Simple beer recipe help needed! :mug:

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sielm

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Hi all! I'm quite a newbie beer brewer who's planning to brew a simple recipe beer. I have some experience brewing mead and variants (pyments for example). I have also brewed a custom beer in the past although the results were a bit dissapointing :drunk:

This time I'm using legit beermaking ingredients only. I won't add any spices or additional sugars to the wort, and see if I get a more "real" beer taste. The only ingredients I have are the following:

3lbs Muntons Light Dry Malt Extract.
1oz Liberty Hops (pellets).
1oz Tettnang Hops (pellets).
Yeast: I have Safale S-04 and Safbrew S-33 (I have 1 packet of each one).
Batch size: 2.5 gallons (test batch!)

I would boil the extract for 60 minutes, and add the hops from the start.

I wanted to use only DME as the sugar base for the wort, and mix the hops in the "best" possible way. I really don't know what to do here, I like hoppy beers but I'm not sure if 2 full ounces can be overkill, or whether these two hop varieties are really compatible flavor-wise.

By using a beer calculator I get reasonable values for ABV (around 5%) and color (between yellow and gold).

Which yeast do you think would fit this recipe better? The S-33 or S-04?

And finally (sorry for the long post!) which kind of beer would this simple recipe make? I mean, would it be an Ale, a Lager, a Pils...?

Thanks for reading and best brewing luck for everyone!
 
sielm said:
Hi all! I'm quite a newbie beer brewer who's planning to brew a simple recipe beer. I have some experience brewing mead and variants (pyments for example). I have also brewed a custom beer in the past although the results were a bit dissapointing :drunk:

This time I'm using legit beermaking ingredients only. I won't add any spices or additional sugars to the wort, and see if I get a more "real" beer taste. The only ingredients I have are the following:

3lbs Muntons Light Dry Malt Extract.
1oz Liberty Hops (pellets).
1oz Tettnang Hops (pellets).
Yeast: I have Safale S-04 and Safbrew S-33 (I have 1 packet of each one).
Batch size: 2.5 gallons (test batch!)

I would boil the extract for 60 minutes, and add the hops from the start.

I wanted to use only DME as the sugar base for the wort, and mix the hops in the "best" possible way. I really don't know what to do here, I like hoppy beers but I'm not sure if 2 full ounces can be overkill, or whether these two hop varieties are really compatible flavor-wise.

By using a beer calculator I get reasonable values for ABV (around 5%) and color (between yellow and gold).

Which yeast do you think would fit this recipe better? The S-33 or S-04?

And finally (sorry for the long post!) which kind of beer would this simple recipe make? I mean, would it be an Ale, a Lager, a Pils...?

Thanks for reading and best brewing luck for everyone!
Click to expand...
Go to google and type each hops in the search engine. This will tell you the flavors to be expected and whether they are bittering, aroma or both...a good starting point. If you plan on using both hops try the tettnang as bittering/aroma (early boil) and liberty as aroma (late boil). Try going to hopville.com a free recipe creator that will show you color, abv, bitterness, etc. You plug in all ingredients, hop additions, and it will tell you close to what you are going to get. After you have your recipe created you can choose a style at the top...for instance english ale. It will tell you what you need to do to hit the style (adjust specific gravity, add color).

Looks like you have two yeasts for ale. A google search tells me one is well suited for special beers (s-33)- belgian type wheat beers, trappist, etc. The other works well for an english ale.

A few or ingredients you can go for a wheat style beer...if that is not an option you can make an ale using the S-04.

Have a rough idea of what style you want to brew, Use google to search your ingredients, purchase more ingredients accordingly. Brew.
 
Hey aeviaanah, thanks for the quick reply! I had already searched for info like that and in fact I used hopville's calculator to check the resulting color and abv values. The thing is I need to use ingredients from that list because I don't have access to more ingredients for the moment. By using such a simple recipe I want to set a personal standard to know what can be improved in the future.

Following your advice, I will try the hop additions you mentioned (Tettnang first and Liberty in the late boil) and use the S-04 for a more Ale like result.

I still don't know which name would suit this beer the best. Simple ale? Anyways, thanks again, best of luck!
 
Did you mess with the style recommendations on hopville? Scroll through them and see what your recipe fits under. I plugged a few in and if you keep IBU under 45 it can be an American IPA. You have two hops of german decent. And an english ale yeast. Add some brown sugar for color, you can make it an english ipa. LOL??
 
I've only brewed two batches myself so far, but looking at your ingredient list, I would suggest putting most of your hops in at the beginning of your boil to get the alpha acids out during the whole 60 minutes, however you'll probably want to save at least a little bit of one of them for aroma near the end of the boil. Your hops are both low on the alpha acid scale, so the more you put in at the beginning, the more of that you will be able to extract. If you decide to throw it all in at the beginning, you will have a hoppier beer, but relatively low aroma (from my understanding). When you mention your yeasts, if you want an ale, US-05 Safale or US-04 as you've mentioned are great choices. Also, unless you have a cold and temperature regulated area or fridge to store your fermenter in, you're really not going to be able to lager your beer. Your best bet (and probably the easiest way) will be to make an ale. With limited supplies like you have, your best bet would be just to experiment and enjoy what results you get. For what it's worth, I'd throw the Tettnang in as FWH to get the most bittering as you can out of it, and add the Liberty at maybe 20 minutes left and 10 minutes left as half ounce increments. I'm sure other more experienced brewers can give you better direction, but with the understanding I have from my first two batches and your ingredient list, that is my two cents. Best of luck, let us know how it turns out.
 
Thanks a lot! That's a bunch of things to consider. I will try to add both hop varieties using your timing considerations. If the kitchen is available, I'm doing this tomorrow! Thanks for the tips, I'll try to let you all know how this turns out. :tank:
 
I finally used these ingredients:

3lbs Muntons Light Dry Malt Extract
1oz Liberty Hops (pellets)
Total batch size: 2.64 gal (10 liters)
Boil water volume: 1.05 gal (4 liters)

Boiled all the DME and 9/10 of hops for 60 mins and added the final 1/10 of the hops for the 2 last minutes. Unluckily, I could not find the Tettnang bag, it's probably somewhere in the basement... but seeing as I had the time and chance to cook, I did it with only the Liberty hops. Using a beer calculator and the hydrometer I got the following values:

1.05 OG
27.4 IBUs
Color 10ºEBC, 5ºSRM (yellow to gold)
With a FG of 1.014 the ABV is 4.8%

I'm calling this a Simple Ale. I guess the SAFALE S-04 yeast is perfect for this. We'll see how this thing turns out!

EDIT: finally after boil, and after removing residue, the total amount of wort plus water makes 2.38 gal (around 9 liters). I'm using PET plastic 5 liter bottles to ferment this experiment, I could not get my hands on anything better to ferment into... airlocks are on and filled with clean water with a few alcohol drops on it. All equipment was sanitized with hospital-grade powder sanitizer, airlocks, stoppers, hydrometer, termometer.

I made a starter with 200 ml of warm water and a teaspoon of DME prior to the boiling,sprinkled 10 grams of dry Safale S-04 yeast and let it ferment for the whole boiling and cooling time (around 90 mins). When the wort was around 35ºC (95F) I mixed it with the rest of the water, and when it was 25ºC (77F) I poured the starter in, stoppers, airlocks and to the fermenting space (my bedroom locker). Temps there are always around 20ºC(68F) so I guess I'm ready to go. I'll try to keep this updated!
 
sielm said:
I finally used these ingredients:

3lbs Muntons Light Dry Malt Extract
1oz Liberty Hops (pellets)
Total batch size: 2.64 gal (10 liters)
Boil water volume: 1.05 gal (4 liters)

Boiled all the DME and 9/10 of hops for 60 mins and added the final 1/10 of the hops for the 2 last minutes. Unluckily, I could not find the Tettnang bag, it's probably somewhere in the basement... but seeing as I had the time and chance to cook, I did it with only the Liberty hops. Using a beer calculator and the hydrometer I got the following values:

1.05 OG
27.4 IBUs
Color 10ºEBC, 5ºSRM (yellow to gold)
With a FG of 1.014 the ABV is 4.8%

I'm calling this a Simple Ale. I guess the SAFALE S-04 yeast is perfect for this. We'll see how this thing turns out!

EDIT: finally after boil, and after removing residue, the total amount of wort plus water makes 2.38 gal (around 9 liters). I'm using PET plastic 5 liter bottles to ferment this experiment, I could not get my hands on anything better to ferment into... airlocks are on and filled with clean water with a few alcohol drops on it. All equipment was sanitized with hospital-grade powder sanitizer, airlocks, stoppers, hydrometer, termometer.

I made a starter with 200 ml of warm water and a teaspoon of DME prior to the boiling,sprinkled 10 grams of dry Safale S-04 yeast and let it ferment for the whole boiling and cooling time (around 90 mins). When the wort was around 35ºC (95F) I mixed it with the rest of the water, and when it was 25ºC (77F) I poured the starter in, stoppers, airlocks and to the fermenting space (my bedroom locker). Temps there are always around 20ºC(68F) so I guess I'm ready to go. I'll try to keep this updated!
Click to expand...
Pictures or it didnt happen
 
Unfortunately I did not take any pics of the brewing process. I took this pic from the locker the bottles are into, it's been 5 or 6 hours since pitching the yeast and the airlock already has a steady activity. It's bubling like once each 5 seconds. Sorry the pic quality is not great! Each bottle is a 5 liter PET container, with around 4.5 liters worth of wort on each one.

SimpleAle.jpg
 
After 24 hours the bubbling is constant. Some krausen entered into the airlocks and knocked the airlock caps off. Both containers are fermenting strongly. I had to remove the airlocks to clean them, with some luck nothing bad should have happened then...

Fingers are crossed!
 
Today the airlock activity level has slowed down noticeably. I had to change both airlocks again because some krausen got into them. Replaced them quickly with freshly sanitized airlocks filled with water and a few 96º alcohol drops.

Two full days have passed since pitching the yeast. The locker it's on smells wonderfully (I love the smell of brewing batches hehe). We'll see how this turns out.
 
Today is the 5th day fermenting. The airlocks are still bubbling but much more slowly. There is a 1inch thick layer of yeast in the bottom on each container. One thing I've discovered is that these water bottles have weird shapes and their inside is not flat, so yeast is also deposited in smaller layers on those places. I need to get my hands on a better fermentor with flat walls. This way I will save on the long run too, as I won't have to purchase water bottles for each batch. And I prefer a single fermentor over 2 separate ones!
 
Well, yesterday after 14 days fermenting the FG was 1.014 (did not change for 3 days) so I decided to bottle this up. I used table sugar (sucrose) for priming because I have no way to get dextrose. I got 8.5 liters (out of the original 10, not bad!) and after tasting the hydrometer sample I have to say WOW! This already tastes great even before carbonating and aging!

I'll post some pics when I get to open the first bottle. I will probably do so at the 1 week mark (I know I need patience but I really have to sample it soon hehehe)

Best regards
 
Could not wait longer... I had to sample it already! I sampled a bottle (5 days into aging since bottled). The aroma is somewhat lacking, it smells great but weakly. The color is amber, and it is crystal clear (except for the bottom yeast layer, which is not put into the glass of course). I have found out this might actually be a SMaSH beer (Single Malt and Single Hop), although I'm not sure if the Munton's Light DME would qualify as a "single malt", or if it's really a blend of different malts.

Anyway, the beer is not very carbed yet, it has carbonation but not as much as I want it to. I suppose it's still a little "green", but the flavour is already really good. Served this one chilled at 10ºC, a nice little head formed after pouring and I took a little pic. Really easy beer to make, and really easy beer to enjoy! I can't wait to sample this after proper aging.

Regards!

SimpleAle.jpg
 
i think a simple beer like that is very good and more enjoyable than a lot of home brews. awesome, congrats, enjoy. you can do a lot with an ounce of hops. if you go this route again, i think members here could provide some better recommendations on your hopping schedule.
 

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