dirtygreek

Recipes 

Today I got a brewing kit (called Ale Pail) which comes with a brewing pail and a bottling pail. I got a John Bull india pale ale kit as my first experiment. It comes with instructions and everything, but the guy at the store suggested using malt extract (powder form) to give the beer a higher alcohol content and fuller taste.

My question is when to add the malt. The instructions say to add 1 kg of sugar to the mix for the initial boil - do I replace that sugar with malt or do I supplement the malt with the sugar? Or can I do either or a half-and-half depending on what I want?

I want the alcohol content to be higher than 3.2%, which is what this kit would normally produce, and I understand using malt rather than sugar prevents the "winey" taste that sugar can cause. Any help is appreciated.

DesertBrew

Recipes 

yes on replacing the 1k of sugar with Malt although I've not seen a recipe where they call for sugar during the boil (except for Honey). Sugar (corn) is usually used when you bottle to carbonate. All I can say is read the directions carefully; sounds a bit odd... but yes you can always add more malt at the boil to increase % alc.

JEM Australia

Recipes 

Usually you add the can plus 1kg of sugar when you make up the brew (prior to boiling or fermenting etc). You then use a small amount of dextrose (corn sugar) during bottling.

If you use 1kg of sugar or corn sugar, you'll get a thin, not very malty sort of beer. If you replace the 1 kg of sugar with 1kg of dry malt you'll get a more malty beer with heavier body and better head.

Sometimes, the yeast can't handle a full malt beer, so try experimenting with 500 grams sugar and 500 grams malt and see how you go.

Kits in Australia, say not to boil the ingredients as you can stuff up the hop flavours and bitterness etc., but I'm not sure what your kits in the US are like.

dirtygreek

Recipes 

Well let me clear this up, what the instructions said to do was to boil 4 pints of water and pour it into the bucket where the contents of the can and the sugar (or in this case the dry malt) are already waiting. Then stir it to dissolve everything, then add the remainder of cold water to the 5 gallon point. This is what I did, using a full kg of malt rather than half sugar half malt, because when I was over at my friend's place about to start brewing, I hadn't any replies yet.

So... we'll see how it turns out! I'll give it a flat taste before bottling and see if it's worth bottling!

uggabugga

Recipes 

i just used a similar kit last night- john bull traditional english ale- and i can confirm those instructions. it doesn't say anything about boiling the extract, which i thought was kinda strange. i used half cane sugar/half corn syrup in mine, not expecting anything too spectacular. could be awhile fermenting as i don't have any heating belt and the house is on the chilly side.

thorgrimnr

Recipes 

Liquid extracts are already boiled wort truned into a syrup, that's why you wouldn't boil an extract. Boiling or hot water added to the extract syrup simply helps dissolve the goop.

bikebryan

Recipes 

Nope. Liquid Malt Extracts (LME) may sometimes adhere to the statement above, but that's not the general definition of a LME. LME is the result of mashing grains, taking the runoff and then dehydrating it to remove most of the liquid. If they continue to dry it and spray it through nozzles, it turns into Dry Malt Extract (DME). In neither case is the extract ever boiled.