Malt Extract Quantities

Hi,
so i have decided to start the home brewing experience, have accumulated all of the equipment and found a supply store. im going to start off with John Palmers recipe on his website, here it is:

3-4 pounds pale malt extract syrup, unhopped
2 pounds amber dry malt extract
12% aau bittering hops
5%aau finishing hops
2 packets dry ale yeast


now im having a few troubles with the quantities. how should i measure 3-4 POUNDS of the syrup, shouldnt it be in litres or some measurement in volume since it is a liquid? the guy at my hbs has a huge vat of the stuff, should i weight the syrup out or is there an equivalent from pounds to litres?

also the guy didnt know what aau stands for (he said he was more of a wine guy), he was just going to measure out the hops in oz. should there be an aau indicator somewhere on the hops package? i believe ill be getting the stuff in bulk so probably no packaging, just a zip lock bag.

also how would i convert 2 "packets" of yeast to a measurement? tablespoon?

Thanks!
Steve

The HBS should sell the LME by the lb, so tell them how much you want.

aau is alpha acid unit. basically, if you have a hop variety with an Alpha Acid rating of 12, you need one ounce. 6, 2... 4, 3. etc.

Most dry yeast comes in 11g packets. I dont think you need 2 for this beer though. Get yourself some US-05 for a nice clean ale.

Edit: This is going to be a fairly easy first brew, but with just a little more effort and time, you could add a little fresh taste and a little complexity by steeping some crystal malt. The HBS should have crushed crystal malt by the lb, lighter is sweeter, darker is more carmel tasting. Get a bag for the grain and a lb of crystal and steep the grains in 155 F water for 30 minutes and then brew as originally planned.

My first batch was extract with steeping grains. cheers.

thanks s3n8, that clears up alot. i dont think the guy at the store knows the aa value of his hops, ill have to double check.

i might just try your tip, it looks interesting.
also at this site:
http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/via...=crystal+malt&search_category_id=0&item_id=17

what would the "45*" stand for?

The IBU % of the hops should be on the bag. A high alpha like chinook might be 12 and a lower alpha % like cascade might be 3. It is usually on the label. Some stores also have a chart next to the refrigerator describing the hops and listing the %.

Chombo said:

thanks s3n8, that clears up alot. i dont think the guy at the store knows the aa value of his hops, ill have to double check.

Click to expand...

He better know the aa value, that's a pretty darn important thing to know. He might not have known what "aau" meant (actually the first time I've seen the term, but I inferred its meaning from the %), but he should be able to at least find out what its value is once you tell him what it means. If push comes to shove, the package of hops should have the %age on it.

Chombo said:

thanks s3n8, that clears up alot. i dont think the guy at the store knows the aa value of his hops, ill have to double check.

i might just try your tip, it looks interesting.
also at this site:
http://www.homebrew-supplies.ca/via...=crystal+malt&search_category_id=0&item_id=17

what would the "45*" stand for?

Click to expand...

They *should* have a label somewhere that states the AA of the hops. This is pretty much required for accurate recipe duplication. Ask him, he should be able to tell you. There are lots of different types of hops also, some are better for bittering (higher alpha acid hops, because you use less of them to achieve the required level of bitterness) and some have wonderful aroma or impart a desired flavor. Since you are going for a simple brew for your first time, I would suggest something like a Cascade variety which has good bittering as well as good flavor and aroma characteristics.

The 45 in the link refers to the color in degrees lovibond. Basically, the darker the malt the higher the degrees lovibond (L). The malt in the link has been kilned or toasted to 45 L. The lighter ones (10, 20) are sweeter, and the darker ones are more carmely. They usually go up to 120, but have seen some as high as 150. Of course, the darker the malt, the darker your final brew. I think steeping grains are an easy step that adds a lot to an extract brew. Use the lightest extract you can find, and get the color and flavor from steeping grains.

Palmer says to buy two packets of dry yeast in case one is a dud (or you mess up). You don't use both...store the reserve in the fridge for another batch if you don't need it.

Awesome, thank you all. so the guy at the store didnt know what aau meant, however he brought me into the back room and i could clearly see the percentages labeled on the bags of hops. perfect.

i picked up 2oz of 5.4% cascade for aroma
and
2 oz of 11% sticklebract for the bittering.

ill have to do the math and figure out exactly how much i will need...

also thanks for clearing up with the yeast, i guess ill use around 12 grams. the yeast was US-04.

EDIT: and lol, very stupid mistake of me, after the first boil was done, i thought it was cool enough to pour in the carboy, guess it wasnt, i cracked it...
noob mistake, didnt lose any beer though, only water

is a cracked carboy salvageable? it isnt a large crack...
lucky i have a backup bucket to use

Toss the carboy before it breaks and causes more issues - like a hospital trip on brew day

consider it gone

Bummer about the carboy. Put it in the recycling.

So... Did you brew the beer without the hops? Or just not update to reflect how much you used? Just checking

Never tried the bittering hops you bought. Hope it turns out. I like Cascade a bunch though.

FYI - 1 pound of LME is 10.66 liquid ounces. May not apply to this but someone may want to know.

Forrest

Austinhomebrew said:

FYI - 1 pound of LME is 10.66 liquid ounces. May not apply to this but someone may want to know.

Forrest

Click to expand...

Forrest, you wouldnt happen to know the weight to liquid oz conversion for honey and molasses would you? I have not had luck finding a definitive answer. cheers.

s3n8 said:

Bummer about the carboy. Put it in the recycling.

So... Did you brew the beer without the hops? Or just not update to reflect how much you used? Just checking

Never tried the bittering hops you bought. Hope it turns out. I like Cascade a bunch though.

Click to expand...

well everything went according to plan, i couldnt get any of the grain you recommended, they didnt have any... i used 1.1oz of the bittering hops, brewed for an hour, 15 minutes before flame out i added the cascade. it smells lovely.

a few minor inconveniences including cracking the carboy and having to use the bucket which sucks because its hard to find a carboy around here. dropped the stopper in the wort by accident, so i had to sanitize my hand/arm with bleach water solution and fish it out. and for some reason it was 2 litres short out of the 19 litres i was hoping for, could have been the evaporation during boiling (is this normal?)
other than that all went well, hope to hear some bubbling soon. and i hope my sanitation was sufficient...

Austinhomebrew said:

FYI - 1 pound of LME is 10.66 liquid ounces. May not apply to this but someone may want to know.

Forrest

Click to expand...

thanks, good to know!
i put 6 pounds total in the brew of LME. looks like i over shot it.

gravity checked out to be a 6.5 on the alcohol% side of the meter.

got a pretty sweet bonus at the HBS, the guy didnt know how to weight it when i asked for pounds so he gave me enough extract for 3 batches for the price of 1 batch.

where do you live Chombo? I think you need to brew once with a "mentor." I got my kick start from my home brew supply store, but yours apparantly does not have a clue. After that I read alot on here.

mrk305 said:

where do you live Chombo? I think you need to brew once with a "mentor." I got my kick start from my home brew supply store, but yours apparantly does not have a clue. After that I read alot on here.

Click to expand...

haha yea, well im going to be reading a lot here, i have always been fascinated with diy (growing my own herb garden, making food from scratch...etc) and now that i finally got my equipment i can start a new hobby.

i live in Toronto, Canada. i agree, the guy in the store was a nice guy but didnt know much about his supplies or ingredients, the only reason i went to him was because i dont drive and he is a 20 minute bike ride away from me. all other stores are out of the question to get to for me at this point, however i will be ordering from www.homebrew-supplies.ca in the future, they seem to have a phenomenal amount of gear and ingredients

Chombo said:

thanks, good to know!
i put 6 pounds total in the brew of LME. looks like i over shot it.

gravity checked out to be a 6.5 on the alcohol% side of the meter.

got a pretty sweet bonus at the HBS, the guy didnt know how to weight it when i asked for pounds so he gave me enough extract for 3 batches for the price of 1 batch.

Click to expand...

Do you mean 6 pounds of LME plus the DME?

The alcohol side of the meter is not going to be accurate for beer. That part is assuming that you are making wine or alcohol and there will be no residual sweetness. Beer yeast will leave about 10-15 points of residual sweetness. Wine yeast will keep eating until all of the sugar is gone.

You need to use the specific gravity scale. The one with the 1.000 on it.
The weight of water on this scale is 1.000. Add the sugars and the ready will be around 1.050 for regular beers. The yeast will eat the sugar and you will finish out around 1.012. If you do a partial boil you may easily have a false reading (wort not mixed well with top of water before reading).

Subtract the ending gravity from the beginning gravity and multiply by 131.
So, 1.050 - 1.012 = .038 x 131 = 4.978% alcohol.

Honey and molasses are going to be similar to LME. A quart (32 oz.) is 3 lbs. Water is 16 fluid ounces and 16 solid ounces per pound but LME, honey and molasses are 10.66 fluid ounces per pound.

If you want to test your specific honey or molasses, weigh out 1 pound on a scale and each cup measured out is 8 fluid ounces. You should come up with a cup and a third for a pound.

Forrest

Austinhomebrew said:

Do you mean 6 pounds of LME plus the DME?

The alcohol side of the meter is not going to be accurate for beer. That part is assuming that you are making wine or alcohol and there will be no residual sweetness. Beer yeast will leave about 10-15 points of residual sweetness. Wine yeast will keep eating until all of the sugar is gone.

You need to use the specific gravity scale. The one with the 1.000 on it.
The weight of water on this scale is 1.000. Add the sugars and the ready will be around 1.050 for regular beers. The yeast will eat the sugar and you will finish out around 1.012. If you do a partial boil you may easily have a false reading (wort not mixed well with top of water before reading).

Subtract the ending gravity from the beginning gravity and multiply by 131.
So, 1.050 - 1.012 = .038 x 131 = 4.978% alcohol.

Click to expand...

i used all LME.
Cool , thanks for the hydrometer info, im going to check it later on today

Update:

so i just checked the gravity, seems like its doing pretty well. before fermentation it was around 1.050, now, ten days later it reads 1.015.

the smell smells mostly good, at least what beer is supposed to, however there is a bit of a raunchyness to the smell, just a tad. and there are visible chunks floating on the top. there is also a tiny bit of a gelatin look to it as i was running my thermometer through it. the temperature has been around 14-15 degrees celcius during the fermentation.

the airlock has not been bubbling though, i havnt heard it and noone who lives with me has heard it...but there is a nice thick ring of krausen around the bucket.


EDIT: Ok, so i just tried it and it tastes pretty good. i cant wait... seems as though everything is going as planned.

hopefully everything is going well with it, does anything seem abnormal?

Nope, everything is good. Let it sit another week or two, and even though its done with active fermentation, the yeast will continue to break down off-flavors, and will continue to offgas volatile compounds. The raunchy smell is most likely the krausen ring, thats pretty typical to have a less than pleasant aroma.