bigdaddybrew

Recipes 

My goal is a simple DME recipe for a quickly fermenting and clarified beer...dry, refreshing, lightly hopped American Ale, 4-5% ABV, good for a hot summer day.

These are the ingredients I have so far...
Munton's
3 lbs Extra Light DME
2 lbs Light DME
2 lbs Plain Amber DME
1 1/4 oz of Cascades pellets
1 teaspoon Irish Moss
1 teaspoons Yeast Energizer
I packet Knox Gelatin for clarifying
1 cup of Corn Sugar for bottling
Nottingham Yeast
5 gallon bucket as primary
4 and 5 gallon Carboy for secondary?
Reverse Osmosis water or Chlorinated City Tap water (boiled)?
Fermenting at about 65 degrees f
21 quart Enamel Stock pot

Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil add extra light DME and Hops, boil for 15minutes, add remaining extract and Irish moss boil for 15 minutes (30 minute total boil), chill quicky in sink of ice water and add remaining water. Mix in yeast energizer. When cooled pour through stainless stainer to aerate into primary, pitch yeast. After vigorous fermenation slows, rack to secondary, when fermentation ceases, add dissolved gelatin to clarify, when clear, rack to bottling bucket and add 1 cup of corn sugar, bottle, when PET test bottle is hard chill and drink.

Questions...
Will aging this simple DME any longer matter?
Do the hops pellets disslove? If they don't dissolve should I avoid straining the wort?
Reverse Osmosis water for neutral flavor but lacks minerals, add a 1/4 teaspoon of epsom salt for minerals?
4 or 5 gallon batch?
Maybe 1 tablespoon of Vanilla extract at bottling?
Maybe 4 oz of Quick oats in a grain bag during the boil to add unconverted starches for mouth feel and head retention?

Thoughts and advice are requested.
Thank you

theredben

Recipes 

You are not going to get any responses if you mention washes. Sorry, but we have an unspoken rule. If you remove that section from your post I would gladly give you some advice.

bigdaddybrew

Recipes 

You might learn a lot from brewers of unhopped wort. Anyway there is no reason for it to be unwritten, I took the time to review the rules. Anyway now I know. I am learning a new hobby and could use feedback from experienced brewers. Thanks.

Yooper

Recipes 

With a 30 minute boil, you'll not get as much bittering from the hops. I usually do a 60 minute boil, so that you get better hops utilization.

I'd probably not use the amber DME, and just get more light DME, and add a pound of steeping grains for better flavor.

I'd do this:
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L

3 lbs Extra Light Dry Extract
3 lbs Light Dry Extract (near the end of boil)

1.00 oz Cascade [8.50 %] (60 min)
0.25 oz Cascade [8.50 %] (15 min)
0.25 oz Cascade [8.50 %] (5 min)

Steep grains in a grain bag in 3 gallons of 160 degree water for 20 minutes, keeping it between 150-160 degrees. Stir well to thoroughly wet the grains, and "tea bag" the bag. After 20 minutes, take out the grains and discard. Bring to a boil, and one of the 3 pounds bags of DME. Bring back to a boil, and add the 1 ounce cascades. Set the timer for 60 minutes. When there is 15 minutes left in the boil, add .25 ounce of cascades and the other 1/2 of the extract. Stir and whisk well off of the heat, to blend the DME. Bring back to a boil. Add the final .25 ounce of cascade with 5 minutes left in the boil. Turn off the flame when the timer hits 0, and chill the wort as quickly as possible to 70 degrees, pour into a santized fermenter, top up to 5 gallons, and add the yeast. Airlock, and keep in the mid 60s.

You'll need a bigger bucket than 5 gallons, though! More like 6.5 or larger, to allow for krausen.

I don't use a secondary very often, and I've never used gelatin at all, so I can't help you there. I don't use yeast energizer either, as there is no need in a beer of this size.

I'd use bottled spring water for RO water, as that will give you good results and won't require preboiling.

Don't throw oats in there! Starch isn't a good thing in beer.

Vanilla extract? I wouldn't. I can't imagine a light pale ale tasting good with vanilla in it.

For yeast, use a good quality dry yeast like Safale S05.

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Giving beer a leg to stand on since 2006

bigdaddybrew

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Thanks for the feedback. Your right the vanilla and oats dont make sense. I have the 4 gallon carboy so maybe I should reduce the recipe to use the 5 gallon bucket I already have. I havent acquired the taste for a lot of bitterness nor do I apreciate the grassy late hops....I know I know beer sissy...so I was going for the flavor timing? 10 l Crystal malt adds what qualities? Do the last minute Hops pellets disolve?
Thanks for teaching. Gonna boil in a few days so it sounds like I need a nylon bag and some malted grain. Anything else missing?

Yooper

Recipes 

I've never seen a 4 gallon carboy- are you sure about the size? 3, 5, 6, and 6.5 gallon carboys are common sizes but I have never yet seen a 4 gallon carboy.

If you have a 5 gallon bucket, you could make a 3 gallon batch if you want. Or, get a bigger bucket.

The earliest hops provide bitterness, to counteract the sweet malt. The late hops provide flavor and aroma. If you don't like them, that's fine, but you may want to try it the way I wrote it just to see what you think. That's not very much in the way of hops at all, and it shouldn't taste the least big "grassy".

Hop pellets dissolve into sludge. Some people like to strain their wort on the way to the fermenter, but I don't. What happens is the "sludge" falls to the bottom along with excess proteins and flocculated yeast to be part of the trub. If you let that fermenter sit for about two weeks without moving it, you can easily siphon ("rack") off the clear beer.

To make it even easier, I suggest using S04 yeast instead of the S05. S04 clears the beer very well, and makes a tightly compacted yeast cake that is much easier to rack off of. However, don't let it get above 70 degrees! Then it'll get "estery" as it's an English yeast and can produce some fruity flavors when it gets above 70 degrees.

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Giving beer a leg to stand on since 2006

bigdaddybrew

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Actually is a 4 gallon PET water bottle not a carboy. Worked well for wine. I'll do the stepped hops as you noted as I want something light but not totally boring. My fermenting space is a steady 64 to 66 degrees F. I take it you dont care for the nottingham?

cms

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Washes? What does that mean and why is that taboo or offensive?

The OP removed the reference so I can't tell by context. I don't see anything in the faq...

bigdaddybrew

Recipes 

Washes refers to a sugar based fermentation that one might intend to distill which is illegal unless you get a micro distillers license and pay the appropriate tax so apparently even an brief reference is not welcome here. Why it isn't a written rule is unclear.

unionrdr

Recipes 

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Everything works if ya let it-Roady(meatloaf)