Advice for building a recipe with Muntons Mild Ale and Wheat extract

[sielm]

Hi all,

After several successful batches I have found myself with no $$ for buying mores supplies online. Unfortunately I do not live near any local HBS so I always have to purchase extracts and ingredients on the net. Right now I have some ingredients but I don't know if these would yield some acceptable brew - mind you I won't be able to buy more things for a long while so I am craving for some homebrew action!

My current supplies are limited. I only have 1 can of Muntons Mild Ale (which I have tasted per the recipe, I liked it) and 1 Kg of Wheat DME. I also have around 60 grams (about 2 oz) of Hallertauer 5% AA hops from a previous Weizen I made. For yeasts I only have two strains: Fermentis T58 and S04.

After some thinking, and seeing as my amount of bottles is also limited (I will be able to bottle about 10 or 11 liters at most, or 2.5-3 US gal.) I thought of making a small batch so that I end with a (hopefully drinkable) high gravity and high ABV% ale. From what I have read the T58 would be the best option for the alcohol tolerance. So this is what I have thought (for a 2.5 gal batch):

- Boil around 3 gals of water, dissolving the wheat DME and around 1/2 ounce of hops for 60 minutes.
- Add another 1/2 of hops for the final 3-5 minutes of the boil.
- After 60 minutes, remove from heat and dissolve the Muntons Mild Ale (3.3 lbs hopped dark LME) can at flameout. I could also add more hops in this moment but I don't know if that would be a sound idea: the can is already hopped (though "mildly" hehe) and seeing as this is a small batch maybe adding more hops would be overkill.
- After all that, I expect to end approximately with 2.5 gals worth of wort I can also top off with cold water should the evaporation rate be higher than expected, which would also help with the cooling.

Using a calculator this should be around 1.080 OG, 29 IBUs and color 47 EBC. I see this profile more or less fits the "Strong Scotch Ale" style, although seeing the ingredients it would be more like a "Strong Wheat Hybrid Ale" ehehe.

I have had zero experience with the T58 yeast - I used the S04 on an extract kit before and I did not like the results too much. And I have never brewed a small batch nor a high gravity beer before. My fermenters are 6 gals so I am also a bit worried with having too much headspace for a 2.5 gal batch. Maybe for a such high gravity beer I should use more than 1 dry yeast pack for the batch - but would it be wise to use a T58 and a S04 satchet for the same brew?

Any thoughts on this? Any input would be appreciated - I never enjoyed my previous "experiments" as much as simply using extract kits, but now I am on a tight budget and would love to get a higher ABV drink.

Cheers!

 

[sielm]

Hi all,

After several successful batches I have found myself with no $$ for buying mores supplies online. Unfortunately I do not live near any local HBS so I always have to purchase extracts and ingredients on the net. Right now I have some ingredients but I don't know if these would yield some acceptable brew - mind you I won't be able to buy more things for a long while so I am craving for some homebrew action!

My current supplies are limited. I only have 1 can of Muntons Mild Ale (which I have tasted per the recipe, I liked it) and 1 Kg of Wheat DME. I also have around 60 grams (about 2 oz) of Hallertauer 5% AA hops from a previous Weizen I made. For yeasts I only have two strains: Fermentis T58 and S04.

After some thinking, and seeing as my amount of bottles is also limited (I will be able to bottle about 10 or 11 liters at most, or 2.5-3 US gal.) I thought of making a small batch so that I end with a (hopefully drinkable) high gravity and high ABV% ale. From what I have read the T58 would be the best option for the alcohol tolerance. So this is what I have thought (for a 2.5 gal batch):

- Boil around 3 gals of water, dissolving the wheat DME and around 1/2 ounce of hops for 60 minutes.
- Add another 1/2 of hops for the final 3-5 minutes of the boil.
- After 60 minutes, remove from heat and dissolve the Muntons Mild Ale (3.3 lbs hopped dark LME) can at flameout. I could also add more hops in this moment but I don't know if that would be a sound idea: the can is already hopped (though "mildly" hehe) and seeing as this is a small batch maybe adding more hops would be overkill.
- After all that, I expect to end approximately with 2.5 gals worth of wort I can also top off with cold water should the evaporation rate be higher than expected, which would also help with the cooling.

Using a calculator this should be around 1.080 OG, 29 IBUs and color 47 EBC. I see this profile more or less fits the "Strong Scotch Ale" style, although seeing the ingredients it would be more like a "Strong Wheat Hybrid Ale" ehehe.

I have had zero experience with the T58 yeast - I used the S04 on an extract kit before and I did not like the results too much. And I have never brewed a small batch nor a high gravity beer before. My fermenters are 6 gals so I am also a bit worried with having too much headspace for a 2.5 gal batch. Maybe for a such high gravity beer I should use more than 1 dry yeast pack for the batch - but would it be wise to use a T58 and a S04 satchet for the same brew?

Any thoughts on this? Any input would be appreciated - I never enjoyed my previous "experiments" as much as simply using extract kits, but now I am on a tight budget and would love to get a higher ABV drink.

Cheers!

Well I have decided to go on and try the recipe. I will be able to do so on Monday, so in the meantime I would appreciate any input about brewing a 2.5 gal high gravity batch on a 6 gal fermentor. Also, would you think it is a wise idea to use 1 pack of T58 yeast AND 1 pack of S04? I only have those two packs available, but I am not sure if using both would be a good idea.

Thanks for reading

 

[kaconga]

I ferment 2.5 gallons in 6 gallon containers with no issues. I have never used T58 but I have blended yeast strains before and the beers wasn't bad, I don't think it was great though.

 

[sielm]

Hey all,

Well, after a couple of too busy weeks I decided to brew this up today. Finally I am going to opt for only 1 pack (11,5 gr) of dry Fermentis Safbrew T58 yeast, instead of mixing two strains. I rehydrated the yeast using 0,5 liters of bottled water. After researching I believe this beer would fit into the "Weizenbock" category due to the use of German wheat DME and hops, although the DME can comes from England, so it would be more like an "International Weizenbock" attempt.

I brewed this by dissolving 1kg of wheat DME on slightly less than 4 US gals of water - the intention was to get around 3 gals after boiling, adding the LME and the yeast starter. After this, I "boiled" this wort for 90 minutes with 25 grams of Hallertau Hersbrucker (4,2% AA), adding another 5 grams for the final 10 minutes. I also added half a teaspoon of Wyeast yeast nutrient during the boil.

The original idea was to boil during 60 minutes and adding the last hops at the 5 minute mark. However my stove did not easily handle such a large pot, so I never got a full boil, but instead I got near 95 ºC tops (203 ºF), with bubbles coming from the bottom of the pot. I was not sure if keeping the wort at this temp would be enough to get the desired levels of bitterness and aroma from the hops, so I decided to steep the wort longer, up to 90 minutes instead of the original 60.

After this I poured the contents of the LME can (Muntons Midland Mild Ale hopped LME), using a bit of hot water to get all the contents. After stirring and cooling to pitching temps, I took a sample (1.082 corrected OG) and pitched the yeast starter.

Right now it is sitting on a closet awaiting for the fermentation to start. I am a bit worried about not reaching 100 ºC (212 ºF) for a full boil and the possibility of hops not being properly used. The final volume is roughly 3 US gal (11,5 liters) and it is fermenting on a 6 gal container, which is also a bit of a concern because of the high overhead volume. I plan to ferment this for about 4 weeks at around 23 ºC (74 ºF) and do no secondary.

Will post updates on this one

 

[sielm]

Bottled this on Sunday (so it was just slightly over 1 month in primary). FG was 1.024 so the actual ABV is somewhere between 7.5 and 8 %. Color reminded me of cocacola and I was pretty surprised with the taste - quite alcoholic (hope this mellows with time) but with balanced hop taste and aftertaste.

I was in a hurry, and a friend gave me a bag of Cooper carbonation droplets, so I decided to use them instead of using another vessel to mix the carbonating dilution. I used 1 droplet per 0.5 liter bottle - the droplet instructions said to use 1 per 0.375 liter bottle, but I decided to keep carbonation low.

Will try to take a pic or two after sitting for some weeks. Looks promising