Help! Question about Extract

[hickaseer]

it will be fine. the sugar produces alcohol and not much else. so it drys out your beer. the malt will add more flavor as well as more alcohol. not bitterness. its more of the smooth, round, full flavor. the bitterness comes from the hops. the amount of extract suggested will not make the beer "crazy strong". it would take much more extract than that. good luck on your first brew!!

thanks dog

 

[rycov]

Dude seriously: you are brewing your first batch so chill out and take some advice. The extract is just more gourmet than corn sugar. It used to be banned in German beer (corn sugar). Don't know if that still holds. What's that tell you?

so was anything that wasn't malt hops yeast or water. whats that tell you?

 

[rycov]

tells you the germans are dicks

 

[Pie_Man]

Hickaseer, good luck on your first brew. Besides taking the advice already given, I'd suggest picking up a home brew book like "The joy of home brewing" or "How to brew". Even the first few chapters will help for your first brew. That plus reading posts on this forum have really helped me understand the brewing process. On brew day, have your instructions and recipe in front of you, keep everything sanitary, and you'll be fine.

 

[hickaseer]

Hickaseer, good luck on your first brew. Besides taking the advice already given, I'd suggest picking up a home brew book like "The joy of home brewing" or "How to brew". Even the first few chapters will help for your first brew. That plus reading posts on this forum have really helped me understand the brewing process. On brew day, have your instructions and recipe in front of you, keep everything sanitary, and you'll be fine.

thanks dude, hopefully it comes out alright. I appreciate the advice

 

[robthefrog]

Good luck on your first brew man. Get yourself a Hydrometer at some point in your brewing career. It'll help you measure the Original Gravity(OG) before fermentation and the Final Gravity (FG) once fermentation is complete. Those two numbers can be used to give you the alcohol percentage of the beer. In general, the more fermentables you put in the wort, the more alcoholic the beer will be. Like others have said, there are many fermentables including but not limited to Corn Sugar, Table Sugar, DME, LME, Honey.... All have various effects on the mouthfeel, taste, and alcohol percentages. Going with DME is a rather expensive choice considering LME(If it's fresh) can be just as good and can be a lot less expensive. If you don't care about flavor (ME when I started brewing) You can get a coopers can and add 4 pounds of corn sugar to it and get a average alcohol percentage and call it a day... But that gets old. Hopefully you'll find that beer making is a little more than just trying to get a high alcohol percentage. Some of the best beers I've tasted have been lower than average alcohol... Just my ramblings. Just remember, you will make mistakes on your first batch, but the important thing is not to freak out. I still make mistakes to this day and I get pretty good beer Happy brewing, friend!

 

[unionrdr]

Ok,1st of all,the cooper's cans are designed to be brewed to 23L,or 6.072 gallons. The 3 brew enhancers have differing constituents. Their brewing sugar is 80% dextrose,20% maltodextrine. Their brew enhancer 1 is 60/40. Their brew enhancer 2 is 500g of dextrose,250g maltodextrin,& 250g light DME.
Having said that,I used;
1) OS dark ale can,1.7kg,or about 3.462lbs
1) 3lb bag Munton's plain amber DME (keeps the color dark with ruby glint & doesn't make that bitter roasty flavor dark DME would)
1oz Kent Golding hops
1oz Willamette hops
Cooper's ale yeast re-hydrated
Brewed to 23L
The cooper's ales are English derived with some tweaks over the centuries. That's why I used Munton's DME,it's English malts. The hops are English,as that's also traditional. It should give about 5.3%ABV. That's about what I get. My Whiskely ale I made from it was 5.9%. This recipe reminded me of a dark cream ale with a little bit of that toasty flavor. Pretty good one I'd say.

 

[hickaseer]

Ok,1st of all,the cooper's cans are designed to be brewed to 23L,or 6.072 gallons. The 3 brew enhancers have differing constituents. Their brewing sugar is 80% dextrose,20% maltodextrine. Their brew enhancer 1 is 60/40. Their brew enhancer 2 is 500g of dextrose,250g maltodextrin,& 250g light DME.
Having said that,I used;
1) OS dark ale can,1.7kg,or about 3.462lbs
1) 3lb bag Munton's plain amber DME (keeps the color dark with ruby glint & doesn't make that bitter roasty flavor dark DME would)
1oz Kent Golding hops
1oz Willamette hops
Cooper's ale yeast re-hydrated
Brewed to 23L
The cooper's ales are English derived with some tweaks over the centuries. That's why I used Munton's DME,it's English malts. The hops are English,as that's also traditional. It should give about 5.3%ABV. That's about what I get. My Whiskely ale I made from it was 5.9%. This recipe reminded me of a dark cream ale with a little bit of that toasty flavor. Pretty good one I'd say.

I'm adding 3 lbs of Light DME and no hopps, since it's pre-hopped and this is my first brew. I need to heat up the can before I add it so it pours better, eh?

 

[unionrdr]

All Cooper's OS cans have a little bit of bittering only with Pride of Ringwood hops. So adding 3lbs of plain dme will reduce the bittering quality a bit. & since it has NO flavor/aroma hop additions,you're doing such additions re-balances the brew. They're made that way on purpose so you can experiment with what you like. I wish they'd actually come out & say that. And light DME is ok,but will lighten the color a bit,not to mention,water down the flavor,ime. That's why I used 3lbs of plain amber DME in my dark ale recipe. It preserves some of that wee bit of toastiness it should have. And gives it a nice ruby glint.

 

[rycov]

tl;dr.

but still i would probably go with what unionrdr suggests, just because i know he uses (used?) a lot of the cooper stuff, so he probably knows how to make them good.

 

[hickaseer]

All Cooper's OS cans have a little bit of bittering only with Pride of Ringwood hops. So adding 3lbs of plain dme will reduce the bittering quality a bit. & since it has NO flavor/aroma hop additions,you're doing such additions re-balances the brew. They're made that way on purpose so you can experiment with what you like. I wish they'd actually come out & say that. And light DME is ok,but will lighten the color a bit,not to mention,water down the flavor,ime. That's why I used 3lbs of plain amber DME in my dark ale recipe. It preserves some of that wee bit of toastiness it should have. And gives it a nice ruby glint.

Well as of last Thursday, my first batch has been in the primary fermenter. A few hiccups during the process, but I suppose it's a learning process as it's my first batch. I didnt realize how long it takes to cool the wort w/o a chiller, and I had to boil my additional water which took forever to cool (even though I'm in Minnesota!)

Hopefully my stuff didn't get contaminated. I went to Wisconsin over the weekend and checked it on Monday and it fermented so much there was wort in the airlock and bubbling over, so I quickly cleaned it and put it back, another mistake?

She's still bubbling away. Figure I will ferment for 2 weeks and then bottle and let sit another 2.

 

[unionrdr]

It'll likely take more than 2 weeks to get down to a stable FG. then 3-5 days more to clean up & settle out more. And 2 weeks in the bottle isn't usually enough. 3 weeks is minimum average for it to carbonate. But 4 or 5 weeks to condition to where it tastes really good. Trust me.

 

[hickaseer]

It'll likely take more than 2 weeks to get down to a stable FG. then 3-5 days more to clean up & settle out more. And 2 weeks in the bottle isn't usually enough. 3 weeks is minimum average for it to carbonate. But 4 or 5 weeks to condition to where it tastes really good. Trust me.

So I just finished bottling my first batch. The hydrometer reading was in the right "green zone" on the reader, but how do I know what the APV is? The reading was like 1.8?

 

[Pie_Man]

(sg - fg) * 131