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Just put on a batch of beer today - the 1st in ages. I really felt like doing something with honey in it, so I threw this recipe together. I found a 1kg tin of liquid malt extract at Coles near where they stock their honey - it's made by a company called Saunders and was only $7.99. Seemed like a good buy but will have to wait and see how it goes.

1st I pan roasted 100g of pearl barley to a deep brown colour over high heat - it ended up similar in colour and taste/aroma to an espresso roasted coffee. I wanted to destroy all the starch. Tasting it as I went I stopped when there was no sweeteness present in the grain at all - only a deep roasty nuttiness. Cracked the grains. Then I did a 1.5L steep of this home roasted barley along with 20g of chocolate malt at 66C for 1 hour. Strained the steep liquid into the kettle (rinsed off the grains with an additional 500mls of hot water) and added the 1kg tin of Saunders malt extract, 40g of treacle and brought it all to the boil. I threw in about 15g of Saaz pellets and boiled for about 5 minutes. After flameout and a brief cooling I added about 350g of homebrand honey and a 1.7kg tin of Coopers Real Ale. Dissolved everything and poured it into the fermenter. Topped up to 23L with cold water and pitched yeast at 23C. It was very foamy.

The smell of the wort is unbelievable - the honey and barley aroma combo is mindblowing, at least at this early stage. The colour is a reasonably dark, semi-translucent coffee - thanks mainly to the roasted barley. I'm looking foward to this batch - it smells wholesome. Will post on it later.

Sounds very nice wildy.

I've also seen that malt extract stuff but it's normally with the honey etc at my local.

Yeah, I was suprised to see it. I used to go looking for plain malt extract at the supermarket and all the staff would usually show me was malted milk powder. So it was a pleasant suprise to find that they are now stocking it. It says its 100% malt extract so I can't think of why it wouldn't be okay to brew with. Will find out I guess. The colour was reasonably light.

wildschwein wrote:Yeah, I was suprised to see it. I used to go looking for plain malt extract at the supermarket and all the staff would usually show me was malted milk powder. So it was a pleasant suprise to find that they are now stocking it. It says its 100% malt extract so I can't think of why it wouldn't be okay to brew with. Will find out I guess. The colour was reasonably light.

The woolies here stocks it but it works out to be more expensive than the stuff at the HBS which is already way overpriced!

Yeah my local HBS charges about $13-$15 for 1.1kg and 1.5kg tins of liquid extract, depending on the brand. So $7.99 for 1kg seemed okay to me. The HBS charges $10.95 for a kilo of light dried malt and when I'm there, which is hardley ever, I usually buy those. But it's good to be able to get malt extract in the supermarket. Lately I've been buying a lot of BE2 because it's the only thing I could get in Coles that had some (though not much) malt in it.

let me know how it goes... i've heard a lot about supermarket malt extract... it's designed more for bakers, etc, where the protein content doesnt matter. as a result, you might get a fairly hazy beer from it.

Thanks KEG. I didn't know about that. Hopefully it'll be okay. The beer is nearly dark enough that it may not matter but I'll post on it again here when it's ready and say if it was worth while.

Did it say if it was malted barley, malted wheat or some combination?


Just curious

The ingredient list says it contains only "Extract of malted barley." So it's the real deal but, as KEG suggests, it may not have been produced to brewer's standards. Dunno yet for sure yet though.

I've used the Saunders Malt Extract a couple of times without any problems. I'd have to check my notes (which are at home) to find out if there were any clarity problems, but I can't recall any off the top of my head.

Cheers Noodles - that sounds reassurring!

The only thing I can recall of note about using Saunders Malt is that it took all the bitterness out of my Coopers Bitter. It was still a nice drop just wasn't bitter at all. The recipe you've posted uses the Coopers Real Ale which is a highly bittered kit, so hopefully you'll still have some bitterness there.

That's interesting as Cooper's Bitter is a strong drop at least if you only use BE2 like I did. I think Real Ale is in the high 20s to low 30s in terms of IBUs (Bitter is in the 30s I think) so it may turn out too sweet with the Saunders malt if it does have that effect. It's a honey ale anyway so maybe it won't matter too much, I hope.

wildschwein, how did this go with the Saunders malt extract?

KEG wrote:wildschwein, how did this go with the Saunders malt extract?

I used a kilo of it in my last cider and it turned out quite well. The cider is cloudy but it has 1 kilo of fresh strawberrys and 3 kilos of apples in an 18L batch so I expected that

well that doesn't really help ascertain how good the saunders' malt is

Sure tastes the goods, but I doubt that has much to do with the malt

Not sure who made a strawberry beer and said it took months to be drinkable, I am not sure I can wait the week it will take to carb this batch!

Hey Keg,
Saunders Malt worked a treat. Easy to get at the supermarket too!

wildschwein, good to see you are back on the forum.

wildschwein wrote:Hey Keg,
Saunders Malt worked a treat. Easy to get at the supermarket too!

Great to see ya back mate!

I agree that Saunders is fine to use. I have used it a few times recently and had absolutely no problems with it!