Make a recipe from my left over ingredients

[bamaster]

Hello all,

I have some ingredients laying around, but I am not sure how to make something out of them. I was hoping someone could recommend a recipe with what I have.

• 3 Lbs plain extra light DME (I know this isn't enough)
• 1 lb of Belgian Special B Malt
• 16 oz Briess Caramel 120L Malt
• 16 oz Briess Caramel 40L Malt
• 16 oz English Roasted Barley Malt
• 16 oz Briess Bonlander Munich Malt
• 3 oz Centennial Hops
• 1 oz US Northern Brewer Hops
• 1 oz Saaz Hops
• 2 packets Safbrew Abbaye dry yeast

I don't know what my alternatives are for DME (LME/DME it's hard for me to get). Maybe plain dextrose?

Type of beer I like are generally ales... pale, red, blondes, etc. But whatever I can make would be fine. I'm hoping to make one 5 gallon batch.

Any recommendations?

 

[ChelisHubby]

if you can get some 2 row you could do a mini mash. What you have right now will make a 4% beer I would use the all of the munich and 8 ounces of 40 and 4 ounces of the 120 and it would make a nice brown beer and I would hop it to 20 Ibu with the northern brewer. I have never used your yeast but it will make beer. If you want it stronger make a 4 gallon batch.

 

[chickypad]

Since you have the Belgian yeast you could do a Belgian ale of some sort boosting the gravity with sugar. I think you could still use a few lb base malt though, pilsner if you can. Otherwise if no access to grain I'd drop the batch size to 4 gal and do something like this, doing a little mini mash to get as much from the munich as you can:

1 lbs Borlander Munich Malt
10.0 oz Special B Malt
3 lbs DME
1 lbs Cane Sugar
1.00 oz Saaz 60.0 min

Don't know the AA of your Saaz but I get estimates in Beersmith of 1.055, 18 IBU, color 14 SRM. So an amber colored Belgian ale around 6%.

 

[bamaster]

if you can get some 2 row you could do a mini mash. What you have right now will make a 4% beer I would use the all of the munich and 8 ounces of 40 and 4 ounces of the 120 and it would make a nice brown beer and I would hop it to 20 Ibu with the northern brewer. I have never used your yeast but it will make beer. If you want it stronger make a 4 gallon batch.

I like your idea of brewing a 4 gallon batch.

Since you have the Belgian yeast you could do a Belgian ale of some sort boosting the gravity with sugar. I think you could still use a few lb base malt though, pilsner if you can. Otherwise if no access to grain I'd drop the batch size to 4 gal and do something like this, doing a little mini mash to get as much from the munich as you can:

1 lbs Borlander Munich Malt
10.0 oz Special B Malt
3 lbs DME
1 lbs Cane Sugar
1.00 oz Saaz 60.0 min

Don't know the AA of your Saaz but I get estimates in Beersmith of 1.055, 18 IBU, color 14 SRM. So an amber colored Belgian ale around 6%.

I got my ingredients from Northern Brewer website. Here's my hops. NB's brand, I think.

I think I"m going to give this a go. I'll report my results!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Special B is a very dark, very strong crystal malt. 10 oz is way too much IMO. I use about 2oz in a 5 gal batch. Great raisin, pit fruit, rich flavors but easy to overdo it

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Mini mash with Munich, 5oz C40, 3oz Special B for 30 minutes at about 150 (.5 gallon of water around 155-7 should get you there)
Start your boil with as close to 5 gallons as your kettle will hold and .5 oz of Northern Brewer as FWH. Toss in the DME & sugar at 10 minutes. 1 oz Saaz as flameout/ whirlpool hops. Should get you a 4 gallon batch of 1054, 24 IBU Belgian Pale ale wort!
You could also bump the hops for a Belgian IPA...I think Centennial would be awesome in that 🍻

 

[chickypad]

I didn't expect the Saaz to be that high AA, you'll want to drop the 60 min addition to 0.5 oz or so. You could throw in the rest at flameout if you want.

It is a lot of special B, but a dark Belgian ale is one style that I think can take it and I've gone up to 10% before. If you're worried though OP you could drop that in half and add some dark candi syrup or sugar.

 

[Kharnynb]

make some candi sugar or buy some and you'd get a bit more "belgian" flavour.

 

[Lefou]

Holy crap, Batman!
The one ounce packets of YCH Saaz pellet hops in my 'fridge are listed as 2.2AAU.

 

[bamaster]

But that Special B smells so good!

I was looking at one of my favorite beer kits, Flat Tire (Fat Tire clone). Here's its recipe:

6 lb. Light liquid malt extract
8 oz. Special B
8 oz. Caramel 120L
8 oz. Bonlander Munich specialty grains
1 oz. Northern Brewer
1 oz. Saaz pellet hops

Even with this recipe, the Saaz is added 2 minutes from flameout.

I have everything except the extra 3 lb. of malt extract. (I have 3 lb of DME, not LME) I'm not sure about candi sugar. In the part of the world where I am, brewing supplies are *ahem* difficult to get. But I can get most any kind of sugar (white/cane/brown/tubinado) or syrups or honeys.

I don't mind dialing down the ingredients for a 4 gallon batch. And it's ok if it's not a big beer. For 4 gallons, could I just add 1 lb of cane sugar or turbinado?

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I'd use the turbinado or a palm sugar. I guess I need to experiment with higher % of Special B!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

And use all the Munich as that's the only base malt you have on hand. Should have enough diastatic power to convert itself and the specialty malts you have...Still seems like a lot of freakin crystal malt to me!

 

[chickypad]

Yeah you can get pretty close to that clone recipe with what you have - except for the Belgian yeast. If you want to go for it, 6 lb of LME equals only 4.8 lbs of DME. Then if you drop that to a 4 gal batch it would be like 3.84 lbs, so you're just 13 oz short. Like TANSTAAFB said use the whole lb of munich, then adding 8 oz of sugar should get you close. It is quite a bit of dark crystal as mentioned, plus you're dropping it to 4 gals. You might consider swapping out the c-120 completely for c-40, which I think is a more reasonable combo for an amber ale. I'd plug it into a calculator and figure out how much NB to use at 60 to match the recipe IBU's.

 

[ChelisHubby]

But that Special B smells so good!

I was looking at one of my favorite beer kits, Flat Tire (Fat Tire clone). Here's its recipe:

6 lb. Light liquid malt extract
8 oz. Special B
8 oz. Caramel 120L
8 oz. Bonlander Munich specialty grains
1 oz. Northern Brewer
1 oz. Saaz pellet hops

Even with this recipe, the Saaz is added 2 minutes from flameout.

I have everything except the extra 3 lb. of malt extract. (I have 3 lb of DME, not LME) I'm not sure about candi sugar. In the part of the world where I am, brewing supplies are *ahem* difficult to get. But I can get most any kind of sugar (white/cane/brown/tubinado) or syrups or honeys.

I don't mind dialing down the ingredients for a 4 gallon batch. And it's ok if it's not a big beer. For 4 gallons, could I just add 1 lb of cane sugar or turbinado?

One lb of your choice of sugar will be fine with what you are trying to do.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

If you bump the Special B and C40 to 8oz each and keep the turbinado at 1# you get a starting gravity of 1056 and IBU of 23.5-personally I'd bump the IBU by increasing the Northern Brewer...Going up to 1oz gets you to about 40 IBU. All 4 gallon batch. Bump it to 4.5 and you still get 1050 and 36ish which is the way I'd go

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I might just have to make this! 🤘

 

[Kharnynb]

make your own candi syrup/sugar:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=114837

btw, if you can't get DAP where you are, you can use ammonium bicarbonate/Salt of Hartshorn