What to do with such limited ingredients?

Hi all,

I'm basically a newbie (a couple of Coopers kits under my belt) and live in a pretty remote part of central Canada with only somewhat of a LHBS (and would rather not order anything right now). I'm trying to take the next step after kits, but only have very limited ingredients. These include:

yeast: Coopers and Nottingham

LME: Dark, Amber, and "standard lager"
DME: Spray Malt light, medium, or dark

(also pre-hopped extracts if I choose to revert back to the kits)

hops: cascade, northern brewer, sticklbract, saaz, tettnang, fuggles, williamette, green bullet, hallertau

malts (if I want to steep or partial mash): black barley, roasted barley, carastan, munich

So my question is: what beer styles would work for this selection of ingredients? There aren't many styles I don't like, but I was thinking some sort of American pale ale, or a stout/porter. I'm up for anything really. I have all necessary equipment, and can do either an ale or lager fermentation.

Any help much appreciated!

that doesn't look like limited ingredients to me. You're just missing some crystal malt.

I usually have only about half the ingredients for recipes I come across... but is it all about the art of substitution?

Looks like the makings of a stout to me, considering your steeping grains. If you could get your hands on some chocolate malt, you could be there. Maybe even (one of my favorites) a Russian Imperial Stout.

thanks, i'll look into some more stout recipes and see what i can substitute if needs be...

Bitter, Mild, Pale, IPA, amber, stout. Porters using the dark extracts and some black barley.

www.dmemart.com might be beneficial.

i haven't ordered from there yet but i've been told they have good, inexpensive ingredients.

maybe use it to fill in some of the gaps ;-)

thanks for all the input... i'll try to come up with something and then post it for critique

What style do you want to make?

Well that's the question. Most recipes I've found have totally different ingredients, so I was wondering which styles I'd best be able to approximate with what I have. If I could do anything I'd lean towards a pale ale, or a porter/stout, but don't want to rule out other styles if these ingredients work for them.

From brew-monkey.com : Carastan - A British malt similar to American or Belgian crystal malts. 30L

You may not be able to follow recipes exactly but you should be able to cover many styles with what's avail. What kind of beer would you like to make?

I am even more limited... so have been doing some of the online window shopping. http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/ has a good rep with people here who have bought from the, Too lazy to check how for they are from you, but they offer flat shipping on most grains and hops... you may be near enough to pick up orders too... might be worth checking (I know this is not your question, but wasn't sure if the issue was ordering from the states...)

My prices at LHBS are such that I make up the difference in shipping on a single batch. All about comparing it!

moses1 said:

Hi all,

. . . but only have very limited ingredients. These include:

yeast: Coopers and Nottingham

LME: Dark, Amber, and "standard lager"
DME: Spray Malt light, medium, or dark

(also pre-hopped extracts if I choose to revert back to the kits)

hops: cascade, northern brewer, sticklbract, saaz, tettnang, fuggles, williamette, green bullet, hallertau

malts (if I want to steep or partial mash): black barley, roasted barley, carastan, munich

Click to expand...

+1 on the comment this looks like a decent inventory for basic ales. If the issue is you have small quantities just make a half batch.

thanks for the advice... I'm coming up with a recipe and will post it when I'm done (will make new thread)