Which Grains can I Steep?

Hi,

First of all, hello everyone, this forum has been invaluable in the last few weeks as I set off into the wild wonder of home brewing, thanks for the great posts.

Secondly, where and what I do:

I am in Johannesburg, South Africa, got a Coopers Home brew kit for Christmas 2010, brewed my first (Coopers Traditional Draught) on Christmas day, and tasted some last night...not bad! (Bottle Primed, Primary for 10 days, straight into bottle, priming sugar added to bottles, not batch).

Second kit started on Wednesday, Mexican Cerveza. Going to leave it in primary for 3 weeks, and with 1 week to go going to dry hop with either Perle or Cascade hops in a nice knee high stocking!

For my next brew, I need a bit of advice please.

I got my hands on some Caramalt, Black Malt and Crystal malt, and i would like to try my hand at steeping some malts for a little bit of extract, and then adding that to one of the Coopers Kits to enhance the body and flavour, and perhaps add some dry hops as well.

Could you home brew legends please:

1) Recommend which grain i could steep most successfully?
2) Which Coopers kit would benefit from that grain?
3) What Hops I could use to further enhance the brew?

I am deliberately increasing complexity in the brews off of a kit base, so that I can try everything before I go purchase some conical fermenters and a mash and lautering tun.

Appreciate the feedback.

Are you looking to make extract from the malts? If so, that's gonna take more energy than I'd want to use as far as purely reducing the amount of wort that would work in an extract. Best thing to do probably would be to do a partial mash with your base being the components in the kit, extracts, etc. and add the specialty grains to the base.

Nope, gonna mill em, and boil em in a bag. Whatever I have in the pot is going to get tossed into my primary along with the Coopers Kit, and then some hops.

I wouldnt put the black malt into a cerveza, doesnt sound good to me, but hey, do whatever you want. I would try the other 2. Experimenting is always fun, but doesnt always turn out so great. I threw 5 extra pounds of honey into a brown ale that already had 2 pounds in the recipe, seemed like a good idea but ended dumping it. Stuff tasted like moonshine!

I steep the grains for 20 min between 150 and 170, you dont want to go above 170. Dryhop the last 5 days before bottling. The list of hops is endless, do some reading on the flavors that you can get from some different ones, and pick one.

Goodluck

Thanks...i was going to leave the black malt for a stout

I am aware that Caramalt can be steeped, can i do the same for Crystal, and would this be a good idea for say a Canadian Blonde?

Double post..apologies. Moderator please delete if possible?

The caramel/crystal can be steeped to extract the color, sugar and flavor. If you search any of the malts, you'll be able to find out if they need to be mashed or not and if they have enough diastatic enzimes to convert.
I would also make sure that your bringing the wort created from the grains up to a boil. That will kill any nasties that may be in them.

If your going to start adding hops, research the different properties that are released by boiling for different lengths of time. Otherwise your only going to be dry hopping for aroma.

Good Luck,

Bull

Snotpoodle said:

Nope, gonna mill em, and boil em in a bag. Whatever I have in the pot is going to get tossed into my primary along with the Coopers Kit, and then some hops.

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I wouldn't boil your grains. Read up on tannins if you wish to know why not.

dfc said:

I wouldn't boil your grains. Read up on tannins if you wish to know why not.

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I have read up, as i wished to know why not. Won't boil, rather heat at 70C for 30mins.

With the Crystal Malt and Caramalt I have, what recipe would you suggest for a beginner?