Sound good?

6.6light lme
1lb Belgian pale
2oz n brewer
1oz willamete
3787 Trappist Hg
1lb light candi syrup OR 1lb honey
Irish moss
Also I was going to add sweet orange peel to the fermenter

Before reaching the candi with honey it was already supposed to have a FG of 1.012 will the honey give it to much of an alcohol taste , an how high might that honey make the FG or abv?

Not exactly sure what you are asking.

Some comments:

- What is Belgian Pale? If they are grains, you need to mash them, not steep them.

- I'd just use plain table sugar; that's pretty much what clear candi-sugar is. With honey, it will just ferment out and not leave much (if any) honey flavor.

- Not sure what the Belgian Pale is, but I'm assuming your OG will be about 1.050. A pound of table sugar in there will increase the OG by .009, and also lower the FG by about .003. I don't know if any software accounts for this. Since a simple sugar solution will ferment to below 1.000, this will offset some of the residual sugars from the malt. You want Belgians to be drier, so adding sugar is a good thing.

- Start the ferment off around 68 to 70 F, and let it rise/raise the temp to about 80 F over 5 days. You will not get an alcohol taste. The starting temperature is all important to minimize any alcohol taste, and the finishing temperature is all important to getting flavors from the yeast.

Instructions say

1. Remove crushed grains from package and put in Muslim bag. Tie bag at end to allow maximum circulation. Place in 1-2 gal of cold water, slowly bring to approx. 160 deg and hold temp for 10min. Discard grain.
2. Add LME and stir and stir well to dissolve. Bring to boil, add buttering hops, and continue to boil for 40 min.
Add aroma hops and boil 10 add Irish hops boil 10 more add flameout hops and turn off heat -total boil 60 min
3.pour wort slowly into fermentation vessel with enough water to total 5 gal ..... You guys get the rest

Quick question not to side track only cook with 1-2 gal of water then add about 4 to get y five in the fermenter ? Cooking wort on just 1-2 gal seems small , this recipe seems to be missing steps , doesn't say when to add honey or dextrose either

Other recipes had me cook with at least 2.5 granted the were specialty grains I steeped ten added lme but how should I go about this ? Sorry I'm such a noobie , I just got awful incomplete recipe guidelines with this

I don't know if you can read or zoom in on it but I also uploaded a pic of the recipe to help understand .

Those instructions aren't very good, ignore them.
1) steep the belgian pale in muslin bag in about 0.5-1gal of 150ishF water for 30mins (belgian pale needs to be mashed, which is basically steeping but with enzymatic activity; steeping in that thin of water for 10min's may not do much, tho its a small contributor of your OG so not a big deal if you want to follow their way).
2) while mashing the pale, start to bring the rest of your water to a boil. Remove grain and add wort to rest of water along with half your extract at start of boil - adding it all at the start will result in a darker beer
3) follow the hop/additive schedule, add candi syrup, dextrose & remaining extract at flameout.
4) Cool & top off to 5gals. Pitch around 68F and let rise into the 70s over a few days. After 2 weeks, feel free to check gravity. If stable over a few days, you can move on to bottling or allow more time to clear/condition.

if that kit came with S-33, save it for something else. it's not belgian

What is s-33 ? And when you say "the rest of your water " how much should I bring to a boil in the pot I'm cooking my lme and hops in 2 gal ?

Also thank you for taking the time to explain this all to my dumb ass

S-33 is English. 2gals would be good since the recipe was setup for a partial boil. the more water you start with, the more bitterness you're going to end up with

Alright so should I pour the mash right into the water I will be cooking my lme in and start to boil it with everything?

yup, but to save time I'd be heating that other water to boil while you mash. if you reach boil first, just go with it and add the mash during it.

I only have a 5-6 gal pot I use for the wort and another maybe 1 gal pot to try and do the grains in will that suffice seeing as its only 1# ? I've never had to use two before

DCP has given you a lot of good advice. Here are some slightly different and more detailed instructions for mashing.

Belgian Pale Malt needs to be mashed. 1 lb in 1 to 2 quarts of water. Start with 3 pints of water heat to 160 F, and grains in bag. The temperature after adding the grains will be about 150 F. This is good. Put lid on pot and try and keep warm. You want it to be above 146 F for the 30 minutes. This is a low mash temp, but since this is a Belgian ale, this is good. Stir grains occasionally.

Heat the rest of the water separately. The more water you boil, the better, but it takes longer to heat up and longer to cool. I'd say 3 gallons would be good for the first time.

After 30 minutes of mashing (it is OK to go longer) and when the main water is about 170 F, remove the grains from the mash/wort, and 'rinse' them in the main water to rinse off any extra sugars. This will improve efficiency of the mash.

Remove the grains and add the mash/wort to the main kettle. Then add the LME as suggested by DCP.

Good luck.

Thanks Calder that really helped a lot & CDP you have also been vital to helping me gain the knowledge and confidence to go ahead an tackle this brew I will be keeping you posted , one last question when I'm done with my boil can I add cool water to brig the batch to its final 5 gal before I cool the wort , I feel like this will help bring my temp closer to pitching temp faster or should I just stick with just the ice bath first

No, you want to bring the temp of the wort down quickly. Adding water at this stage will only add to your cooling time. Assuming you're doing this on your stove, place the kettle in an ice bath in the sink. Adding salt to the water will bring the temp down even faster. Be sure to stir both the wort and the ice water. Once the temp is down to 70F you can add your top-off water. Stir and take your gravity reading, then pitch your yeast.

Next comes the hardest part of home brewing: waiting the for yeast to do their stuff and then waiting even longer for the beer to carbonate in the bottle. Enjoy.

Can I help cool the wort with some top off water?

You are better off not trying to use the top-off water to cool the wort. Coming off the boil the wort is obviously still very hot. The top-off water will cool it somewhat, but not significantly. You would then be attempting to cool much more wort than you would have had to otherwise, making the job harder. It will only add to your cooling time.

BostonianBrewer said:

Can I help cool the wort with some top off water?

Click to expand...

adding top off will cool it much lower initially, but the higher thermal mass of a larger volume will slow it down in the long run. Drop the kettle into the ice bath and stir occassionally, after a few top off with as cold of water as you can. adding the candi syrup or honey, dextrose & half extract at flameout will help drop the temp a lil too. the wort will be hot enough to sanitize these, so no worries on adding it that late, just give it a few mins to mix in before cooling.

fyi, it's difficult to get an accurate OG reading when adding top off water, it takes a lot of mixing. depending on how well you extract from the belgian pale, it looks like your OG should be around 1.062 - 1.068. if its outside of that, it likely wasn't mixed fully or the volume isn't correct.

Adding top-off water while hot can contribute to hot side aeration (it is debated as the whether this is a real issue). I would stay away from it. If you want to do it, use cooled boiled water as the act of boiling the water reduces the amount of O2 in the water.