alternative bittering

i altered a recipe i found on beersmith, would i be better off with dark exxtract instead? as for the srm, im using a rating of ~200 lovibond for the coloring of the coffee

now im wondering if i should go all extract, im not very competent in partail mash, and i want to concentrate more on the bittering than the brewing. i dunno

Hmm, coloring sounds reasonable then.

Are you actually doing a partial mash with that recipe? Or is the Caramel Malt being used in a steep? With an extract recipe I would suspect it is being steeped, although 49 ounces is quite a bit to just steep, so it might be a partial mash. Steeping is not that hard. 30-60 minutes, 150-170 degrees, sparge. Then again, a partial mash isn't that much harder as far as I can tell, but I have yet to do one ... and a partial mash would get more sugar out, which would be good for this and would add to the body. So, yah, I would go with the partial mash on this one. You want to get the sugars out if you are using that much Caramel Malt, is my hunch.

I assume you are planning Caramel 60L? Mmm, caramelly and good mouth feel.

I'm not sure which way you should go on this. I would consider sticking with all extract, but a little branching out won't hurt you - and it doesn't hurt to learn other things. It just gives up a bit of control, so you will have to watch it closer and decide if you have not messed up somewhere other than the alt-bitter. Good luck.

Im planning on partial mash, im just a little nervous cause i majorly screwed up my first one.

i didnt crush my grain well enough, and i ended up not getting any conversion untill after i had filtered the grain out of the mash. I threw the grain back into it and its fermenting now, i hope.

This time im going to mill the grain IN the store, i thought a rolling pin ran over it a couple times would do it, and it did NOT.

Im off to the LHBS now, i gotta hope they have my ingredients, or else im SOL for a month untill they place thier next order.

wish me luck

What about Horehound?

I'm really looking into the idea of a horehound bittered honey lager... (Horehoney, of course)

Gildog: Rolling at the LBHS works well for me. I have been told that the crushed grains will last for up to a month. But, the longest I have gone is two weeks before brewing. Although, I do keep mine in my wine fridge, nice, cool, moisture controlled, steady 45F.

Hmm, Horehoney sounds interesting.

Good luck at the LBHS Gil.