homebrewandbeer.com

Hi All

I've just started this brewing caper.
Bought my first brewing kit last Saturday.
Put in Blue Mountain Lager/Light Malt Extract/Kit Yeast (I hope it's Lager Yeast) on Monday and managed to keep at 16 degrees celcius for all week. . Racked on Sunday and I'm guessing it's best to leave it at another week, before bottling. Last SG was 1016 (OG 1044).

All this week I have been reading this site and learning so much.
Thanks to the admins and all you homebrewer who contribute. Much appreciated.

Anyway I'm about to start another brew in the spare fermenter. I'm sticking with a kits for a few more brew yet. I've picked up a Cascade Porter and Cascade Spicy Ghost kits.

Do you think the Ghost with Coopers Wheat extract and some orange zest with corriander at the right times will go okay. Sort of hoegardenny, I hope.

I would like to make a Monteith's style Summer Ale, one day. Anyone have any ideas on how to go about that one.

I'm also in love with the chocolate porter style (James Squire). So I thought a Cascade Porter with 1kg Chocolate malt might be a good first stab at it. Now I'm thinking that 1kg choc malt might be way too much. Maybe some other amber to dark malts and lactose?

Sorry about the ramble and so many questions.
Any comments on anything I'm mentioned above would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers Guys

Beer Krout

G'day Beerkrout.

You are right in thinking that 1kg of Choc malt will be overkill. It will swamp your brew and likely end up very astringent. Try 200gms tops for your first attempt and don't overheat your steeping water. Between 60-70 degrees for about 30 minutes will be fine, or you can do it in a saucepan of cold water overnight for use in the morning. Much hotter than 70 degrees and you'll extract some serious tannins if you aren't careful. If you do use hotter water, steep for less time. Less is more with specialty grains, particularly the dark ones. Make sure you give the resultant wort at least a short boil to ward off infection.

Other than that though you seem to have a really good handle on things given this was only your first brew. Top darts! It seems you like to research things fairly well before jumping in. If you haven't already it is well worth checking out http://www.howtobrew.com Can't recommend it highly enough. If you like it you can buy the updated version in print form from your local HBS - look around. John Plamer should send me a royalty cheque!

Good luck,

Shawn.

I have used 250 g and it is pretty powerful, you need to like the flavour.

Gough, It is a free site you are sending everyone to, even if he gave you half 50 percent of nothing is still nothing LOL

Dogger

Would 1kg of Amber Malt and only 150-200g of Choc Malt be a more drinkable mix?

Awesome, try some aromatic hops to as a dry hop. Add them to the frmentor just before you pour the wort into the fermentor. Say 1/4 oz Saaz as you are making a softer style beer with a porter.

I will let you know about the zest this weekend as I have a zesty one ready to go on Saturday.

Dogger

I put this one down just yesterday if it helps at all BeerKrout:


HOEGAARDEN COPY Add 1.25kg Honey and 30g Hallertauer Hops to 2lt boiling water and boil for 30min. Then 20g Ground Coriander and another 15g Hallertauer Hops and boil for 10min. Add the grated peel of one Navel Orange (peel only, no white pith), another 15g Hallertauer Hops and 15g Coriander and boil for 5min. Tip mixture into fermenter with 2.25kg Light Dried Malt and then fill with water.

I used 1kg light liquid malt and a Black Rock wheat beer kit instead of 2.25kg light dried malt, OG was 1.041 @ 24'C. I also used WhiteLabs liquid yeast 3942 rather than the packet yeast. So far smells and tastes great out of fermenter.

Cheers

Matty

i've recently been trying to make a porter similar to james squires.. done 3 so far experimenting with choc grains. & i don't know if i'd use any more than 100g - unless you like chocolate milkshakes more than you like beer

Yeah, I'm bang into Bock at the moment. Got one near the end of fermentation with a "porter pack" of grain in it. I think it was 100g of choc malt (in the kilo pack) and it's Just Right. Not too heavy, not too light. I hope it makes it to the keg before it's all gone.

Again though, it's all personal taste isn't it ?

Thanks guys.

I'll try 100g of Choc Malt in the Porter to start off and see how that goes.

What's your best Porter recipe so far db?

Matty. I'm gonna try your Hoegaarden copy in my following batch. Keep me informed how yours turns out.

Cheers

Beer Krout

BK,

I posted an extract 'n grain porter recipe in a previous thread which I was very happy with. Try a search, it is worth a go IMO. If you can't find it I'll post it again.

Shawn.

beer krout,
i'm assuming you're talking about using 100g of chocolate malt grain right? or are you intending to use one of the 1kg morgan's chocolate malt cans? if you've just started brewing then steeping grains is probably a little ahead of where you should be. how about getting a good 1.7kg porter or stout can kit (i recommend cooper's stout) and adding to it a 1kg can of morgan's master blend chocolate malt (not choc grain), 500g dextrose and 250g maltodextrin. the morgan's master blend cans will give you most of the advantages of specialty grains without the hassles of mashing. the chocolate malt can contains the equivalent to 200g chocolate grain and 1.15kg munich grain.
-wombat

Thanks for the heads up Wombat.

Yeah. I actually meant the Choc Malt from the Morgan's Master Blend can I have sitting here on my desk. I guess I assumed it was 100% chocy malt. Doesn't really give you any breakdowns on the side of the can.
Just looked up the Morgan's Web site and it contains 85% Munich Malt Grain and 15% Chocolate Malt Grain (200g), as you stated.

So I guess I could throw the whole thing in without too much worry.

Thanks again. For bringing this to my attention.

Beer Krout

Beer Krout,

To clear up the confusion (well, to try anyway) when one talks of malt one is generally talking of grain (chocolate malt, pilsner malt, Munich malt, etc). You can add grains to your kit to get certain flavours. All-grain brewers use malt and mash it to extract the sugars, then boil that up to make their beer.

If you're talking of the liquid or dried form that you dissolve in your beer, that's malt extract.

But having said that, let me say this: Sometimes you have to look at the context, as we might talk in shorthand about malt when we mean malt extract.

To summarise: You're talking about Morgan's Chocolate Malt extract, as opposed to chocolate malt, which is the grain itself that was used to make the malt extract.

Confused?

Cheers,

Oiver

Oliver

It's ok mate, most of the time I get what's going on with the weights and difference between grains and malt extract.
Did a fair bit of reading on your forums and faqs, before posting. I think that used to be called "netiquette"

In the future, for all you grain guys, I'll mention exactly which can of whatever I have.

I'll move up to grain, eventually.

Cheers
BK

Matty wrote:I put this one down just yesterday if it helps at all BeerKrout:
HOEGAARDEN COPY

Hey Matty,
Have you had a chance to try your clone yet? I was thinking about following your recipe. Was it easy to do?

Cheers
David

Just a question, when tasting notes of a beer mention orange and corriander, do you think they are talking of ground corriander or fresh ? I would have thought fresh corriander as this is a more recognisable taste. Has anyone tried putting fresh corriander in a beer ?

Evo,

I used dry

Dogger

Evo,

They're talking ground.

However, Geoff has made a beer with fresh coriander. I'm seeing him tomorrow to eat some meat and taste some beer, so I'll ask him to put one in the fridge.

See his No.116 Pots' Belgian Wit Beer at http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/ourhomebrews.html

Cheers,

Oliver

Yeah, let me know how it tastes. I'd be interested in ripping off, ahhh... emulating that recipe. Sounds good.

Speaking of adding stuff to beer, anyone ever tried Guinness with pepper ? An Irish friend introduced me to it. I thought he was having a loan, but it tasted good. I'm thinking of chucking some pepper in my next stout.