Malt and hop questions

[kairos]

Really getting going now having successfully brewed Hophead, Timothy Taylor and Summer Lightening clones succesfully. Thanks for all the advice!
Now planning my next brews which have left me with a few questions:

When using lager malt, are there any different mashing instructions compared to ordinary pale malt?

Has anyone ever heard of Hercules hops or can you suggest a substitute?

Which malts/grains supply the 'smoky' flavours in some bitters? I want to brew a darker beer like Dark Star Original but want to avoid those smoky flavours when choosing my grains.

Lots of questions, I know, but with all that advice out there...

Thanks in advance.

[mattmacleod]

Lager malt - no, treat the same, although you may want to extend the boil time to get rid of DMS. Although if your boil is vigorous you shouldn't have to go longer than 60 mins.

Never heard of Hercules so can't help. Sorry.

Smoky flavours - I believe - generally come from heavily roasted grains such as roasted barley or black and chocolate malts. Or of course smoked malts such as those found in rauchbier.

I believe also that the smokey flavour is enhanced if there is chlorine in your water so maybe try boiling your brewing water before use.

HTH,
Matt

[196osh]

Herckules are high a.a. hops that are used as bittering hops.

Any high alpha acid hop would be fine.

[haz66]

I find Black (Patent) Malt to be really smokey, same with too much Amber,
I`ve found that a small amount of Roasted Barley 25g - 50g in a 23ltr batch to about 4kg Pale Malt with
big hop flavour doesn`t give you a smokey flavour but will darken the beer quite a bit,
if you are after Guinness like dark then you can not avoid that smokey taste, as you will really need to add
a fair amount of Roasted Barley to get that darkness.