Beginners advice with lofty ambitions

[Kozzi]

G'day all,

My friends all know me as a drinker after I returned from Belgium on holidays.

As such for my 21st I was given a coopers home brew kit.

Now i have to be honest, coopers lager really isn't my cup of tea so i'm thinking of ditching the beginnings add sugar and water and brewing something that i'd really like to drink.

Of course the catch is being weened onto beers via expert monstaries such as Chimay and Orval I've realised when looking at their recipies that i'm probably ditching the wading pool and going straight for the 10 meter board.

I was wondering if you guys have any happy medium recipies to create a nice strong belgian ale with a decent complexity which doesn't involve the whole creation from scratch?

I've been reading the guidelines here talking about adding different malts and honey etc, so I was tempted to try and knock up something using chocolate malts and try to go for a stronger reddy ale with perhaps hints of honey (the honey post got me thinking)

Any advice, or am I better off just putting on the wading devices and worrying about making a beer i like in a months time?

Cheers

Kozzi

[thehipone]

Well, the trappist style beers are the big heavy hitters of homebrewing. I would at least try something like a mini-mash belgian wit before you go for the belgian strong ales. The thing is, you're certainly going to have to do a mash if you want to get the trappist flavors right. not that mashing is that difficult, but going all-grain is probably a little advanced for the first brew, and you say you dont want to make it completely form scratch.
A strong ale won't be ready to drink for at least a couple of months anyways. You're probably looking at a 3-6+ month maturation time for a strong ale, so making a few practice batches of a normal alcohol beer will give you something to drink while you wait for your magnum opus trappist to mature. It will also let you experiment a bit with different malts/honey/candi sugar to see how they affect the end flavor.

I'm not saying you won't be able to do it, but a Belgian strong ale/trappist is not a beginner's brew.

I'd advise that you find an extract based recipe with special grains to at least get your feet wet, or else just make the Coopers lager first as a trial run.

[Kozzi]

Yeah I guess its unfortunate that my introduction to beers had to be by the best.

The Mashing process is essentially the boiling of the ingredients before adding the yeast in the fermentation tub yeah? If so I wouldn't be too freaked out by the possibilities.

You're probably right about doing something less complex, would looking at a porter or something similar be a good compramise of complexities whilst allowing some fun creativity?

I realise its coming into summer though so it's probably not the best season for a porter, however it'd encourage me to let it mature.

Perhaps something in the vein of a boags honey porter would provide a fun challenge to try and work towards?

I guess i've always been the kind of learner that likes to jump in and assess the waters from there, its worked in most things but am I talking suicide with beer?

Cheers all for responses

[rain]

NOT suicide, but a possible let-down which might dampen your enthusiasm.
If you have a homebrew shop near enough to visit it may be the way to go - the variety is widening almost daily, and the chance for you to select a (call it a) programme of beers to brew will introduce you to the fun before the fun.
Whatever you do - enjoy!!

[thehipone]

A porter is an excellent first choice. The darkness and richer flavors can cover up a lot of things that might make a lager "bad", and some of those flavors that are considered defects in lighter beers (diacetyl) are actually appropriate in some darker styles.

Getting into summer it is a great time to be brewing porters, not really the best time to be drinking them.

[grabman]

CHeck out the Cascade Chocolate Mahogany Porter.

Brew it with a Stout Brew Booster
and only make up to 20L

should turn out real well, I know mine did.

[kozzi]

Cheers all,

Went up to local brew shop and had a chat with the owner.

Decided to have a play around trying to emulate the boags honey porter.

Shall be interesting

Watch this space in a months time or so

[Dogger Dan]

I hope you haven't tossed the kit yet, try it with:

2 lbs malt extract
1.5 lbs Crystal Malt
0.5 lbs Chocolate malt
2 lbs honey
1.5 oz Saaz hops (half oz boiling rest finishing)

As yor water warms up put in the Crystal and Choc malts in a nylon stocking and steep like tea for 15 mins.

bring to a boil add kit honey and boiling hops and boil for 1 hr

toss the finishing hops in primary add boiling wart and fill to 5 gallons with cold water

Dogger

[kozzi]

Cheers for that mate,

When i work out a conversion from pound to kilograms I'll give it a go

One quick question, my beer is bubbling away happily and i've got one of those s-bend style air locks on the top

However all of the water has moved to the right tube only, is that fine?

[thehipone]

Yup, your airlock is perfectly fine. (I assume the right side you refer to is the "out" part of the airlock) This has to happen in order to allow the gas to get out. You only need to be concerned if it sucks all the water either into the fermenter (dont know how you might do this) or blows all the water out the top of the airlock.

The conversion from lb to kg is 454 gm = 1 lb.

Hope your first brew turns out well.

[Oliver]

Dogger, I love the sound of that recipe.

I was going to suggest something similar to avoid wasting a perfectly good (if perhaps a little boring) can of Cooper's Lager.

Cheers,

Oliver

[kozzi]

Cheers folks

Definitely will give something similar a run though then

[kozzi]

Actually just had one more thought,

When it comes to priming the bottles for a refermentation what and how much would you guys use in a porter?

I've got those little sugar/glucose lollies that come with the Coopers kit, they reccomend putting 2 of them in each bottle however thats for a lager which is generally alot fizzier than a porter

As such would it be best just to follow instructions, or would i be better off just putting in one drop per beer, or getting creative like using drinking chocolate as i noticed was used in some of the brews on this website, or even honey?

[Dogger Dan]

I use about 200 g dextrose for 23 L beer and I add the 200 g to the batch and then put in the bottle, (batch priming)

to get kilos from lbs multiply by 0.4536

Dogger

[Oliver]

I tend to undercarbonate beers as a matter of course. I find about one teaspoon/sugar measure per longneck (750ml) is sufficient. That's probably roughly equivalent to one carbonation drop.

Why don't you try half and half and which you like?

Cheers,

Oliver