they will love your flavourless, bodyless beer!

haha I would do this but the problem is I want to enjoy some too haha!

steep a bit of crystal malt also to give it a malty roundness. don't go over the top. just 100-200gms. will even it out and taste like a simple pale ale. it'll be nice I reckon.

This is a good suggestion, I have some crystal 60L lying around so I think I might steep 100g of it to make it a bit nicer thanks for the suggestion!

I cannot see a lot wrong with that. I would use white sugar instead of dextrose but that is my problem not yours. You could add some crystal or even some sort of roast malt for colour but I would not bother. If I was doing it AG or a partial I would but I don't see the need with an easy extract. Ferment out with US05 or similar and you will end up with a summer beer.


If you wanted to go a partial you could use.

2 kg Malt Extract
1.2 KG of Base Malt (I would use MO but that is personal preference)
200g of Medium crystal or some sort of CARA
100g of white sugar

Then your hop additions.

Step the grain at 65-67deg C for 90 min then follow your normal process of boiling and hop additions.

Funny I actually do use white sugar a lot of the time because I never buy dextrose and sometimes dont have it on hand, It'll more than likely be white sugar going into this, either way its not a lot. I did do my first AG batch last weekend but for this one I just wanted something mega quick to throw together and get going. Will be doing this on Monday as a post exam celebratory day of relaxion but have an AG to do the following weekend so for this I figured I'd keep it simple.

I do have caraaroma and crystal 60L any suggestions over which to use?

 

[Blind Dog]

I'd skip the crystal if you want clean and crisp, which seems to be the order of the day. Don't forget that most people taste beer with their eyes as much as with their taste buds

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

You would be better to swap the dex for some wheat malt....actually go to 300gms of wheat ( keep it about 10% of total )

Lightly hop it with POR and use SAAZ to finish it off

 

[Nizmoose]

You would be better to swap the dex for some wheat malt....actually go to 300gms of wheat ( keep it about 10% of total )

Lightly hop it with POR and use SAAZ to finish it off

Mm didn't think to use something like saaz that's a good idea, I do have some wheat Malt around so that could work too

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

POR and SAAZ work really well together.

LME+wheat+POR+SAAZ= Coopers Mild Ale

 

[Rurik]

I do have caraaroma and crystal 60L any suggestions over which to use?

Really there is not right answer, I would use crystal but that is by personal preference.

Also .2kg of crystal steeped is not going to give you much in the way of fermentables. I would not worry too much.