What can I make with the ingredients I have?

[griffinv]

My boyfriend and I have recently taken up home brewing. For our first batch, we did an Irish Red Ale kit from Midwest. It's currently in secondary fermentation (moved there yesterday). Midwest actually accidentally send us a second Irish Red Ale kit by accident and they can't take it back so they just let us keep it... so we were wondering what we could make using the ingredients we have in there (plus a few extras that we could run out and grab at a home brew store we found nearby). We'd like to utilize whatever we can to start another, different, batch. We're open to any and all suggestions!

Here are the ingredients in our kit:

•6 lb. Gold liquid malt extract

•12 oz. Caramel 40L

•2 oz. Special B

•2 oz. Roasted Barley specialty grains

•1 oz. Cascade

•1 oz. Fuggle pellet hops

•Yeast (Packet)




Also, what is the shelf life of these ingredients? The yeast has been in the fridge since we got the kit a few weeks ago.

Thanks!

 

[hillhousesawdustco]

Your ingredients won't go bad anytime soon, especially if they are all sealed. First to go will be the speciality grains (i assume they are pre-ground) but they will still be fine for at least weeks. The hops are best stored in the freezer.

Are the C40, Special B, and Roasted Barley already all mixed together or separate?

 

[DPBISME]

I think you could make a Porter or a Red...

I plugged your stuff in to an online recipe calculator Tastybrew's and came up with the following beer.

OG 1.033
FG 1.008
IBU 31
ABV
3.2
SRM 14​

Cascade at 60 minute boil
Fuggle at 0 minutes and steep.

I have found Tasttbrew under estimates ABV so it should be around a 3.5 and I think it would make a fine "Session" Beer.

DPB

 

[hillhousesawdustco]

I think 6lbs of extract will get you to 1.043 rather than 1.033

 

[woozy]

You can try this tool (untested and unvarified).

As the grains are the quickest to go-- (Will last weeks as a poster noted but you'll probably only have time to do one brew in the next few weeks; If, by chance they are *un*ground they should last much longer) -- I punched in caramel 40L.

I'm actually a bit peeved that it only lets you enter one of each time of ingredient.

You can play with this and maybe you'll find a good match for your grain.

You can always improvise and I'm sure you can use *exactly* your grains and replace your hops for a different beer but being a newbie I don't know how to advise you on that but I'd imagine thousands of others on this board could.

Or you could simple fly blind and see what you get... (Same amount of grain; same amount of extract; same amount of hops will always give you beer...)

======
Actually on further playing, I find that tool rather annoying. You must specify a *specific* ingredient (example; roast barley-- breiss) and it will only list recipes with precisely that ingredient and not recipes with similar grain (example: roated barley-- beeston).

+++++ New advice altogether +++++++

If *I* were in your shoes, I would read this page describing the specialty grains. I would reach the conclusion (and I'm a newbie, so I could be wrong) that my specialty grains are best suited for an amber ale or a brown ale. I'd find recipes for them and compare. Then I'd choose one and replace whatever specialty grain they recommend with mine.

~~~~~~
Suggestion:

My very first batch was an amber ale (although it came out darker and nuttier than I expected) from my LHBS that was good. It was:

6 lbs Amber LME
1 lbs Light DME

8 oz. Special B (probably why it was so nutty???)
4 oz. Carared (German 40 L)
4 oz. Caramunich

3/4 oz Super Galena (bittering)
1 on Nugget (aroma)

Yeast (they suggest Nottingham Ale Yeast (dry) or English Ale Yeast WLp002 (liquid) or Dry English Ale Yeast WLP007 (liquid))

I imagine (but again, I'm just a newbie), that if you replaced this recipes grains with your grains it would be just fine. (Also mine was really, really dark so you could replace some of the Amber LME with your Golden LME.)

A suggestion.

 

[griffinv]

Your ingredients won't go bad anytime soon, especially if they are all sealed. First to go will be the speciality grains (i assume they are pre-ground) but they will still be fine for at least weeks. The hops are best stored in the freezer.

Are the C40, Special B, and Roasted Barley already all mixed together or separate?

Thanks! The specialty grains are indeed pre-ground. The C40, Special B and Roasted Barley are all mixed together.

 

[griffinv]

You can try this tool (untested and unvarified).

As the grains are the quickest to go-- (Will last weeks as a poster noted but you'll probably only have time to do one brew in the next few weeks; If, by chance they are *un*ground they should last much longer) -- I punched in caramel 40L.

I'm actually a bit peeved that it only lets you enter one of each time of ingredient.

You can play with this and maybe you'll find a good match for your grain.

You can always improvise and I'm sure you can use *exactly* your grains and replace your hops for a different beer but being a newbie I don't know how to advise you on that but I'd imagine thousands of others on this board could.

Or you could simple fly blind and see what you get... (Same amount of grain; same amount of extract; same amount of hops will always give you beer...)

======
Actually on further playing, I find that tool rather annoying. You must specify a *specific* ingredient (example; roast barley-- breiss) and it will only list recipes with precisely that ingredient and not recipes with similar grain (example: roated barley-- beeston).

+++++ New advice altogether +++++++

If *I* were in your shoes, I would read this page describing the specialty grains. I would reach the conclusion (and I'm a newbie, so I could be wrong) that my specialty grains are best suited for an amber ale or a brown ale. I'd find recipes for them and compare. Then I'd choose one and replace whatever specialty grain they recommend with mine.

~~~~~~
Suggestion:

My very first batch was an amber ale (although it came out darker and nuttier than I expected) from my LHBS that was good. It was:

6 lbs Amber LME
1 lbs Light DME

8 oz. Special B (probably why it was so nutty???)
4 oz. Carared (German 40 L)
4 oz. Caramunich

3/4 oz Super Galena (bittering)
1 on Nugget (aroma)

Yeast (they suggest Nottingham Ale Yeast (dry) or English Ale Yeast WLp002 (liquid) or Dry English Ale Yeast WLP007 (liquid))

I imagine (but again, I'm just a newbie), that if you replaced this recipes grains with your grains it would be just fine. (Also mine was really, really dark so you could replace some of the Amber LME with your Golden LME.)

A suggestion.

Thank you for your advice. I'm a newbie, too, (first batch isn't even finished yet!) so I appreciate any suggestions from all the different ranges of experience that post here. I'll look into your suggestions. As noted in my response above, some of the ingredients came pre-mixed and I didn't realize they were listed separately until now. May change things a little as far as what I am able to make with it.

 

[hillhousesawdustco]

There are definitely a zillion ways you can go from here, so figure out what YOU want to drink. You can easily make a completely different beer by switching up the hops and/or adding additional grains to steep. The 6lbs of gold extract can be used as a base for almost any kind of ale. I think you can easily get to a porter by adding a little dark extract and some chocolate malt or something like that. You could replace your steeping grains with just a bit of crystal 40, double your hops, and make a delicious pale ale.

Here is something I recommend for a new brewer- brew almost the exact same recipe, but change one variable. It is AMAZING how different the exact same beer will taste simply by using a different yeast strain. Or you could swap the Cascade and Fuggles and see what that does to the bitterness, flavor, and aroma of the beer. As you brew more you'll be able to anticipate what changing variables will do to your finished product, which makes it a lot of fun to experiment with making your own recipes.

All that said, if you have a particular type of beer you want to brew, let us know and I'm sure we can help you put something together.

 

[DPBISME]

I think 6lbs of extract will get you to 1.043 rather than 1.033

You might be correct... I could have plugged in the wrong numbers or it is off like I said.

I just bought BeerSmith and found that all of my recent beers where I used TastyBrew's calculator were were much hightr gravity than planned.

I have been geting snockered off what were supposed to be session beers.

I had not been taking OG and FG readings and just trusted the software to get me close...

 

[griffinv]

We're big fans of porters, so we'd like to try that next.

 

[hillhousesawdustco]

You could get pretty close to a decent porter by using your stock recipe plus a couple additions.

I think if you add a pound of malt extract (dark), as well as steeping 1/2lb chocolate malt and a 1/4lb black patent malt WITH the steeping grains you already have then you will get a pretty nice base for a porter.

Add your cascade at the very beginning of the boil and then your fuggles with 45 minutes to go. Someone else might can check on the IBUs of that but I think it is close to porter range.

Best of luck!

 

[chickypad]

Playing around in Beersmith I think something like this would work for a porter and be minimal extra ingredients to buy, i.e. 1 lb chocolate, .75 oz magnum or other high alpha hop, and 1 lb light DME:

Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 33.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 41.1 IBUs

1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) 11.1 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) 8.3 %
2.1 oz Roasted Barley (500.0 SRM) 1.4 %
2.1 oz Special B Malt (147.0 SRM) 1.4 %
1 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) 11.1 %
6 lbs Golden Liquid Extract (4.0 SRM) 66.6 %
0.75 oz Magnum [14.70 %] - Boil 60.0 min 31.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Fuggles [5.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min 7.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min 3.1 IBUs


These calcs are assuming you do a partial boil and top off with about 2 gallons of water post boil. I also just used the last AA% that I had in inventory for the hops, might be slight adjustments based on what you get but probably not enough to make a big difference. You could also swap the fuggles and cascade, or not get Magnum and just use cascade to bitter (with Fuggles as a late addition) but I think you'll need an ounce or two more cascade. I'm also a fan of using all light extract and adding your own specialty grains.

 

[JimRausch]

Checked in Hopville.
If you add 6oz. more of Roast Barley(total=8oz) Or 1 lb. of Brown Malt then you've got a Porter. The brown malt would make it more portery (if that's a word).
OR, if you add another 14oz Roasted Barley(total 1lb) plus 1.5 lb DME, then you'll have a Forein Export Stout(think guiness type)
Add the Cascades at 60 min and the fuggles at 30 min for either.

 

[JimRausch]

To answer your 2nd Q:
The dry yeast packet stored in the fridge will last a year or more.
The ground grains stored in the freezer will last months.
The hops, stored in the freezer will also last months.
The LME stored at room temp will last a couple months. Longer if you keep it in the fridge.

 

[jonmohno]

Esb with what you got.