I was over the top, gung-ho about brewing during a time when there was nothing to find out about it no where except for in a library. The first book I read about making beer had about nine pages in it. The book was written by a Kangaroon from Australia. The instructions in the book recommended chopping the lids off of a couple of cans of bakers malt and add the syrup to luke warm water, add hops and boil the mixture for 20 minutes, add one pound of table sugar. When cool pour the wort into a crock and add five tablespoons Red Star bakers yeast, cover the crock with a towel to keep out bugs. After 10 days add a teaspoon of table sugar to each bottle and pour in the beer, cap bottles. Keep bottles at 70 to 80F, after 10 days the beer is ready.
Pretty much the same way it's done today. The other eight and a half pages of the book were about smoking a billabong and a game called tie me kangaroos down sport. Then, sometime around 1982 I thought I was dead but I was only in Phx. AZ. sitting in Lunt Avenue Marble Club on Central Ave reading the beer menu when I noticed Thos. Coopers Real Ale, 3 bucks a bottle. I ordered a bottle and noticed there were chunks of stuff floating around in the liquid. My homebrew didn't have chunks or bugs floating around in it so I asked the waitress why the chunks? She said it's the way that real ale is made in Australia and the chunks are vitamins. The book "The King Wears No Clothes" by Hans Christian Anderson instantly came to mind and not wanting to appear like an unworthy, know nothing, dumb ass about kangaroo beer, chunks and vitamins in front of a solid nine I ordered a bunch more Thos. Coopers. I wrote off the chunks as pieces of lint that fell off the towel that covered the fermenting crock. By 8 AM I had a pretty decent buzz on.
I used bakers malt extract before the label on the container was changed to brewers malt extract. Using bakers syrup kept it real because authentic Prohibition style beer was made from bakers malt extract. The best part of the whole thing, my friends thought my beer tasted like crap, I did too, and that's why I let them drink the beer, but later on when I took the stuff to an HB contest everyone liked it. The best part about the first part of the whole thing, when my friends didn't have shekels to buy Ballantine IPA my beer wasn't too crappy.
Malt syrup is the biproduct of tests that are performed on malt. When malt doesn't pass brewers grade standard it's turned into syrup, otherwise, the malt would be heading to a brewery instead of a processing factory. The malt that isn't turned into syrup is used for making whiskey and homebrew.
Marris Otter requires the addition of enzymes to make ale and lager. Marris Otter is used for making whiskey and lacks enzymes needed to make ale and lager. I believe there are four companies producing Marris and one of them is producing low protein malt. Go on line and find out who's making the malt and obtain the spec sheets, the percentage of protein is indicated on a spec sheet. Purchase the low protein malt because the lower the percentage of protein the higher in sugar content. Purchase Alpha-Beta amylase and during the mashing cycle use 140 to 145F for 30 minutes to activate the enzyme, after the rest crank the mash temperature up to 154F for 10 minutes, then up to 162F for 20 minutes. Primary fermentation for 10 days. Rack to secondary for two weeks. Keg without adding priming sugar and begin testing for carbonation after one month. Give it time, the beer will carbonate. Natural carbonation is much finer than the soda pop fizz that priming sugar and CO2 creates. To add body and mouthfeel boil some of the mash and add the boiling mash back into the main mash. Alpha will release A and B limit dextrin from heat resistant, complex starch called amylopectin during dextrinization. A and B limit dextrin are tasteless, nonfermenting types of sugar responsible for body and mouthfeel. The starch ends up in spent mash because the temperatures used with infusion brewing are not high enough to cause the starch to enter into solution before Alpha denatures. It looks like small, white particles in spent mash. Without limit dextrin beer thins out as it ages. I added a rest at 162F to kinda make up for limit dextrin. Alpha releases more sweet tasting, nonfermenting sugar at 162F than glucose which will make the beer sweeter tasting.
A recipe that recommends using malt syrup, fully modified malt, single temperature infusion, only primary fermentation and adding priming sugar or CO2 for carbonation produces beer similar in quality to Prohibition style beer which is easy to make and a quick turn around. Prohibition style beer lacks maltose and maltotriose which are complex types of sugar that form during conversion and are needed in ale and lager. The Beta (conversion) rest is omitted in recipes because the malt lacks Beta amylase. When a Beta rest is omitted secondary fermentation isn't required, and the beer will need to be primed with sugar or CO2 for carbonation.
Fermentation temperatures in the 70 to 80F range are responsible for producing off flavors associated with homebrew.
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