Help (with recipe ideas) a pour sool from a country with no brew shops :)

Hello everyone,

I'm a beginner homebrewer in Bucharest, Romania. I started out in December with a couple of no-boil kits a friend got for me from Ireland, then I did an extract-and-grain Hefeweizen from ingredients another buddy got from California for me.

I then decided to do all-grain brews and have found a reliable web homebrew shop where I've been ordering my supplies from (Hopfen und mehr - Bier selber brauen - Versand für Hobbybrauer). I currently have three German Lagers fermenting in the primary in my basement (a Maibock, a Marzen and an Export) and a Hefeweizen conditioning in the bottles.

As it might seem obvious already, I have a supply problem in that there aren't really any homebrewers here in Romania, so I have to order all my stuff from abroad.

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Well, the introduction being done, I'm going to step right into my current dilemma and hence the call for help in the subject.

I have a limited set of ingredients (from my previous orders) and I am wondering if any recipes could be made with what I have on hand as ordering new stuff would mean a two week delay and around ($25-30) in shipping.

Here's what I got:

Grains:
- Pilsener malt, 3-5 EBC (2L): 10kg (22lb)
- Vienna malt, 7-9 EBC (3.5L): 4kg (9lb)
- Munich malt, 20-25 EBC (9L): 2kg (4.5lb)
- Rye malt, 3-8 EBC (2.5L): 2kg (4.5lb)
- Smoked malt, 3-6 EBC (2.15L): 2kg (4.5lb)
- Chocolate malt, 1100-1200 EBC (434L): 1kg (2.2lb)

Hops:
- Herkules 17%
- Perle 7%
- Saphir 4.5%

Yeast:
This is a real problem, I have no packaged yeast left. I can only use the yeast saved from previous batches:
- Whitelabs WLP300 Hefeweizen
- Wyeast Weihenstephan Wheat #3068
- leftover Stout yeast from a cheap no-boil kit
- (in about 10 days when I bottle the lagers) Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager
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I'd like to do some recipes based on these ingredients. I'd prefer top-fermenting beers as I'd like to have some ready to serve on my birthday at the start of May.

Any recipe suggestions are welcome. If it's really a bad idea to do something based on what I have, I could consider another order from Germany, but figuring out what to order is an issue in itself, so suggestions that way would be great as well.

Thanks.

My Kingdom for some yeast.

Sounds like your best bet for Ale yeast might come from that cheap no-boil kit.

6 lbs Pilsner
5 lbs Vienna
1oz Perle 60 min

It'll give you something like OG~1.053 and IBU ~ 25. Should be about ready in 5 weeks.

Next time you order add a few packages of Nottingham for just such an emergency.

Wow this is a pickle you are in...the trouble (besides the yeast situation- which isn't hopeless) is that your grains are really best suited for what you have already brewed, they all tend to be those bes suited for the lagers you brewed. They are great malts, but they are limiting...except for the pilsner malt you have no other base malts, and no crystal malts...Though the vienna converts itself...so it's a base malt as well.

And the only hop I am familiar with is the perle....so you are somewhat limited..

You could brew a vienna lager with the pilsner, vienna and some munich malt, using the bav. lager yeast and a single bittering addition of the Herkules...

You could also consider doing what we call a SMaSH beer...it uses one base malt and one hop to get a taste for how they work together. You could do a batch of pilsner with one of those hops....

One thing to do is to brew something with the ale yeast from the stout kit (like what mike suggested) which will then grow that batch of ale yeast (which is problably a neutral ale yeast) you could harvest it and get a few uses out of it...

You could als look at some of our threads on here and the web about tosting your own grain, and toast a few pounds of that pilsner so you can get some complexity in terms of having some crystal grains...

Next time you order though, order some basic 2-row base malt in large quantities..and some dry ales yeasts (I like us-o5 and us-o4 by safale, or nittingham and windsor like he mentioned)

With getting the large amount of 2-row (like a 50 pound bag), you can make your own crystal malts, by toasting them, which then means you can have some more varieties in your beers....

SOrry, but that's all I got...especially since I've never heard of those hops.

So If I were ordering from germany, I would make sure to have plenty of base malt to toast my own...I might order some different varieties of hops (I don't know whats available in your part of the world) and an assortment of yeasts (mostly dry) but maybe a few liquid ones as well to get some more variety..you can always store the yeast, and grow it some more...I would get at least one belgian for fun...and the us-05 and us-4 if they are availabe (several packets of each) and a couple more yeasts that sound interesting....

and I would learn as much as possible about toasting my own grains...and do so with some of the 2-row...that way you will never have to order your crystal malts ala-cart.