Making mystery brew - would you mix these extracts?

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rockout

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Hi all, we have some ingredients left over from various purchases and brews, and we figure it's time to toss them all together and make a mystery brew before we get serious again. We're fans of the IPAs we've made so far and so going for a high-gravity hoppy brew here works for us.

I just wanted to ask for opinions on whether mixing these 3 batches of extracts will produce something utterly repulsive or not:

3 lb Extra-Lite DME
2.1 lbs Wheat DME
3.3 lbs Gold Barley Malt LME

We also have plenty of steeping grains, if you have the time, can you recommend which of these (more the merrier!) we should steep?

1 lb Belgian Biscuit Malt
1 lb Briess Carapils
.38 lbs Chocolate Wheat
3 lbs Crystal
1 lb Dingeman's Special B
.55 lbs German Vienna

Finally, we're going to throw in pretty much all our remaining hops, timed according to which are bittering and which are aroma, we have an ounce each of these but like I said, I think they're all going in.

Cascade, Challenger, Crystal, Galena, Hallertau, UK Phoenix

Thanks for any and all advice!!!:mug:
 
Hi all, we have some ingredients left over from various purchases and brews, and we figure it's time to toss them all together and make a mystery brew before we get serious again. We're fans of the IPAs we've made so far and so going for a high-gravity hoppy brew here works for us.

I just wanted to ask for opinions on whether mixing these 3 batches of extracts will produce something utterly repulsive or not:

3 lb Extra-Lite DME
2.1 lbs Wheat DME
3.3 lbs Gold Barley Malt LME

We also have plenty of steeping grains, if you have the time, can you recommend which of these (more the merrier!) we should steep?

1 lb Belgian Biscuit Malt
1 lb Briess Carapils
.38 lbs Chocolate Wheat
3 lbs Crystal
1 lb Dingeman's Special B
.55 lbs German Vienna

Finally, we're going to throw in pretty much all our remaining hops, timed according to which are bittering and which are aroma, we have an ounce each of these but like I said, I think they're all going in.

Cascade, Challenger, Crystal, Galena, Hallertau, UK Phoenix

Thanks for any and all advice!!!:mug:
I think steeping 1 pound of the Crystal, and the Biscuit along with that extract would make a malty profile unheard of by the likes of man! Sounds alot like the Multi-National IPA I made a couple weeks ago. I love bucking the styles, makes for interesting beer. Best of luck!
EDIT-> as for your hops, I'd drop them in in about the same order you have them, switching the UKP and Hallertau around.
 
i'm no expert, but here's what i came up with in beersmith (just the grain bill):

3.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 26.32 %
2.10 lb Wheat Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 18.42 %
3.30 lb Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 28.95 % (i couldn't find the "gold barley")
1.00 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 8.77 %
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 8.77 %
1.00 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 8.77 %

Potential OG of 1.083 with 75% efficiency.

This puts you in the hunt for a belgian dark strong ale, it's a little over the top on SRM at 22.3 (category is 12.0-22.0), but who cares. the wheat will add an interesting dimension as well i bet.

use something like wyeast 1388 or another belgian yeast that can handle higher ABV.

IBU for the category is 20-35, which it sounds like you'll be above, but it's an experiment, right?

whatever you do, let us know how it turns out! :mug:
 
Hey thanks for the quick reply.

I think steeping 1 pound of the Crystal, and the Biscuit along with that extract would make a malty profile unheard of by the likes of man!

Since it does seem we have a lot of malt for a 5 gallon batch, would you recommend going to 5.5 gallons or even 6? I have the fermenters to do that if needed.
 
I'd use all the extract, a quarter pound of the Carapils.

Phoenix for 60
Galena for 45 or 60
Crystal and Challenger at flameout or 2 minutes
Dry hop the Cascade

I'd pitch a pack of 1056
 
Hey thanks for the quick reply.



Since it does seem we have a lot of malt for a 5 gallon batch, would you recommend going to 5.5 gallons or even 6? I have the fermenters to do that if needed.

Stay at 5 and go for high gravity madness! I absolutely love high OG brews. The get the huge ABV% and a malty flavor you just cannot get with out the big numbers.
 
as for your hops, I'd drop them in in about the same order you have them, switching the UKP and Hallertau around.

I thought bittering should be boiled longest and aroma hops the shortest?

I could be way wrong about this hop profile I worked out, but here it is, please feel free to correct me:

1 oz Galena 60 min
1 oz UK Phoenix 30 min
1 oz Challenger 15 min
1 oz Cascade 5 min
1 oz Crystal 1 min
1 oz Hallertau at flameout

Additionally, I'll still have 1/2 oz of hallertau for dry-hopping.

If this is retarded, someone please tell me what you would do instead! Thanks.
 
I thought bittering should be boiled longest and aroma hops the shortest?

I could be way wrong about this hop profile I worked out, but here it is, please feel free to correct me:

1 oz Galena 60 min
1 oz UK Phoenix 30 min
1 oz Challenger 15 min
1 oz Cascade 5 min
1 oz Crystal 1 min
1 oz Hallertau at flameout

Additionally, I'll still have 1/2 oz of hallertau for dry-hopping.

If this is retarded, someone please tell me what you would do instead! Thanks.

Point taken, got the AA% of Galena and the Phoenix wrong, my bad. This schedule sounds better, sorry about that. The fruity Cascade followed by the Hallertau, this is starting to sound really tasty.:D
 
If this is retarded, someone please tell me what you would do instead! Thanks.

That's a LOT of hops. I'm not sure that would play well against a pound of Special B.

I'm running the numbers through BeerAlchemy; if you're planning a full boil, I would expect 1.069 OG, 17 SRM, 96 IBU. You're not going to get very good extraction (I guessed 50%) from those grains without some diastatic malt.
 
Thanks for the input, everyone, as I am in uncharted territory.

Yes, we are planning a full boil. We like the hops, a lot, so I would rather be adding slightly too many than not enough. Would you fix the problem by skipping the Special B, and maybe using one of my other steeping grains?

What does "without some diastatic malt" mean?
 
Your Vienna, for example, is a base malt with diastatic enzymes. Biscuit in particular needs to be converted (from starch to sugar) in a mash (with base malt). Crystal malts (including Carapils and Special B) are mostly pre-converted in the husk, but still can benefit from a mash.

If you don't want to buy more grain, you could mash just the Vienna and Biscuit, then steep the crystal.

Here's what I suggest:

Code:
Ingredient	Amount	%	MCU	When
Belgian Biscuit Malt	 1lb 0oz	 8.0 %	 3.8	 In Mash/Steeped
US Carapils Malt	 1lb 0oz	 8.0 %	 0.2	 In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 60L Malt	 1lb 0oz	 8.0 %	 10.3	 In Mash/Steeped
US Vienna Malt   	 8.80 oz	 4.4 %	 0.3	 In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Special B	 8.00 oz	 4.0 %	 12.7	 In Mash/Steeped
Light Dried Malt Extract	 3lb 0oz	 24.1 %	 1.6	 Start Of Boil
Light Liquid Malt Extract	 3lb 5oz	 26.5 %	 1.9	 End Of Boil
Bavarian Wheat Dried Extract	 2lb 2oz	 16.9 %	 2.9	 End Of Boil

Ferment with WLP530/WY3787 -- like a dark Houblon Chouffe! Consider feeding it about a pound of sugar (as a simple syrup) when the ferment is almost complete.
 
Also what kind of crystal?Theres a big difference from 10l to 120l
 
Also what kind of crystal?Theres a big difference from 10l to 120l

Good point Joos - I didn't want to confuse things too much because one bag is 10L, one is 20L, and one came from somewhere unknown and is labeled "Crystal" but nothing else.
 
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