First Non-Kit Batch

I've done two batches from extract kits, and I wanted to try one with my own recipe. I was hoping some of you could take a look at my plans and give some advice. I'm getting the ingredients from midwestsupplies.com

Ingredients:
6 lb Briess Gold LME
1 lb Honey Malt Specialty Grain
1 lb Clover Honey
2 oz. Hallertau Hops

I'll steep the honey grain in 3 gallons of 150 degree water for 20 minutes. Then bring to a boil and add malt extract, bring back to a boil and add 1 oz. of hops. After 30 min, add another oz. of hops and end boil. After wort is cooled below 80, I'll strain, add water to make 5 gallons, and pitch yeast. I was going to use Rogue Pacman, as it seems a lot of people like that type.

Should I use some dry malt extract?
Do I need more hops?
This is going to be kind of an experiment/learning experience, but I was hoping if anyone sees something really wrong with this please let me know.

Thanks..

I LOVE honey malt, I have used it in all kinds of recipes, and the flavor and sweetness it adds is awesome. That being said 1 lb of it is most likely going to be way overpowering. At absolute max I would use 8 oz, and even then it will be a lot. (I have a batch bottle conditioning right now that used 6 oz and it got me exactly what I was looking for, but I think if most here tried my beer they would say it was too much). I'm guessing based upon the honey malt and the actual honey that you are going for a honey flavored beer?? I can't claim to be an expert on honey in beers, but with my limited experience with it I think the 1 lb you are adding will do nothing but dry your beer out and leave almost no residual flavor, and in addition to that it will take a lot longer to ferment out.

I'm not an expert at making recipes.........there are many here with TONS more experience then me, but my suggestion would be ditch the honey, cut the honey malt down to 8 oz max, and add 8 oz or so of lower lovibond crystal(anywhere from 10 to 40), and some cara pils for some body. Maybe move your 30 min addition of hops to 5 min instead.......although it works where it is. Never tried Pacman yeast, so I can't say anything about that.

As an FYI I recently threw together (made it up while I was in the LHBS) of 6.5 lb light LME, 6 oz honey malt, 6 oz crystal 10, 8 oz cara pils. I used whatever hops I had left over in the freezer and sounded good which ended up being 1 oz Hallertau at 60 min and .75 oz Willamette at 5 min. I fermented with US-05 at around 64 for 2 weeks then bottled. It has been bottled for 2 weeks now so not quite all the way ready, but it has a nice sweet, (noticably)fruity, honey like flavor to it.

Ooompa,

Thanks for the reply, it was exactly what I was looking for. What is lower lovibond crystal? And what is cara pils?

Thanks

When do you plan to add the honey? I made a honey beer and was adivised to add it at flame-out. I think that was a good idea. I think it lessened the drying out effect and kept some of the honey sweetness. It also was awesome to hear the constant air lock activity that ended up sounding like a cat purring due to all of those sugars from the honey.

You could have some DME on hand just in case you don't hit your intended OG.

Enjoy your first recipe!

dshaggy said:

Ooompa,

Thanks for the reply, it was exactly what I was looking for. What is lower lovibond crystal? And what is cara pils?

Thanks

Click to expand...

The Lovibond degree is a unit used to measure the color
of malted barley and beer. Darker grains have a higher Lovibond measure,
and contribute more color to brewed beer. Darker crystal malts (such
as 60L, 80L, 120L, etc.) will provide more sweet flavor and more color
than similar amounts of lighter (20L, 40L) crystal malt.

Cara-Pils adds body and foam retention, without influencing color or flavor. I would doubly reccomend this if you do decide to keep the honey, as honey will leave very little body.

Thanks for the help. I got my ingredients yesterday in the mail. I plan to add some honey after I end the boil, for some sweet flavor and hopefully not dryness. Two questions:

1. There were three bags of grain in my order: 1 lb. honey malt, 1 lb. Cara 20L (Castle), and 1 lb. Carapils (Briess). The honey malt is clearly marked, but the writing wore off the other two, one of which has a somewhat orange color. Any idea which is the carapils and which is the cara 20L?

2. Is it going to be ok if I use these specialty grains, in addition to 6 lb. of LME without any DME? I'm not going to use ALL the grain, probably 8 oz. of each.

I brewed this batch up today, seemed to go pretty well. I still don't know which grain is which, but I just put about 8 oz. of each in my grain bag and steeped them. I added my hops at 20 min and 5 min, since I don't really want a lot of bitterness in this beer. I put in the 8 oz. of honey at the end of the boil. My OG was 1.051, so the beer hopefully will have a FG of about 1.012 making it 5.1 % ABV.

Sounds like an adventure with the markings rubbed off the bags!

Thanks for the update. Keep us posted!

I had a taste of it the other day (taking a hydrometer reading). It's really good, but not quite as heavy as the last few beers I made. I was surprised how long it took to ferment. I think the honey addition at the end of the boil probably caused that. I plan on bottling within the next few days. I think I'm gonna start doing 5.5 gallon batches instead of 5. My turkey baster couldn't reach the beer in my 6.5 gal carboy. Is that the reason I see so many recipes for 5.5 gallon batches?

No, but it is the reason most people use a wine thief.

It wouldn't hurt to wait another week before bottling, but check your hydro readings. I am usually about 2 weeks primary, 1 week secondary before bottling.

Its a great jump to stop buying kits and start buying raw ingredients to make your own recipes. There are good kits, it just adds a whole other level of fun to create your own recipes IMO.

I bottled it up today, as the gravity hadn't changed from a few days ago and there wasn't any activity in the airlock. I carried my carboy outside, set it on the picnic table, and started getting my bottles and bottling bucket ready. By the time I got everything ready to go, I noticed that the airlock had started bubbling again (it had been stopped for at least three days previous to this). I was kind of hesitant to bottle then so I went and did some other stuff for a while to see if maybe it would stop. After about an hour, the bubbles did pretty much stop and I bottled it. The carboy was sitting in the sun, and was about 10 degrees warmer then where it had been inside. Also, I thought maybe the moving around could have caused some of the activity in the airlock. What do you all think?

You were just witnessing CO2 leaving the beer due to the temperature difference and shaking the beer up a little... no big deal.

Ok good. I kind of thought so, but a small part of me couldn't stop thinking that I was making bottle bombs...

Ok so none of these have blown up so far....The beer is good. There is a hint of honey, but the flavor is lacking somewhat. It seemed to clear up really fast after bottling, but is a little dry. Is this because I used pacman yeast? Just curious. The beer isn't bad by any means I just wish some more flavor would have been left behind after fermentation.

dshaggy said:

Ok so none of these have blown up so far....The beer is good. There is a hint of honey, but the flavor is lacking somewhat. It seemed to clear up really fast after bottling, but is a little dry. Is this because I used pacman yeast? Just curious. The beer isn't bad by any means I just wish some more flavor would have been left behind after fermentation.

Click to expand...

It's probably the honey. Honey fully ferments, so no residual sweetness is left behind like when you use malt. As counterintuitive as it seems, adding honey thins and dries out a beer, while malt extract gives it body and residual sweetness. Pacman yeast is very attenuative, too, but my bet is on the honey.

(By the way, next time, keep the carboy out of sun. Even a short time in the sun can cause some skunking of the hops. Throw a box over it, or keep it in the shade, if you're going to take it outside).