advice needed - recipe

I have these ingredients:

Pale malt (base) - really a lot (around 150 lbs, so this is not a problem)
Black malt - 1 lb
Wheat malt 1 lb
Crystal malt 1 lb

Challenger - 1 oz
Target - 1 lb
Magnum - 1 lb
Super Styrian - 1 lb

S-04 - 10 pcks
US-05 - 5 pcks

I really don't know what to do...

Since I have really small quantities of specialty malt, I would like to make at least two good beers with what I got, but I'm not sure how to incorporate black and wheat malt...

I really need advice on this. Thank you very much!

If I were you, I'd read up on how to make your own crystal and how to toast your own malt. You can use that pale malt to do both of these and make a lot of specialty malts yourself, then you can do whatever you want.

If you just wanna stick to what you have, you can make some good beers anyway. Buy some ječmene pahuljice (flaked barley, I found it at a health food store here in Zagreb) and you can make a dry stout using the US 05 yeast. 5-10% flaked barley, around 10% black malt and the rest as base malt, around 1.040, 40 ibus, only bittering hops and you have a dry stout. You can make some browns, porters and stouts with what you have. Try looking through the recipe area.

If you can't find flaked barley, I saw flaked spelt at DM if you have that store there. In German, spelt is called Dinkel. Can't remember what it's called here. Pir maybe? Might give that a go....

I did a dry stout this weekend. Include a 15 minute rest at 50C if you can, then keep the grain bed above around 73 during runoff if you can to stop the flaked grains from gumming up your sparge...

thaks for the advice. we have flaked barley, I forgot to mention....

I think I'll try stout.

I wanted to ask you, since you're more experienced, have you tried Ozujsko and Karlovacko in Croatia?

What do you think of these beers? How would you rate them?

I would like to know is there a possibility to make a clone of these beers. I know it's a lager, but I want ale that would at least be similar in flavour to one of these beers....

400d said:

thaks for the advice. we have flaked barley, I forgot to mention....

I think I'll try stout.

I wanted to ask you, since you're more experienced, have you tried Ozujsko and Karlovacko in Croatia?

What do you think of these beers? How would you rate them?

I would like to know is there a possibility to make a clone of these beers. I know it's a lager, but I want ale that would at least be similar in flavour to one of these beers....

Click to expand...

Yes, of course I've had those beers. But, sorry, I don't think I'd ever clone them. I think they're pretty bad beers, with Ožujsko being the better of the two. Have you had Velebitsko Pivo, from Gospić in Croatia? That's a much, much better beer. When I first moved here I drank a lot of Ožujsko because that's what the cafes had. My nickname here is after that beer. Locally it's called Žuja, so my nickname is Žujo.

If you want to emulate a light lager but with an ale yeast, I'd look at the recipes from here to see the grain bill for those light lagers, use a similar one (though I don't think they have ANY specialty malts at all in the Croatian lagers, just Pils malt) and then use that US 05 you have at a cooler temp close to it's lowest safe number listed on the Fermentis site (don't know what that is, you'd haveta check) so you get a clean ferment. I think those Croatian lagers are all grain with no corn or rice. To me, they have no aroma hops at all but I can't say if that's really the case. They're not too bitter either. Can't put an accurate number on it, as I haven't had either in a while, but I'd guess they're at 20-25 IBUs. I'd just use those Super Styrians to get the IBUs.

Like I said, though, I don't think I can give a really proper advice on those beers as I really don't like them. And I'm not a lager brewer either. Sorry if this is of no use. If you get the chance, try Velebitsko Pivo. I think they likely use the same or similar grain, but they're a bit more bitter and the grain tastes better. It tastes cleaner to me too. Karlavačko is made by Heineken and Ožujsko is made by InBev (same as Jelen Pivo in Serbia), so I think they've brought their crappy, industrial, high gravity brewing techniques into it. Velebitsko Pivo is made by a small, independent brewery. With high gravity brewing, the breweries brew and ferment the beer as a high gravity beer, then water it down. This leads to a far less clean beer, IMHO. Don't KNOW they do that, but I assume it. Those two beers are far from clean.

thank you for your time to answer. I asked such a question because these mentioned beers are quite common around. I never had a chance to try Velebitsko, but I've heard of it.

In general, I really have a big problem with my beers, because I get off flavors. Last batch had too high ABV, the batch before it had strange barn like smell and flavor (as if I visited the barn in the countryside, where they keep food for animals).

I would be very happy if I could get at least clean flavor beer....

to be honest, all my beers looked great - nice colour, nice head, good head retention, mostly clear, and even nice smell - but taste, this makes me very unsatisfied...

Lately I think about the water I use, but everybody says that we in Sarajevo have great water for brewing beer....

The banyard flavor sounds like Lambic. Maybe watch out for infections. Can't say for sure, of course.

Can you get your water report? In Zagreb, we wrote to the water people, don't remember the name, and requested a report and they sent it. Your water may be perfect for beer, but maybe it's perfect only for dark beer or something. In Zagreb, it's like that. The water is unsuitable for pale beers without some adjustment. We have 386 ppm of bicarbonate here. The Dry Stout I made last weekend had no water adjustments at all as the water should be great for that. But all the other beer I've made here has been adjusted.

I don't really know why your beers don't taste so great to you though. Have you noticed some beers were better? Like, are darker beers better? Are lower alcohol beers better? Have you tried other yeasts? Have you made extract beers with the same results as all grain?