dumb question

jmartyg · 12-19-2008, 02:08 AM

So the HBS arond here focus on wine, festa and brewhouse mostly. there is a full selection of muntons and morgans cans as well. The cans have a 'pop can' taste to them that i am not a fan of. The only HBS that has malt and hops is limited to muntons spraymalt and sazz pellets. huge seletion.

so, is there anything i can make at all out of just spray malt and hops and end up with something that is less poopy than the muntons/morgans cans? oh, i have harvested s-23 and notingham in my fridge.

neuron555 · 12-19-2008, 02:21 AM

You could make a simple but decent Pale Ale, though it would help to have a little crystal or something in for interest. Your best bet is to order from one of the vendors (Austin, Morebeer, etc). Particularly if you get more than one batch at a time, the price works out pretty well, and then you have almost unlimited choices. The only drawback is you can't brew on impulse (unless you keep some stock around).

jmartyg · 12-19-2008, 02:42 AM

yeah, it's the brew on impulse im working on. I just learned that i have 3 days off this weekend, so I want to make the best of it. I'm going to make a festa kit or two plus whatever i can do with that spraymalt and hop if it can end up drinkable.

somecallmetim · 12-19-2008, 02:46 AM

Have you asked them if they can order what you want? You could make a drinkable beer with saaz & DME, check out some of the SMASH threads.

jmartyg · 12-19-2008, 11:29 PM

i've read up on the smash recepies, but im not any good at converting AG to extract. ordering would defeat the purpose of the impulse buy, but i bet they can once if figure out what i'm doing.

how does this sound:

5 gallon batch
2.5 kilos of muntons light spray malt
1oz saaz for 60min
1oz saaz for 15min

so if i did my math right, it should be:
OG: 1.050
Bitterness: 21 IBU
i think the hops at the store are 3.7ish%

not the best, but i'd imagine it would be better than some of the other thing's i've made.

now i gotta figure out what temperature i want this to boil at..

**david_42** · 12-20-2008, 12:18 AM

Well, unless you have a very tall house, your wort will boil close to 100C.

Being in Canada does restrict your sources.

jmartyg · 12-20-2008, 01:23 AM

k, just didn't know if i was aiming for a certian temp above 100. cool

jmartyg · 12-20-2008, 07:06 PM

alright, there is a kink in my plan. Their shipment didn't arrive this week due to the weather in ontario. He's setting aside what i wanted so i cna pick it up monday.

4x 25g packs of saaz pellets
5x bags of light spray malt

and to think that all this stemmed from me looking for a cheap frying pan. Zellers had a stock pot for less than $20 so i picked that up too. 2 day later, I was at the SuperStore and they have a bigger one for less. go figure.

If someone wants to talk me out of this, now's the time.

jmartyg · 12-23-2008, 09:23 PM

SO i jsut finished putting it in the bucket. 23Litres and at 1.042. Not too bad for a first attempt at this kind of thing.
only problem is the beer store only got 4 bags of 500g light spray malt, so i used one bag of medium.

FlyGuy · 12-23-2008, 10:31 PM

Honestly, you will make far better beer from one of those FestaBrew or Brewhouse kits. They are amazing quality. You just have to make sure they are fresh -- i.e. less than 6 months old.

There are a bunch of threads on the topic of using these kits, including some 'hacks' to improve them. Here are a couple that came up right away:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/brewhouse-kits-looking-opinions-reviews-83073/?highlight=brewhouse

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/brewhouse-kits-60574/?highlight=brewhouse

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/does-anyone-have-experience-festa-brew-67611/?highlight=brewhouse