LME, EKG and SAAZ

[oneilldave]

Hi All,

I'm after some advice if that's okay.

I have about 3kg of LME (in two tins of liquid extract) and I have a pack of SAAZ hops and EKG hops in the freezer. I have decided to try an extract brew and wonder if anyone has any advice on what's the best to do with what I've got. Just as a bit of background, I've made loads of kit beers before, and I'm a reasonbly good proper wine maker (all fruit, never any kits!). So, I'm not starting from scratch by way of experience.

If it helps, I love those really light, gold beers, and I really love London Pride. Now, I'm not saying I'll be able to make that with what I've got, but I thought it might help if you knew what my tastes were like.

Anyone got any ideas on how to combine some or all of what I've got to make a reasonable (around 5% abv) beer?

Thanks in advance,

Dave.

[richc]

There are loads of example extract brews out there but this is one, mostly from memory, that should work out reasonably well.

I can get you to about 4.6% at 20l with 3kg of LME if that sounds OK.

Mix the LME with ~25l hot water and boil for at hour. If you don't have a pan big enough for the full volume simply use the biggest one you have and only add one of the tins to start with. Add the other tin with about 15 minutes of boil time remaining and top up with cold water in the fermenting vessel.

During the hour add the following hops

40g of EKG at the start of the boil (bitterness)
30g of EKG at 15 minutes from the end (flavour)
30g of EKG when you turn the heat off (optional aroma)

Cool the resulting wort as fast as you can manage (I used to dunk the pan in a sink full of cold water), pour through a strainer into your fermenting vessel and top up with cold water much like you would for a kit. Pitch the yeast when the wort is cool enough and off you go.

This is close to some of my early extract beers and should produce a best bitter with a fair bit of hop flavour. With extract only brews it's usually worth concentrating on the hops as your malt choice is only light/amber/dark.

[fatnurse]

Well if you like really pale light(in colour) beer try this

3kg pale malt
100g of goldings
packet of muntons gold yeast
200g of light brown sugar (panicked when the yeast wasnt foaming after a day ...i know i know)

The goldings went in from the start and then in batches every 15mins till an hour was up...er and they were all gone

I did this as an all grain experiment just too see how base you can go, I gotta say it came out great! I call it Ground Zero: Ultra Pale Ale

[oneilldave]

Thanks, Richc and Fatnurse, there's enough there to keep me going. It looks like the EKG will get the brew going and I'll save the SAAZ for another day.



Dave.