What recipe....

Hey all. I was wondering in opinion what the best tasting ale is? Does the oatmeal stout actually taste like oatmeal? I want an actual sweet tasting beer that isn't really that bitter. What about cheesemans Caramel Cream Ale Recipe?

Thoughts/Suggestions

WeretheBrews said:

Hey all. I was wondering in opinion what the best tasting ale is? Does the oatmeal stout actually taste like oatmeal? I want an actual sweet tasting beer that isn't really that bitter. What about cheesemans Caramel Cream Ale Recipe?

Thoughts/Suggestions

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The best tasting ale is the one you made yourself.

Oatmeal in a beer does not add the taste of oats really. It provides a silky-smoothness to the beer. It is quite a nice addition to dark roastey brews.

If you want a sweet beer, you probably want something like a malty brown ale or a sweet stout. If no one actually posts any recipes for you, I can dig up general guidelines out of one of my brewing books later and post them.

-walker

Ok very nice man.... Where doyou get your kits from? I am going to learn with extract brewing.... Thanks for the help.

Also what is Irish moss man? I keep seeing it any recipes.... where can you get that?

Irish Moss is a clarifying agent. It's usually added during about the last 15 minutes of the boil. It coagulates and helps pull trub (unwanted stuff) out of suspension so that the beer can later be easily siphoned off of the trub.

I strongly recommend reading How To Brew (it's available on-line for free or as a hard-copy book: http://www.howtobrew.com/) and/or Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. That'll get you up to speed on a lot of this stuff.

If you have a local homebrew store, that'll be your best source of gear and ingredients.

I don't use kits anymore. I did for many years, but now I just buy the ingredients ala carte. Stick with kits at the beginning, and as you gain experience, you'll gain an understanding of what the various ingredients add to a brew, and you can then venture out into making your own recipes. That's my opinion anyway.

When I *did* use kits, I used the "Brewer's Best" brand (available from many brew shops, online and in-stores), but I know a lot of guys use kits from a lot of places. Austin Homebrew has some kits that people are very pleased with, so they would be good ones to try (if you order enough, you'll get free shipping, too.)

Irish Moss

What it is: dried seaweed

What it does: you add it with 15 to 20 minutes left in the boil. It rehydrates and helps proteins in the beer clump up together and fall to the bottom of the kettle. It helps make the finished beer more clear (homebrew tends to be a little cloudy.)

Where you get it: any homebrew shop or online retailer will carry this.

Thanks fr the info... I am planning on maybe a malty brown ale... I will check out brewers best.... I really do want to make the caramel cream ale, but I think im nt knowledgeable enough to be able to handle it...

WeretheBrews said:

Thanks fr the info... I am planning on maybe a malty brown ale... I will check out brewers best.... I really do want to make the caramel cream ale, but I think im nt knowledgeable enough to be able to handle it...

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I would recommend a kit from Austin Homebrew Supply or morebeer.com over a brewer's best kit from a local store. (Yes, I realize I'm contradicting my previous post a bit--so sue me )

Those are huge-volume retailers that ship very fresh ingrediants with their kits, and their kits come with different options about what yeast you get, rather than just getting what the kit comes with.

I agree with Walker's suggestions of a brown ale or sweet stout. You might also try a German style hefeweizen, which is a sweeter, definitewly not bitter beer and a very simple style to brew. But if you do a hefeweizen, it is absolutely essential that you get an appropriate liquid yeast (not a general-purpose dried ale yeast).

Alright. I like the idea of adding caramel to a beer. What does this do?

Irish yeast is overated. I stopped using it before I switched to AG. My beers turn out just fine, but then again maybe it was the bleach

quick question....

If i have a 6.5 gallon pail, and a 5 gallon carboy... can i make two batches at once?

WeretheBrews said:

quick question....

If i have a 6.5 gallon pail, and a 5 gallon carboy... can i make two batches at once?

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Yes--but you want to make sure you time it right so you're not rushing beer 1 in order to accomodate beer 2.

If you follow the 1-2-3 principle (1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, 3 weeks bottle conditioning), then you can brew beer number two when beer number 1 has been in the secondary for a week. Then a week later, you bottle beer 1, clean and sanitize the carboy, and rack beer 2 into secondary.

On average, you can brew every two weeks with one primary and one secondary. If you get a second carboy secondary, you can brew (on average) once a week. This also gives you the advantage of being able to leave a batch in secondary longer than two weeks if it seems to need it, without it holding up the next batch.

Higher alcohol beers may need longer in each stage, though.