Cheap Brown Ale

[jgull8502]

I would like to brew a brown ale while waiting for my stout to condition for another few weeks. I figure this is the best way to keep my mind off of wanting to sample it

I've been looking in Papazian's book and saw the Elbro Nerkte Brown and Naked Sunday Brown. While I think the Elbro Nerkte would probably be a better beer because of the specialty grains and such, the Naked Sunday is attractive because I'd essentially only need to buy the kit.

The recipe calls for 4lbs Brown Ale hopped kit, 1.5lbs light malt extract, and english ale yeast.

The Elbro Nerkte calls for dark extract syrup, crystal malt, black patent, and gypsum, as well as fuggle hops and yeast.

What I'm wondering, is would it be an improvement to the beer kit if I brew it including some leftovers I have, or would this screw it up? I have 2/3 pound of leftover black patent, 1/4 pound leftover crystal malt, and less than 1oz of fuggles hops. I also have gypsum. This would only cost me 20 bucks, instead of the 40 or so for Elbro Nerkte.

I was going to play around with a calculator (I'm limited to qbrew or websites since I use linux) but they don't seem to include kit beers. So I figured I would ask around here for suggestions.

 

[Bob]

I'd forego the gypsum entirely, get some light extract, and use the specialty grains to get close.

Here's what I'd do in your situation:

Get the Muntons Nut Brown Ale tinned, pre-hopped kit.
Get a pound of light DME.
Use your leftover crystal malt and a quarter-pound of your black patent; crack the grains, put 'em in a grain bag and steep at 150-160F for a half-hour or so in a couple gallons of water.
Remove the bag. Bring that to a boil and add the DME. Return to boil and add your small amount of Fuggles. Boil ten minutes. Remove from the heat, add your tinned extract. Knock out into your cold water in your fermenter. Pitch a packet of S-04 or Nottingham or some other English yeast when cool.

Pretty simple! I often do something like this when my pipeline is empty and I realize I'm running low on beer. Hell, last summer I did a batch of beer with a tin of Export Pilsner, a pound of DME and some Hallertau pellets I had lying about - turned out pretty good! Not something I would enter into a competition, but a light, smooth-drinking summer beer.

Cheers,

Bob