Extract and bittering hops substitute

[kathy2472]

Cleaning out basement recipe was thinking about making a blueberry blonde beer. I have only followed recipes so far so I don't know much about substitutions.

I have most of the ingredients just 2 lbs short on extract and bittering hops. Should I brew today or wait and go to store to either get extra grains (Mini mash) or extra extract and correct hops?

Recipes calls for:

Grains
½ lb 2 row
½ Vienna

Malt
5 lbs extra pale extract
*recipe calls for 7 lbs
Can I substitute 2 lbs Amber extract?

Hops
Bittering hops palisades
Can I substitute Willamette?
1 ounce select

Flavoring:
Olive nation pure blueberry extract which adds a little blueberry color.

Thanks for your help.

 

[DromJohn]

Amber will make your "blonde" darker and add some caramel.
Willamette is a top three substitute for Palisades.

Me, I'd brew today.

 

[chickypad]

As above, amber extract has usually some C-60 and probably munich too. Since it's only 2/7 of the recipe it won't be a ton but enough to make it more of a pale ale than a blonde. If that doesn't bother you then go ahead. For hops you can pretty much sub in anything to bitter with, the problem is that willamette is probably lower in AA so you would likely need to use more. How much do you have and what are the IBU's on the original recipe? The other option is to do a slightly smaller batch with the ingredients you have. Is that LME or DME?

 

[kathy2472]

Amber is dme and extra ale is liquid. If I was making a smaller batch would I just go 4 gallons instead of 5?

Hint of Carmel in background may also taste nice with blueberry. I am thinking I may go for broke. And will check hops before ibu to see how much to add. Thanks I would never have thought about that.

Thanks for your help.

 

[chickypad]

If the original recipe is 7 lb LME plus a 1 lb mini mash for 5 gals that would be about 1.055 depending on the efficiency of that tiny mash. To target the same gravity wtih 5 lb LME it would be a 3.75 gal batch. That's on the higher end for a blonde though so you could certainly do 4 gals aiming for around 1.050-51. Remember the amber DME will have a few more gravity pts than LME, so adding both lbs gets you around 1.058 whereas 1 lb would be more like 1.050 in 5 gals.