Simple 3kg Pale Malt Brew

[Friary]

Hi Guys,

I like the idea of being able to brew a regular session type beer with exactly 3kg of pale malt (i.e. exactly the amount that comes in a bag) so I don’t have to faff about with measuring out and storing leftovers of the main ingredient. I’d also like to limit to as few other ingredients as possible, so perhaps some crystal malt or sugar (etc) and one or two hops. I’m not so much looking to do a brew on the cheap (although this almost certainly be a side effect of using up all the ingredients), and this would by no means be my only brew, but am looking for something quaffable, but that won’t leave me with lots of ingredients left over to store. I guess this brew could also be used as a base recipe to alter as and when I have small leftover ingredients from other brews.

I’ll probably have a scan through GW’s book to see if there is anything obvious over the weekend, but until then, do people on here do the same? Anyone got any suggestions?

Cheers,
Matt

[Eric]

Yes, I brew a lot with just base malt although mine may be a little stronger than yours.
There is an enormous range of finished beers possible by varying such things as mash temperature/duration, yeast, fermentation temperature, water treatment, and that's not counting hops and other items you can put in the boil.
The only enemy to using just pale malt is highly alkaline water which would need to be either boiled to sediment the excess carbonates, or treat with acid.
It sounds to me you don't need a recipe book, just keep going.

[Goulders]

I have this one from Norm's recipe in the FV at the moment. You could scale down the recipe to get to 3kg of malt at less than 23l. It's supposed to be a nice ale though I haven't tried the original. I used US-05 yeast to give the hops some prominence. I am not a fan of S-04

Coniston BLUEBIRD BITTER
5 gallon batch OG 1036 ABV 3.6% 22 units of colour.

MARIS OTTER PALE MALT 3290 gms
CRYSTAL MALT 170 gms

HOPS boil time 90 minutes 37 EBU

CHALLENGER 40 gms

Add 20 gms CHALLENGER last 15 minutes.

Yeast of your choice.

[orlando]

If your only concern is waste but still want to brew a variety of beers why not look at some of the online home brew stores that do complete all grain "kits". They provide the malt required and the hop additions in one pack. The Malt Miller does them and I believe Copper Kettle, I'm sure there are others too and someone will probably come along with a complete list. Works out a little more than getting the individual ingredients but you're not left with having to use of left overs.

[dean_wales]

If your only concern is waste but still want to brew a variety of beers why not look at some of the online home brew stores that do complete all grain "kits". They provide the malt required and the hop additions in one pack. The Malt Miller does them and I believe Copper Kettle, I'm sure there are others too and someone will probably come along with a complete list. Works out a little more than getting the individual ingredients but you're not left with having to use of left overs.

I would second that idea..

[darkonnis]

If your only concern is waste but still want to brew a variety of beers why not look at some of the online home brew stores that do complete all grain "kits". They provide the malt required and the hop additions in one pack. The Malt Miller does them and I believe Copper Kettle, I'm sure there are others too and someone will probably come along with a complete list. Works out a little more than getting the individual ingredients but you're not left with having to use of left overs.

Aye, I use worcesterhopshop, but there quite a few that also do this service(maltmiller included). I plan to just buy a sack of pale malt, then buy the rest of the "mix" in a seperate bag. As pale malt is always being used, but the rest really is recipe dependant. Should work out cheaper too

[boingy]

I tend to adjust the hop schedule to use a whole packet (100g) in a 40l batch but I'm quite happy to use odd amounts of grain. I brew quite a lot so the only grain that gets significantly out of date are the black and chocolate malts. I bought 2 kg of black malt a few years back. I probably still have almost 2 kg left!

But to answer your question, 3 kg of pale is not really going to give you enough fermentables for a 23 litre batch of normal strength beer so you'll need to supplement it with sugar or other malts. The thing is, the pale is not really the problem because you always use plenty of it in the next recipe. The problem are the adjuncts and you would probably struggle to use a nice round quantity of those. Stored cool and dry grain will keep for a decent length of time so it's not a massive problem.

And I think the simple recipes are the best. 90% to 95% pale malt with 5% to 10% crystal is a great grain bill. Add one or two hops of your choice. EKG is a classic and I use loads of it. I've brewed a few all Citra beers recently that have been superb and I also have a soft spot for Cascade.

So you plan is not entirely mad but unless you use the above mentioned shops to get exact ingredients then you are still going to end up with some leftovers.

[seymour]

Left-Overs Recipe threads are among my favorites around here.

Plus, you occasionally stumble onto a winning recipe. Six-Row Whale is one of my favorite craft brews. Here's the commercial description:

Whale

What can we say about this one? A bit of luck meets years of homebrewing experience? When it came time to test out our brewing system for the first time, we needed something that we wouldn't feel too bad about dumping if we had equipment troubles. One of our brewers had enough malt in his homebrew stock, which unfortunately wasn't being used due to all his spare time being spent helping get Six Row started, for a batch.

However, it was a bit of a motley collection of ten (yes, ten!) malts, everything from wheat to pale to crystal to aromatic to our namesake. With a little supplemental malt from the local homebrew store, some Cascade and Goldings hops and a blend of US ale yeasts, the Whale (wheat/pale) ale was born. Pale copper in color, this is an interesting beer that has already been enjoyed by many. Let us know how you would describe it.

(ABV: 5.5%, Bitterness Units: 31.4 IBUs, Color: 5.3, Original Gravity: 12.8 degrees Plato)