Newbie recipie . Opinions options

Probably should have asked this before I brewed but here it goes..
I'm on my third extract batch and wanted to try something darker. I brewed five gallons with 500g Carafa and 500g caramunich 2 as my specialty malts to steep... Hopped it with Saaz .. 28g at sixty and 28g at 15 mins.
pitched Irish ale yeast
I know it's pretty simple but after a bad outcome from my second batch I wanted to keep it easy.. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on what the final outcome may taste like and also now it's fermenting any advice or options I could do before bottling..
Thanks for all the help... This site gets me through each brew and some very worried moments when I realize I could make a mistake ..
Cheers

With the carafa, caramunich 2, and irish ale yeast I'm guessing that you're going for a stout or porter. What is the pre-boil volume you shot for? What kind of extract did you use? Liquid? Dry? Light, extra light, traditional dark or sparkling amber? We need more info before giving you options or opinions.

I used light dry malt extract. I'm not sure what pre boil volume is though, sorry. I had a 3 gallon partial boil steeped the two grains for 30 mins then brought it up to temp for a 60 min boil...
I was hoping for some kind of stout or porter but I'm really new to the ingredients so this was all based on advice and other reading...

Hope that helps I'll try answer any questions as best as I can. Thanks again for your help..

Well, in my experience, depending on wether it was Carafa Special, or regular Carafa, you should end up with something either to the mild or strong end of roasty. Sounds like it's in the stout ballpark to me.

I'm assuming this was a 5 gallon batch based on the volumes you gave, how much extract did you use/what was your OG?

Sorry keep forgetting to adding important info...
I used 2.5kgs of Dry malt extract ... I know this is terrible but as I live in a hot climate at the minute I was so busy getting it into my swamp cooler that I forgot to take the OG .. Proper noob mistake I know..

If it helps my first gravity reading was 8 days after and it was 1.014 .

I was also wondering would it be silly to add some cocoa powder or other flavors at bottling... I think I could be getting ahead of myself but I'd like to try something exciting that could maybe change the flavor a bit .. I also don't want to ruin what could be a solid beer so id love anyone who knows more than me ( everyone) to point me in the right direction .

Thanks for any help.

What was the AA% on your hops? An ounce of Saaz at 3% is going to yield a fairly low IBU. If you're going for a stout, they're actually deceptively bitter - up to 40 IBU - so this one might end up tasting pretty sweet. If you're going to add anything at bottling, I'd wait until after you've bottled some of it so you'll know what the base beer tastes like.

They are 3.1% and I put and ounce at 60 and an ounce at 30 ... I never even thought about that... Fingers crossed its not too sweet ... Yeah I think I'll wait . I'm scared to ruin a beer but also excited to try new things hahaha.. It's like a right rope walk haha. I'm only 3 batches in so plenty of time to be getting experimental

duffstuff said:

I'm only 3 batches in so plenty of time to be getting experimental

Click to expand...

That's right. If you don't have your base process down, then you'll never know if it was the experiment or something else that made the resulting beer good or bad.

Yeah this site has already saved me on batch 2 haha.. I'll sit tight and see how it turns out ..