First time extract brew - how does this recipe sound?

[markbrannan]

Hi all in the extract forum,

This will be my first extract brew - i'm quite excited.

I aim to make around 1 gallon, and am wondering, is this enough? And in the right quantities?

2x 500g dried spay malt, light
1x 113g Saaz hops

I also have 12g "hop tea-bags" of Hallertau and Cascade, which I could use instead, or alongside, if these would make it better.

I also have some fancy sugars (dark unrefined cane, glucose and candi) I could use - but I reckon there's enough fermentables already.

Let me know your thoughts.

[OldSpeckledBadger]

let me know your thoughts.

Saaz are only fit for the compost heap (or Carling Black Label). Buy some proper hops (Fuggles, Goldings, Challenger ...), get Graham Wheelers book and and make some proper beer.

[mysterio]

Hi,

That's a little too much extract for a 1 gallon batch. That will come to around 1.080, which will make a beer around 8 - 9% ABV. So you could half the amount of extract if you want something more 'sessionable'

Saaz are great hops, don't listen to OSB

[markbrannan]

[quote=mysterio]you could half the amount of extract[/quote]

Nice! That means I could make two batches

New plan:

Use 500g of the spay malt, half the 113g bag of Saaz and use 12g of Hallertau and Challenger in the two respective batches.

Sound good? I won't be making this for at least a week, so there's plenty time for alterations and criticisms.

[pantsmachine]

let me know your thoughts.

Saaz are only fit for the compost heap (or Carling Black Label). Buy some proper hops (Fuggles, Goldings, Challenger ...), get Graham Wheelers book and and make some proper beer.

Apologies in advance to Graham and no disrespect meant to his books but that's bollocks. I'm sure he'll make an acceptable beer with his ingredients without having to buy a book or spend more on hops. Download beer engine, beersmith or similar and have a play about with them. I think you'll find you will have quite a bitter 1 gallon batch if you use 55grmms of hops in it. It all depends on your hopping schedule, boil time etc. That's 1 good reason to download some software and try it out. Good luck with the brew.

[mysterio]

Yeah, +1 to that.

Have a look at other recipes people are doing with Saaz and scale them down. Do you have a particular style of beer in mind?

[markbrannan]

Nope - no particular style in mind. Just beer.

I'll scale the hops down then - i'm new to all the hops and stuff, so i'm not sure of how much to add.

I'll go for 10g of Saaz, and one of the 12g hop tea-bags in each batch - does that sound not bitter enough? (?)

[Befuddler]

Nope - no particular style in mind. Just beer.

I'll scale the hops down then - i'm new to all the hops and stuff, so i'm not sure of how much to add.

I'll go for 10g of Saaz, and one of the 12g hop tea-bags in each batch - does that sound not bitter enough? (?)

Seriously, download beer engine here: http://www.practicalbrewing.co.uk/calcu ... eerengine/

If you just guess at amounts and lob them in willy-nilly, you're not going to learn anything and your beer is going to be rubbish.

Using that software I've calculated that a 4.5 gallon batch with 500g light spraymalt and 10g Saaz for a 60 minute boil will get you to about 3.9% abv, 11 EBC (colour scale, see here), and 19 bitterness units.. That's going to be a very light, almost lager-style beer.

Saaz and Hallertau or generally used as aroma hops for lagers so depending on what you're shooting for they may or may not be appropriate.

Personally, I'd recommend using a touch of crystal malt (maybe 30g), steeped for 30 mins in 70-80c water.. then add your spraymalt to that, bring it to the boil and add your hops. The crystal will give your beer some body and flavour that DME alone won't bring.

As an example, if you use the crystal malt as above then boil 10g Saaz for 60 mins as your bittering hop and add the 12g Challenger for the last 10 mins as your aroma hop, you'll be looking at a pale ale with 4% abv, 17 EBC and 37 bitterness units.. The bitterness might be slightly high for a pale at 4% but I'm just trying to work with what you've got. It's up to your tastebuds to decide really.

Experiment by all means, but don't jump in without knowing what you're doing! A bit of research at this point will go a long way later on.

[kaymak]

Experiment by all means, but don't jump in without knowing what you're doing! A bit of research at this point will go a long way later on

+1 on that my man, never underestimate the power of good brewing software also, not only can you formulate your recipes but if you brew a beer you really like it easier to replicate iot when you have formulted it here then if you were just heaping ingreients into your bew pot.

My only advice would be to keep it simple for the first few brews, get to know your ingredients gradually so you know what they taste like, ferment like, what colour they give, etc........ This will give you a muh better understanding of how they affect your beer and will help you a lot when formulating more complex receipies

[EoinMag]

I'd have to agree about getting some brewing software.
If you've moving on to extract then you have to take what comes with it, which is responsibility for the formulation of your recipes as it doesn't come ready made in a can with all of that worked out for you.

[markbrannan]

Right, finally getting down to making this brew today. What i'm going for in a one gallon batch is thus:

500g Dried Spay Malt
10g Saaz hops (boiled for 45mins)
12g Hallertau hops (boiled for 15mins)

With a total boil time of 1 hour.

Using BeerEngine (as recommended) I get 3.9% ABV, 11 EBC and 27 EBU - which sounds palatable.

I'll make a proper post about how I did things and how it went later today (with pics) - but if you can't wait that long, check out my Twitter site via the link in my signature (labelled appropriately as "other crap") as i'll update that as and when things are happening.

Wish me luck!

P.S. I'm actually supposed to be studying today, but i'm finding soooo many other things that I just NEED to do - to get away from it. This is another one of those things.

[markbrannan]

That's the brew all airlock-ed up and ready to go!

There were a few changes to my hopping schedule, but it didn't affect the overall EBU, as my Saaz hops had a lower AA level than the standard one BeerEngine gives it. The final ingredients were:

500g Light Dried Spay Malt
15g Saaz (45min boil)
12g Hallertau (15min boil)

Forgot to add Irish Moss to clear it up Used Safale yeast.

Had problems getting my siphon to work - so in the end I just went basic and used a funnel and poured the brew from the pot into the fermenter. Trying to over-complicate things.

Here's some photos of the brew:
Adding the Saaz
Adding the Hallertau "hop teabag"
The packet of the "hop teabag" i've been talking about
The leftover hops in the pot
Pouring the brew into the fermenter
Sitting in its place, ready to ferment - the other fermenters in the background are full of my blueberry wine. And yes, one of them is a 2L Pepsi bottle. I think it worked out quite well.

[markbrannan]

FYI: I threw in another sachet of yeast - as the Safale stuff didn't really take off (it was more than a year old) - and its foaming away nicely now.