Recipe with dme and all-grain?

[conal]

I have some ingredients inherited from a friend; I normally just brew with festa or brewhouse full wort kits, so I want to try an all grain or at least partial, but I have just a few ingredient and no access to a homebrew store until August. Here's what I have ...

 

[conal]

1 lb muntons light dme
1 lb muntons dark dme
1 lb choc malt
1 lb biscuit malt
2 lb crystal malt
2oz cascade pellets
2oz hallertau pellets
Tons of Nottingham ale dry yeast from danstar

Anything I can make with any combination of this?

 

[conal]

I also have access to corn sugar ... I'm worried I don't have enough malt/fermentables for a 5-gal batch...

 

[bulhonkey6]

In brewtarget using all your fermentables you would only make at best a 1.04 pt beer at 5gallons. But why not do say 3-4 gallons? I've never brewed with like, 60% specialty grains, and am not sure exactly what that would do to the flavor. I would definitely skip doing whole grain though, and just steep the grains and add the DME to the boil. Using these grains you would most likely be making a stout/porter, so I'd go light on the hops, maybe 1oz hallertau @ 15mins and 1oz cascade @10mins.

Otherwise, I'd just wait till you can get some more ingredients.

 

[sptaylor70]

If you're willing to brew a small batch, you could get a faux Duesseldorf altibier out of it.

Volume - 1.5 gal.

Fermentables
1 lb. Light DME
1 lb. Dark DME

Hops
0.5 oz. Hallertau 60 minutes
0.5 oz. Hallertau 15 minutes
0.5 oz. Hallertau 10 minutes
0.5 oz. Hallertau 5 minutes

Yeast
1/2 packet Nottingham

OG 1058, FG 1015, ABV 5.5, IBU 49, SRM 23

 

[conal]

Thanks for the ideas! I like the idea of making a small batch ... I also have a few prehopped extract cans of muntons blonde and muntons pilsner that I never got around to making ... Could I make one of those, say, the pilsner and boil with some of the chocolate malt and hallertau? Would that get me somewhat close to some kind of Munich dark lager or dunkel ? Any thoughts on that? I've got lots of empty vessels and just want to make as much beer as I can until my next trip to a "local" hbs... 4 hr drive south of here...

 

[sptaylor70]

I've had students do something like add a pound of light DME to a light beer to give it a little more heft. You could add some crystal to each of, or both, kits. You'd wind up with slightly punchier, maltier, sweeter versions of the kits. I'd hesitate to do too much to the kits, though, since you don't know too much about what's in them, and just how sweet or hoppy they are.

If the goal is to make as much beer as possible, then you'd make the faux altbier, the blonde ale kit, and the pilsner kit. That would give you 11.5 gallons in three styles, with a little leftover hops and some leftover specialty grains for your next batch.

As for your LHBS, if you object to driving, you can order online. Austin Homebrew, Northern Brewer, Amazon.com, etc. If you plan three or four batches ahead, you can amortize the shipping costs down to a reasonable price. Restricts you to dry yeast some, but there are several good dry yeasts (like the Nottingham that you already have).

 

[conal]

I also have two muntons hopped beer kit cans I would never otherwise use so I came up with two recipe ideas ...
1 can muntons blonde extract kit (end of boil)
.5 lb dark dry malt extract
.5 lb biscuit malt
.5 lb crystal 75
.5 lb choc malt
1oz @ 60 min hallertau
1oz @ 12 min hallertau
Nottingham yeast

Beer smith has this matching a dunkel in style...

Then I took the exact same recipe but with a muntons red ale extract kit, light dry malt instead of dark, and with cascade hops instead of hallertau... And it comes out matching a nutbrown...

Any modifications to my experiment that you might recommend ?? What do you think ?

 

[Mozart]

I've never brewed with like, 60% specialty grains, and am not sure exactly what that would do to the flavor.

It's my understanding that it would make the end product overly sweet.

 

[sptaylor70]

You can do what you like, obviously, but that's a lot of biscuit and chocolate. After two poor choices on my part, I share Yooper's (administrator) view that this much biscuit is generous. If you want it in a supporting role, then cut the biscuit in half. The dark DME is going to give you plenty of roasted flavor. The chocolate isn't going to add anything that you're not already getting there, but might give you too much of it. And keep in mind that your kit and the DME already have crystal in them. You could cut that down to 4 oz. (or less) as well.