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Malt Extract Brewing
The only real difference between brewing this way, and the way
you have been doing it with kits is that there is some boiling
involved. This is a small price to pay for top quality beer made
the way you like it. Essential Equipment The Procedure The basic procedure is probably best understood if related to a specific recipe, so I have listed below a simple recipe and the procedure to follow: Grain and Grape Bitter 2500g Light Malt Extract Step 1 - Mashing The Grain Fill your saucepan to 2/3 of it’s capacity of water and
heat to 72 degrees celsius on your kitchen stove and into this
drop your Crystal Malt in a grain bag. The temperature will drop
back to 66 - 68 degrees. Try to maintain this temperature within
a degree or two for 30 minutes. Step 2 - The Boil Remove the grain bag from the water, squeezing it between two plates to extract the goodies. Turn up the heat and when the water starts to boil, slowly add the malt extract and stir vigorously to avoid any sticking to the bottom of the boiler. Once the malt has dissolved you should immediately add the 30g of Willamette hops. The hops will lower the surface tension of the liquid and thus reduce the chances of a boilover. However, as the liquid returns to the boil you should pay close attention to it to ensure that no boilovers occur. Next add the Malto Dextrin powder, and boil the whole lot for 1 hour. At the 55 minute mark add the Irish Moss.
Turn off the heat to the boiler and add the Goldings hops. Allow
them to soak in the hot wort for 5 minutes, making sure the lid
is placed on the boiler thus trapping the volatile hop oils in
the brew. (a) To bring the temperature down so that the yeast can be pitched
before rogue bacteria can take hold. Although the hot wort appears relatively clear, once the temperature drops below 50 degrees celsius a fine mist like material will be appear and fall to the bottom of the boiler. This is more protein matter and it is our job to try to stop this being transferred into the fermenter. To do this the wort needs to be cooled while it is still in the boiler. This is best done with a piece of copper formed into a coil. The coil is placed into the hot wort and cold water is circulated through the coil and then out to waste. It normally takes 15 to 30 minutes to cool 13 - 15 litres to pitching temperature. To avoid transferring any trub (protein matter) into the fermenter it is wise to locate the tap at least 50 millimetres above the bottom of the boiler. Tapping off from this point reduces the amount of trub and if transferred in conjunction with a filter bag will all but eliminate it. WARNING: Never add the yeast above 24 Degrees Celsius. Ferment as per instructions for particular yeast type. Step 4 - Secondary Fermentation Once your primary fermentation appears to slow you should rack your brew into a secondary fermentation vessel, leaving the sediment in the primary fermentation vessel. This will separate the beer from the yeast in the primary fermenter and will allow it to clear of most of the remaining yeast. This will reduce bottle sediment, and the flavour of your beer will be greatly improved. Finings should be added at this time. Avoid splashing the beer to reduce oxidation. Variations On The Theme The subtle variations that can be made to a recipe are limited only by the imagination. However, a little extra knowledge is required if you are to take full advantage of the range of products available. The techniques required to use the ingredients specified in the recipes below are as follows: Grains and the Mashing Process It is not the intention of this brochure to cover the complete mashing process. Briefly however, it involves the extraction of malt sugars from malted grains. All forms of malted barley, malted wheat and flaked grains should be mashed together. Sugar All sugars required in a recipe including Molasses, Dried Corn Syrup, Dextrose and Lactose should be added to the boil at the same time, as described in the procedure above. Modiferm This is a special enzyme which allows the yeast to ferment sugars which are not normally fermentable. It is used mostly for Dry beers and those suitable for diabetics. Add to the brew 24 hours after fermentation starts. Lager Yeasts All lager yeast should be fermented at low temperatures if possible, 8 to 14 degrees Celsius being the optimum range. You may be surprised to read this, but all commercially brewed lagers are fermented at these temperatures (and lower) and it is the only way to get the true lager palate that makes this style of beer so refreshing and thirst quenching. If this proves to be difficult to achieve, fermentation carried out in an outbuilding during winter will give you the next best thing. The only other thing that you will need is a little bit of patience, as the fermentation process is dramatically slowed at these lower temperatures. So allow a few weeks for your primary fermentation and you will be astounded at the end result. Finings To reduce the amount of time it takes for your beer to clear you should add a beer finer at the secondary fermentation stage. The beer will clear by itself but it could take a very long time. The way these fining agents work is that they physically attach themselves to the yeast cells and their combined weight causes them to drop out. This will take 5 to 7 days. Don't be concerned that there won't be enough yeast left to condition your beer in the bottles. Although the beer appears to be very clear there is still plenty of yeast in suspension to do the job. We hope you find this introduction easy to follow, but if you're still not sure about certain points, we are always available to answer any questions you may have. Recipes We have listed below a number of recipes for you to try. If there isn't, we would be only too happy to formulate one for you. Note: We recommend the use of Irish Moss with all recipes. (2) AUSSIE BITTER (3) DIETALE (4) AUSSIE BLUELIGHT (5) CZECH PILSNER (6) DORTMUND LAGER
(8) DRY (9) LONDON BEST BITTER (10) YORKSHIRE E.S.B (11) INDIA PALE ALE (12) NORTHUMBERLAND BROWN ALE (13) SUFFOLK STRONG ALE (14) BELGIAN DEVIL ALE (15) IRISH STOUT (16) BLACK VELVET MILK STOUT How Much Malt Should I Use? There is an easy rule of thumb to work this out. Based on the malt extract in a beer kit (1.7kg) one can will give you about 2.2 to 2.3 % alcohol in a 23 litre batch which is about 23 to25 points of specific gravity. This rule is OK if you are doing 23 litre batches. If you want to work out how much malt to use in batches that are not 23 litres, check out the formula below. Don't be put off by the formulas that are about to follow, they are simple to use, just have a go. We can work out exactly how much malt to use based on the total solids content of liquid malt extract (LME). LME is 80% or to use the proper term 80 Degrees Brix. Using these numbers we can quickly work out how much malt is required to achieve a certain gravity in a given volume of beer. We can show this with an example: We want to produce a 20 litre batch of German bock beer with a starting SG of 1.072 it is to be an all malt beer using only Light Liquid Malt Extract. Weight of Malt required = 320 (SG of LME in brewers degrees) = 16 (Weight Factor) = 4.5kg of Light Malt extract As you can see it is simply a matter of working out the weight factor and dividing that figure into the required SG. Lets try it again on a 45 litre batch of India Pale Ale at an SG of 1.058 Weight of Malt required = 320 (SG of LME in brewers degrees) = 7.11 (Weight Factor) = 58 (Required SG in brewers degrees) = 8.15kg of Malt extract It is important to note that the total weight of malt has to be
added to the brewing water to make up the required volume, for
example, to make 45 litres at SG 1.058 you have to add the malt
to the water to make up a total volume of 45 litres. If you add
the malt to 45 litres of water the gravity will not be high enough. |
