A local experiment.

[Mothman]

Hello All,

I am going to try and make a simple real ale type beer from all local ingredients. This year I don't have enough of all the ingredients but I want to use what I have as a trial run for next year. The constraints on my recipe are going to be the availability, and quality of the ingredients which are -

The water in the well in the garden, it provided water for the village until the 1950's. Likely to be a little alkaline.
Barley - from a local field (given by the farmer!) I am in the process of malting it now (any tips?)
Whitbread Golding Variety Hops - in the garden
Fuggles Hops - on the allotment

I intend to try the following recipe for 5 gals of beer

6kg Malt grains hoping for an extract rate of about 50%
Then boiled with 25g fuggles (bought) and 25g WGV (bought) for the full 90mins
Dry hopped with the 10g of mixed hops the above plants produced in their first year.

I'm hoping that will produce something drinkable Any comments, tips or advice?

TIA

[Dennis King]

I would look to get a better extraction rate. Any reason your not looking for at least 70%.

[mysterio]

Because he's malting it himself, extraction isn't good with under-modified malt.

Here's how to do it, turn the sound up and bask in the glory! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HauYECAEQ8I

Might want to do a step mash or decoction with your malt.

No reason why you can't make something drinkable or even excellent, do you have a few all-grain batches under your belt ?

[Mothman]

I have done a few all grain batches in the past, and have, to be honest, found them harder work for less improvement in the beer than I had hoped - I can now knock out an extract brew with reasonable rapidity and only having to keep half an eye on it.

The video is excellent and probably the most instructive piece of information on home malting I have found on the internet.

Back to the experiment Though. Having always had 'issues' with mashing and keeping the mash up to temperature I used to keep the mash in my large brewing pan (5 gal jam pan) and keep reheating it on the oven until the wort tasted 'sweet' enough. I also used to put the grain in with the cold water and heat the lot up together in the pan.
My primary source of heat for brewing now is a wood burning stove which takes quite a long time to heat a pan full of water - so my plan was to fill the pan with grain and water and let it heat up over say 4 hours taking the pan off the heat to cool if the wort was not sweet enough in that time.

Having done my homework and found out about decoction, that might be an idea for another (long) day!