IPA Extract help

[badgerdan]

Hello all. I'm back again and this time I'm actually going to do an extract brew; my first one
I picked out the 'Clive of India Pale Ale...The Daddy of them all' recipe as It doesn't need too many ingredients which should be perfect for my first one and I just love pale ales.

Anyway, I don't have a large enough boiling pot so can only do about 18ltrs (a 20ltr pot to the rim) so will this change the taste a great deal or should I just go for it? and as for ingredients I was going to use Morris Hanbury hops, Muntons Gold Premium Beer Yeast and Muntons Light Spraymalt (6 x 500g) does this all sound good or should I add/change anything?
I will also just be fermenting then conditioning in bottles, no second racking or fining (is this bit essential?) would that be fine for this recipe?

Hope you can help and sorry for the looooong post

Ingredients
4.5 kg of Brupaks Premium Grade Malt Extract
80 gms Challenger Hops
50 gms of Goldings Hops
Brewing Yeast
Method
Dissolve the ME in a brewing bucket in hot water, add to boiler and bring volume to 5 gallons (23 litres).
Bring to the boil and add 80 gms of Challenger Hops and boil for 1 hour.
15 minutes before the finish of the boil add 25 gms of Goldings and remaining 25 gms just before switching off the boil.
Cool wort and pitch yeast.
Rack after 5 days into a closed fermenter. After a further two weeks, fine and bottle or barrel in the usual way.
Characteristics
OG 1060
FG 1011
Bitterness 54 EBU
This Brew won Alan Gough of the Elderberry, Whitley Bay First Prize in the IPA class at the 1997 Annual National Wine & Beer Making Show at Scarbrough.

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Remember that that recipe uses LME so if you're going to use spraymalt you won't need so much (about 4KG actually). Are you bottling or kegging? I ask because if you're bottling then you can simply scale the brew length down. If you scale down so that you use conveniently exactly 3KG spraymalt then your brew length becomes 17.5 litres and you need 61g Challenger and 38g Goldings. Hope this helps.

[badgerdan]

Ooh yeah that helps a lot Be a little cheaper which helps when I don't really know much about it except brewing them rubbish Coopers kits.
I'll be bottling the whole thing, don't have any kegs atm, plus There's no room for a keg in the fridge either so could never chill it.

As for spraymalt I read it was 1kg to every 1.5kg's liquid needed; is that right?

Love your name and pic btw

[OldSpeckledBadger]

As for spraymalt I read it was 1kg to every 1.5kg's liquid needed; is that right?

LME is about 20% water so the ratio is more like 1:1.25.

Love your name and pic btw

A combination of my favourite beer and my favourite animal

[badgerdan]

How much yeast will I need and 4kg's of DME? So I'll infact need x8 500g bags? That could be quite costly

[OldSpeckledBadger]

How much yeast will I need and 4kg's of DME?

For that sort of OG and volume I'd say two packets.

So I'll infact need x8 500g bags? That could be quite costly

What do you expect for a beer of that strength (about 6.3% ABV)? You could always scale it down.

[badgerdan]

Ooh 6.3% well that's not too bad... but i may scale it down at first to keep costs low.

Is beersmith an easy program to use? I was thinking of giving it a go so i can get recipes then let that tell me how much of what to use when I change the amount I brew etc

Thanks for your help btw

[Chase24]

Given that you live in Norway then I guess 8 packs of DME is still relatively cheap to going out and buying beer...

If you've got an iPhone or iPod touch then I would strongly recommend Brew Pal - a fraction of the price and a really useful app.

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Is beersmith an easy program to use? I was thinking of giving it a go so i can get recipes then let that tell me how much of what to use when I change the amount I brew etc

I use Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine. Very easy to use. And free

[badgerdan]

While I'm waiting for my ingredients to turn up I have a question on brew length.

I've always read that to get the best brew you need to boil a full 23 liters not 10 or 18 and so on as it just doesn't work out right.
Is this true? I'm guessing that yes this is true if you're boiling up 10 liters with all the hops etc then topping up with 13 liters of water in the FV but how about when I use a program like beer smith or beer engine and adjust it so the entire brew is only 10 liters and no topping up, as what you said before by adjusting the hop and extract amount?

Basically I want to try lots of different types of beer first without having a full 23 liters sitting in the cellar to be drunk up so I have bottles for my next one. Once I've made a decent brew then I can brew lots to be drunk Also if I brewed a smaller amount will it still be fine in the 30 liter FV?

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Your stock pot will be fine for smaller brew lengths in the "traditional" manner. The only problem I've encountered with small brew lengths is that there might not be enough depth of liquid in the FV for a hydrometer (I tend to leave my hydrometer in the beer until I bottle/keg it). It's easy to check for silly things like that ahead of brew day.

[WishboneBrewery]

I do 12litre brews, extract and AG and end up with approx 20-off 500ml Bottles which seems a nice amount for trying out brews
problem is when they taste good like 'Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby', then you run out quickly and wish you'd made more


**Hint** just tip your FV to a bit of an angle to get your Hydrometer to float

[badgerdan]

I've only ever taken out beer and tested it in a thin measuring jug thingy majig but great to know I can indeed brew smaller amounts at first.

I was thinking of buying a couple 15ltr plastic canisters, then I can maybe brew a few different at the same time and also save a bit of space around our small place as they'd be able to fit in defferent places easier

[WishboneBrewery]

I have 4x 15L buckets:
1 as Mash tun
1 as FV
2 as spares/ grain buckets for brew day they are a good handy size
I got them from http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/koicarppe ... QQ_armrsZ1 but a quick look tells me they only sell in fives at a time now!

[badgerdan]

Hello me again

Well I got my hops through from www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk and now just need to get the malt extract. I've found a place here that does a 500g bag of Muntons DME (any colour) for the equivalent of £3.97 but then there's a postage price of £12 but that's ok If I buy lots as it stays at £12 So i'll just save up a bit of money and buy bulk.

Anyway I've also just got out my stock pot and realised it's not 20 litres it's only 10.5 to the rim so I'm going to have to find one from somewhere but have no idea where and how much.

In Brew Engine all the hops are listed as whole; does that matter when I have crushed? Also is there a general rule about the amount of yeast to use?

I'll keep up to date with my progress on here once I get everything in order