New To Brewing. Found Recipe, Not Sure If I Got The Right Stuff, Any S

[Schiraboy]

Hi, I am completely new to brewing. I just went and picked up everything i THINK i need. I have an old beer recipe book, and i found a very simple Light Beer recipe, so i was just wondering if anyone would recommend doing this recipe, or if i should do things differently, (different ingredients than the ones that i bought, etc.)

Light Beer Recipe:
- 1000g Malt extract
- 1 package dry yeast
- 5 cups white sugar
- 5 gallons of fresh water (23L)

Boil 1 gallon of water. Add sugar, and malt extract. Stir until dissolved. Cool a little, set yeast in 1/2 cup of cooled mixture. Add all of it to 4 gallons of warm water. Stir and set in warm place (room temp.) for at least 7 days, Until there are no bubbles. Syphone or strain into another 5 gallon jug, place in a cooler place for 1 1/2 days to make it clear. Take out and bottle. Put 1/2 tsp. sugar in each bottle. Fill to neck, cap, and shake.

So that's the recipe, but i'm not sure if i bought the right stuff.

- For the malt i bought TWO 500g. packs of "Spray Malt - Light" It says: Use as a direct replacement for sugar in your brewing - lb. for lb. Simply pour the sachet contents on to the beer kit extract in your fermenter and carry on brewing in the usual way.
So does that mean that i don't have to use ANY sugar in this recipe?

- For yeast I have ONE package of "Morgan's Lager Yeast - Pure Strain Brewing Yeast" It's a 6gms NET package, and says it is sufficient for 25 Litres. Add to brew at room temperature.

- I also got a 200g. bag of "Mutons KreamyX Beer Kit Primer with Heading Powder". It says to "Use in place of priming sugar to carbonate 23 Litres of beer wort.

- And my last question is if i end up having to use sugar like the recipe calls for, which would be better to use: normal table sugar? Or dextrose? and if i used dextrose would i put the same amount in as i would if i were using sugar?

 

[warra48]

You'll have a light beer, but I don't think it will be all that tasty as it stands.

What style of beer is this recipe intended to make?

Assuming 5 cups of sugar equate to about 800 gr of sugar, you'll have a starting gravity of about 1.029 in 23 litres, which is very very light.

Have you considered using some more malt to beef it up a bit? Maybe steep some light crystal malt?

You'll need to add hops. Without them your beer will be totally without character, i.e very light with a little malty sweetness but no hop bitterness to cut it back, nor hops to give you some flavour complexity. The hops you need are dependent on the style of beer you intend to make. Let us know, and we can give you some suggestions.

You can use table sugar or dextrose, as you wish. Dextrose is fully fermentable, it is corn sugar I think.

6 gr of yeast for a 23 litre batch is, I think, severely underpitching, and just not enough, no matter what it says on the packet. I'd at least double it. If it is a true lager yeast, you'll need about 3 packs if you intend to ferment at 10 to 12C.

 

[bum]

wtf is "heading powder"?

Schira, I just want to reinforce something Warra said. You need hops. You are not going to like it without it regardless of how, erm, "clean" a commercial beer you like.

Someone else will have to pipe-up with the specifics on whether this will work or not but have you considered doing a normal kit without any added fermentables? You'll get a thin bodied, low alc beer that actually has some sort of flavour (can't promise it'll be a good flavour though).

[EDIT: after a quick think about that last idea it'd probably end up a touch too bitter wouldn't it?]

 

[petesbrew]

+1 for what the others said.
You're a new brewer, I'd at least suggest using a Coopers can (lager?) in place of the malt if you want a light beer (add the malt if you want it full strength)

Have you got all your equipment sorted?
Pete
ps. welcome to the forum.

 

[manticle]

Hi, I am completely new to brewing. I just went and picked up everything i THINK i need. I have an old beer recipe book, and i found a very simple Light Beer recipe, so i was just wondering if anyone would recommend doing this recipe, or if i should do things differently, (different ingredients than the ones that i bought, etc.)

Light Beer Recipe:
- 1000g Malt extract
- 1 package dry yeast
- 5 cups white sugar
- 5 gallons of fresh water (23L)

Boil 1 gallon of water. Add sugar, and malt extract. Stir until dissolved. Cool a little, set yeast in 1/2 cup of cooled mixture. Add all of it to 4 gallons of warm water. Stir and set in warm place (room temp.) for at least 7 days, Until there are no bubbles. Syphone or strain into another 5 gallon jug, place in a cooler place for 1 1/2 days to make it clear. Take out and bottle. Put 1/2 tsp. sugar in each bottle. Fill to neck, cap, and shake.

So that's the recipe, but i'm not sure if i bought the right stuff.

- For the malt i bought TWO 500g. packs of "Spray Malt - Light" It says: Use as a direct replacement for sugar in your brewing - lb. for lb. Simply pour the sachet contents on to the beer kit extract in your fermenter and carry on brewing in the usual way.
So does that mean that i don't have to use ANY sugar in this recipe?

- For yeast I have ONE package of "Morgan's Lager Yeast - Pure Strain Brewing Yeast" It's a 6gms NET package, and says it is sufficient for 25 Litres. Add to brew at room temperature.

- I also got a 200g. bag of "Mutons KreamyX Beer Kit Primer with Heading Powder". It says to "Use in place of priming sugar to carbonate 23 Litres of beer wort.

- And my last question is if i end up having to use sugar like the recipe calls for, which would be better to use: normal table sugar? Or dextrose? and if i used dextrose would i put the same amount in as i would if i were using sugar?

I think warra mentioned but there's no hops or other bittering agent in that recipe. The definition of beer (as opposed to original ale) is a hopped alcoholic drink made from malt.

Dex and table sugar will be pretty much interchangeable amount wise. Dextrose is supposedly a little easier for the yeast to handle and therefore will produce less bad flavours. The jury is still debating that one.

There are much better recipes than that around. What kind of commercial beer do you like to drink? Not suggesting you'll be able to clone it first time around but it will give a ballpark for suggestions. I hope the other recipes are better - that one is really just a recipe for sweetish alcohol which might be slightly beer coloured.

Also looks like you might be going for bread yeast which I wouldn't do for your first brew (or second or third or any until you decide it's deliberate for an experiment or to make Jao).

Beer traditionally is made from malt, hops water and yeast. Malt is not a subsitute for sugar - sugar is an adjunct to malt to make a beer drier or cheaper to make or both.

If you just used sugar, yeast and water you'd get some kind of finnish homebrewed rocket fuel called kilju. You need malt and you need hops. Kits come prebittered with hops. As above, until you get a handle on brewing I'd suggest you go with one of those and leave that recipe book at the back of the shelf until you have enough experience to decide you want to play around with strange ideas.

 

[komodo]

Id suggest a kit brew with a coopers kit or similar so you can get your head around the basics first. I knwo I wanted to jump straight into AG but after talkin on here I got talked into doing kits and its helped me learn a bit about processes first and helping me build my AG rig and understand recipes better.

You havent made any mention of what your fermenting in? if you havent already got a fermenter I'd suggest bitting the bullet and buying a complete coopers kit and go that way for at least your first brew.

 

[Schiraboy]

It doesn't really matter to me whether i get a light beer. There were only two recipes in that book (Light beer and Dark beer), so i chose light. But to respond to warra48, the type of beer that i enjoy the most is: Something that's, more golden, somewhat sweet, and one that has more of a carbonated "bite" to it. And yes, i think until i get the hang of this, i will just buy a kit, but if anyone has any recipes that fit the category of what i wrote in this that i may be able to use in the future, that would be great!
This will definitely sound stupid, but does it matter if you use a plastic fermenter like you would find in most beer kits, or a glass fermenter like you would use for say, Wine?
I would like to thank everyone though for their help with this! I REALLY appreciate you guys taking time to help me out in getting started with this! Thanks!

 

[matti]

READ

Every one has got one. An Opinion.
My 2c worth is if you never brewed before, just get into it.
I'd suggest you look at a couple of links from G & G.
Brew to your own liking.
Treat the yeast nicely and absolute cleanliness and good luck.
Glass or plastic won't matter as long as it is clean.
The guys are right, regarding your beer. You should start off with an Opening gravity for 1.040+
Add some Light malt extract instead of sugar.
You'll be drinking carbonated water otherwise.

Step 2 is adding hops. Then the world will open for you.

Welcome to the mayhem.

Matti

 

[warra48]

Plastic fermenters are fine, it's what most of us use.

Dr Smurto's Golden Ale recipe might fit the bill for what you are looking for. It's a hugely popular recipe on this forum.
Here's a link to the recipe, it's an all grain recipe, but at the bottom you'll notice details for a kit version.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...&recipe=502