Wow , lots of good info
But is there a nice fool proof step by step recipe for a rookie like myself to follow ?
I can see myself screw this one up on afew levels with this info .
Thanks again
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Okay here we go
Step one: Take your malted grains and throw em in that big pot of hot water (170-180 degrees F, I would use a pound of base malt per gallon of water. (Some should correct me if this is too much malted grains)
Step two: keep em grains at a steady temperature in between 170-180 for exactly one hour.
Step 3: At the end of the mash, strain out all of your grains and add about 1 cup of cane sugar per gallon of wort, and about 1/2 - 1/4 of molasses per gallon of wort. (It's up to you and your taste buds to figure this one out mostly)
Step four: Cool down your mash via wort chiller, icecube water in your sink, ETC, you get the jist, till it's about room temperature. then funnel it into your choice of bottles (I'm assuming you're using 12 oz beer bottles for this)
Step five: Add your yeast choice! you can go 2 ways with this. You can, one: Add some yeast to your whole mash and wait for the beginning signs of fermentation to start then bottle it, OR two: you can add about 1/8 Tsp of yeast to each bottle of malta. Either way should work well enough.
Step six: Leave all your malta bottles on the counter to bottle carb, (BE CAREFUL ON THIS STEP FOR EXPLODING BOTTLES) when the carbonation is to your liking, put all your bottles in the refrigerator to slow down the yeast cells and make your malta cold.
Step seven: Enjoy your hard labors profits!
Additional information: I use Red Star Champagne yeast for all my soda, it's clean tasting and it goes dormant in the fridge fairly well.
Also, if you plan to put hops in your malta know that a little bit go a long way depending on the hop, I would add them in for the last fifteen or ten minutes of the mash.
And depending on the type of yeast you use, the first way of bottle carbing on step five may or may not leave a yeasty taste in your malta.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask!