Blind man's brew

[dlewiscross]

I have a bunch of left overs from my last eight months of brewing. I was hoping to get some ideas from some of the beer veterans here on how to proceed in using up some extras.

I have five and a half pounds of dme.
Specialty grains for an American Pale Ale from my lhbs.
20 ounces of corn sugar.
Vanilla beans
4 ounces of crystallized honey
Whiskey.
An ounce each of Willamette, cascade, centennial, an an unknown bittering hop.
Smack pack of wyeast 1056


As of now I am planning on using the specialty grains, 5 lbs of dme, centennial as bittering addition, cascade for aroma for a basic apa. (Like the lhbs intended)

Could I incorporate the corn sugar to bump up the abv and lighten the beer? Or maybe melt the honey with a little whiskey?

any ideas would be welcome.

 

[RedOktoberfest]

The corn sugar will always be good for bottling, I wouldn't worry about getting rid of that. The whiskey and vanilla beans don't have much to offer for this brew, IMO.

I'd go with a 30min boil. use the willamette or unknown hop at 30min, the centennial at 15, and the cascade at 5. Or both willamette and unknown at 30, and the other two at 5min and flameout.
You can use the DME at 15min and the honey at flame out. Assuming you are steeping a pound of crystal 40, you should have something around 35IBU, 5.5% ABV, and a nice aromatic punch.

 

[dlewiscross]

Thank you for the response. An APA it is

The honey is crystallized, would you liquefy it in the boil or pitch the crystals into the fermenter whole?

 

[DeBAD]

Depending on how how old that smack pack is I'd probably add a package of Safale 05. Determine your OG, check MrMalty on the web and check the date on your smack pack. I'll bet you need to add yeast. You don't want to under pitch.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[RedOktoberfest]

Thank you for the response. An APA it is

The honey is crystallized, would you liquefy it in the boil or pitch the crystals into the fermenter whole?

You can pull some of the wort out of the kettle 5min before the addition and let it re-hydrate the crystals. Or just use warm water.