One of the benefits of living in Puerto Rico is that Malta is readily available at ANY store! For those uninitiated, Malta is a sickingly sweet, highly carbonated drink that is sold typically in 7 or 12 ounce bottles. I've used this stuff as an EASY and cheep yeast starter (6-pack of 12-ounce bottles goes for $3.99). Standard practice is to water it down 50/50 to get a ball park gravity and your good to go. As it is aseptic, as long as you use boiled water as the mix, there is no need to boil to kill any critters that might do any manner of unspeakable acts to your little baby yeasties. As a yeast starter, this stuff is GREAT.
Got to thinking and wondering what this stuff would taste like if you made a full on beer from it? There are tantalizing threads here and else were describing what malta tastes like just letting the yeast run their course, but nothing describing what the results of a full on brew would taste like. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
So here's what I did. Got me a 12-pack of 12-ounce Malta India (they were out of Malta Goya) at a total cost of $7.98. Stopped by my local home brew store and brought .25 oz of Hallertau and .25 oz of Tettnanger. Brought some other "stuff" (Why is it that I don't seem to ever be able to leave the brew store with out a bag of "stuff" that I didn't even realize I needed until I stepped through the door??!!) so I don't recall off hand the price of the hops but I think it was about $3.00 (maybe??).
Got home with my $11.00 beer "kit" and set to work. Dumped 11 bottles (roughly 1 gallon) of the Malta India into my brew kettle with an equal amount of water and lit the fire. As the only reason I was boiling at all was to get the hops into the beer, I decided that 40 minutes would be just fine. Did a 5 minute pre-boil to get ride of the CO2 from the malta (dam!!! That is some FIZZY stuff), set the timer on 40 and mixed in the Hallertau...20 minutes later in went the Tettnanger...then at 5 minutes before nock off some Irish moss and yeast nutrients. Cooled it in a cold water bath to about 75 degrees.
For the yeast I chose some Dogfish Head yeast that I had cloned from a bottle of their unfiltered 75 minute IPA. I know, Dogfish uses a priming yeast that is different than the regular brewing yeast but as the 75 minute was unfiltered before it was bottle conditioned, I chose to believe there are some baby Dogfish'ies swimming around among the priming yeast cousins!! Besides, I had the yeast sitting in my fridge and it was the first container I grabbed. About 20 minutes before I started brewing the main, I wipped up 1 cup of 50/50 malta from the 12'th bottle. Thought I was going to have to wait for the yeast to take off but MAN, I most certainly did NOT. Put an airlock on this and it was chugging away in about 20 minutes.
Transferred my boil to my carboy, aerated with my pump for about 20 minutes, pitched my yeast, installed the airlock and into my "climate controlled" brewing room. Checked on it about an hour later and it was bubbling along happily...Same this morning when I got up.
So what am I going for? I read some posts that said that the Malta Goya kind of tasted like a Bock so that is kind of what I'm shooting for (I know, Bocks aren't ales but then, they PROBABLY don't use Malta India as their wort so...). I wanted it to be a malt forward brew with citrusy hops in the background just to provide some background and balance out the malt taste.
So will this taste any good? I don't know. It smelled good on the boil but I've had some pretty bad beers that smelled good in the brew kettle.
A good day brewing beats walking around and doing almost anything in the rain (did I mention it was raining yesterday?) and for a total outlay of about $11.00, I figured it was worth a try to answer a question that was bothering me and MAYBE 3 or 4 other people on this board!
Got to thinking and wondering what this stuff would taste like if you made a full on beer from it? There are tantalizing threads here and else were describing what malta tastes like just letting the yeast run their course, but nothing describing what the results of a full on brew would taste like. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
So here's what I did. Got me a 12-pack of 12-ounce Malta India (they were out of Malta Goya) at a total cost of $7.98. Stopped by my local home brew store and brought .25 oz of Hallertau and .25 oz of Tettnanger. Brought some other "stuff" (Why is it that I don't seem to ever be able to leave the brew store with out a bag of "stuff" that I didn't even realize I needed until I stepped through the door??!!) so I don't recall off hand the price of the hops but I think it was about $3.00 (maybe??).
Got home with my $11.00 beer "kit" and set to work. Dumped 11 bottles (roughly 1 gallon) of the Malta India into my brew kettle with an equal amount of water and lit the fire. As the only reason I was boiling at all was to get the hops into the beer, I decided that 40 minutes would be just fine. Did a 5 minute pre-boil to get ride of the CO2 from the malta (dam!!! That is some FIZZY stuff), set the timer on 40 and mixed in the Hallertau...20 minutes later in went the Tettnanger...then at 5 minutes before nock off some Irish moss and yeast nutrients. Cooled it in a cold water bath to about 75 degrees.
For the yeast I chose some Dogfish Head yeast that I had cloned from a bottle of their unfiltered 75 minute IPA. I know, Dogfish uses a priming yeast that is different than the regular brewing yeast but as the 75 minute was unfiltered before it was bottle conditioned, I chose to believe there are some baby Dogfish'ies swimming around among the priming yeast cousins!! Besides, I had the yeast sitting in my fridge and it was the first container I grabbed. About 20 minutes before I started brewing the main, I wipped up 1 cup of 50/50 malta from the 12'th bottle. Thought I was going to have to wait for the yeast to take off but MAN, I most certainly did NOT. Put an airlock on this and it was chugging away in about 20 minutes.
Transferred my boil to my carboy, aerated with my pump for about 20 minutes, pitched my yeast, installed the airlock and into my "climate controlled" brewing room. Checked on it about an hour later and it was bubbling along happily...Same this morning when I got up.
So what am I going for? I read some posts that said that the Malta Goya kind of tasted like a Bock so that is kind of what I'm shooting for (I know, Bocks aren't ales but then, they PROBABLY don't use Malta India as their wort so...). I wanted it to be a malt forward brew with citrusy hops in the background just to provide some background and balance out the malt taste.
So will this taste any good? I don't know. It smelled good on the boil but I've had some pretty bad beers that smelled good in the brew kettle.
A good day brewing beats walking around and doing almost anything in the rain (did I mention it was raining yesterday?) and for a total outlay of about $11.00, I figured it was worth a try to answer a question that was bothering me and MAYBE 3 or 4 other people on this board!
