First time adding grains to extract

[milliner1986]

Hi guys been reading a lot through these post on this forum ever since i started brewing and has helped me heaps. I have never had to post before as I'd usually found everything I need by flicking through for hours.

After doing K & K brewing for a year and a bit, I have added the odd hop bag here and there but i wanna get a bit more adventurous. I found this recepie posted by Chris which I'd love to give a go:-

*Quote*

A very good kit recipe uses the Coopers real ale kit, LDM, crystal and some willamette hops. Firstly, I'd like to point out that I am very biased towards willamette- it is a fantastic hop.

Ok, so if you like amber ales this'll be a winner. It has a lot of flavour.

1 can Coopers real ale
1kg LDM (or a can of pale malt extract)
250g crystal/caramalt
14g willamette (boil for 20min)
10g willamette (steep in hot wort for 2min)
Irish moss tablets
safale s-04
water up to 20L

1) steep the crystal in 4L of water at a temp of 65*C for 20-30mins
2) strain the liquid into a big pot
3) add the contents of the Coopers can and the malt (either liquid or dry malt) to the pot, and add about 4L of water (more water is better than less)
4) bring the liquid to the boil
5) after about 40mins of vigourous boil, add the 14g of hop pellets- stir.
6) 10mins before the end of the boil, add 1/2 of a tablet of Irish moss- break it up in your fingers as you add it. Stir
7) 20mins after adding the hops, turn your stove off (take it off the element if using an electric stove)
add the 10g of steeping hops
strain the liquid into your fermenter and add water up to 20L
9) add yeast when the wort is at the appropriate pitching temperature.


*Unquote*

My question is when steeping the grains do i have to keep the temp at 65*C for the whole 20-30mins? If so what is the best way to acheive this? Could I keep the pot on the stove and adjust temp accordingly or do i need an esky like I've seen in other posts. Option A would be better for me as all my eskys have been used for fishing and I'd have to buy another one.

Also I do not have a wort chiller what would be the best way to get wort down to pitching temp? Does it really matter if I put wort in fermenter with airlock and keep in my brewfridge overnight?

All your wealth of information would be greatly appreciated.

[chadjaja]

Why would you boil the contents of the coppers real ale can? That would destroy an hop aroma etc in it.

Not familiar with this recipe but if you are going to boil a kit you might as well swap it for a can of unhopped malt extract and go full extract rather than kit and bits.

I see no need to boil vigorously for 40 mins either if you are only going to add a late hop addition and its purpose of sterilizing the grain liquid. You would lose a stack to evaporation as well.
Even with a 20 min flav addition of hops I can see this coming out WAY too sweet with the combination of boiling off the real ale can and the addition of crystal as well.

Nothing wrong with the list of ingredients. Just the application.

I'd.

Steep grain
Add 4L of grain to 4L of water
add the 1kg can of liquid malt(not the can kit)
add the 14g of Willa when it starts to boil
add the 10g of Willa 20 mins later and turn it off.

So you boil for only 20 mins, it doesnt' have to b bubbling like crazy, just a rolling boil. you boil for half the time, no kit added and you retain more hop aroma by doing a 'flame out' hop addition as we call it.

40 mins of boil as I read it with no hops is just ??? adding more water IS good but be aware the higher the gravity the content in the boil the more hops are used as the hop utilization goes down. Not sure what the original recipe creator was going for as far as bitterness but it seems to be a bit of guesswork.

As far as your other Q's

Put the grain in a grain bag crushed I assume. Have the water in a pot heated to abotu 75 degrees. When you add the bag the temp will drop and see if you hit somewhere around 66. Just put the lid on the pot and leave it. Over half and hour it wont loose much temp to worry about it.

As for chilling.

You will only end up with about 7L's of boiling wort. If you are making a 21L batch with this then if using cold water you will have no trouble of topping it up in the ferment with 14L's and hitting somewhere around the 18 degree mark imo. You shoud then be about to give it all a good stir to mix and aerate and pitch the yeast.

[melykabeer]

Hi milliner1986

I keep my temp in that range by just sticking a thermometer in there and using it to swirl the grains and water around. I find that you need to do this quite regularly as the grain kind of insulates the top layer, underneath it heats up more. With my gas stove i need to have it set to lowest and off to maintain the temp. I have not tried but you can also cold steep your grain. Which is basically sticking the grain in a container with just plain cold tap water and letting it sit for 24hours with an occasional stir. I will be trying this method next weekend.

One thing i suggest with that recipe is not boiling the can. This will boil out any hop flavour and aroma, I suggest adding the can in as the last step at flameout. Also to extract more bitterness out of your hops you want to boil it in a lower sg its suggested to boil in a similar sg to your final.

Regarding the temperatures I normally do a 3 litre boil, once that is in the fermenter I keep about 15litres in the freezer part of my brew fridge in old juice bottles and stuff. I pour this into the fermenter which usually cools it down nicely.

[warra48]

I agree with the advice from chadjaja and melykabeer.

My only comment is that if you are using 1 kg of LDME and also 250 gr Crystal, you will potentially end up with quite a high Final Gravity, and a sweetish beer.
How about cutting the LDME back to say 500 to 750 gr, and making it up with Dextrose?
It will help dry the beer out a bit, and give you a decent attenuation.

By the way, Willamette hops will work great in an Amber Ale.

[Oliver]

Hi Milliner1986,

I, too, agree with what's been said above, particularly about cutting back on the extract and adding some dextrose so it's not so sweet.

Given this will be your first foray into using grains, I'd be tempted to stick with the kit as a base though. That way it's only an incremental change to what you've done already. Try an extract recipe next time, perhaps.

They're just my thoughts.

Getting back to your original questions:

My question is when steeping the grains do i have to keep the temp at 65*C for the whole 20-30mins? If so what is the best way to acheive this? Could I keep the pot on the stove and adjust temp accordingly or do i need an esky like I've seen in other posts. Option A would be better for me as all my eskys have been used for fishing and I'd have to buy another one.

Crystal malt has already, in effect, been malted and mashed, so all you're trying to do by steeping the grain is remove the flavour and sweetness from within. For that reason, holding the grain at an exact temperature isn't imperative as it is if you were mashing malted grain.

Heat the water to about 75C or so then chuck in the grain, stir it in well, put the cover on and leave it for 30 minutes, then strain it, discard the grain and continue. The temperature will drop a few degrees over that time, but it's of no consequence.

Also I do not have a wort chiller what would be the best way to get wort down to pitching temp? Does it really matter if I put wort in fermenter with airlock and keep in my brewfridge overnight?

My preferred method is the ice/water bath. Put the saucepan in a sink and fill it as much as you can (without the water flowing into the saucepan ) then leave it for about 10 mins and replace the water. This will get the temp down fairly quickly.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Oliver

[milliner1986]

Thanks guys quick replies I cant imagine how hard it would have been to learn brewing before the internet

Taking a bit out of everyone's replies i think I'll do this:


1 can Coopers real ale
500g LDM
500g Dextrose
250g crystal/caramalt
14g willamette (boil for 20min)
10g willamette (steep in hot wort for 2min)
safale s-04
water up to 20L

1) steep the crystal in 4L of water at a temp of 65*C for 20-30mins
2) strain the liquid into a big pot
3) add the malt to the pot, and add about 4L of water (more water is better than less)
4) bring the liquid to the boil
5) add the 14g of hop pellets- stir.
6) 20mins after adding the hops, turn your stove off (take it off the element if using an electric stove)
7) add the 10g of steeping hops
Add the contents of the Coopers can
9) strain the liquid into your fermenter and add cold, filtered water up to 20L
10) Pitch yeast and let those babies do their thing at about 18*

I feel much more confident now in attempting this thanks heeps brewmasters.

Another question I bought the tooheys kit a while ago cuz i needed another fermenter and LHBS is never open on sundays. With it came their bodgearse special lager which i might put down one day if ive got nothing else But with it came their brewing sugar and it is 100% maize starch??????? I've never seen this mentioned before and wondering if anyone has tried it and what it does to the profile of the beer?

Cheers,
Paul

[earle]

Maize starch is glucose, a form of which is dextrose. Use it as you would dextrose, better for brews than white sugar but not as good as malt in your recipe above.

[emnpaul]

G'day Milliner,

I agree with what others have posted above. It's good advice. Just like to add that the Original Series Cooper's cans contain no hop aroma or flavour, unlike some of the International Series and Thomas Cooper's cans. That being the case, boiling them won't do any harm and they can be boiled as a medium for doing your own hop additions when required but as already pointed out it is not completely necessary as they are sterile (asceptic?) until opened.

Looks like a nice recipe, good luck.

[milliner1986]

well good news fellas the brew is down and how much fun was that!!!!!

Went to my local HBS and asked the old bloke for caramalt. After looking at me weird for a bit he said that was a yankee thing and showed me his entire selection of 2 varieties of grain- milled and unmilled. also asked for willamette and after searching around the back for 10 mins he had none. Needless to say I'll only be back if I need a new hydrometer or something so i drove to peakhurst and got there just before close.

Everything seemed to go well except i left the barcode sticker on the bottom of my new pot and things got a bit smoky for a while.

Used kit yeast for nutrient in the boil and rehydrated yeast for 1st time. I didnt factor in the cooling time for the wort so it was in the water for more than half hour but i dont think that should matter too much??????

Overall enjoyed the process a lot and i think ill be moving on to extracts from now on

Og ended up 1042 and pitched yeast at 20*

Should be a nice drop I'll let yas know in a few weeks

[warra48]

All sounds good !

Cooling can take some time, but if you are sanitary in your methods you will be OK.
Better to pitch your yeast, and to ferment, at the right temperature than to rush it and pitch too high.
In fact, I brewed an Alt yesterday, and I'm only just now aerating my batch and pitching my yeast. I had to wait for it to drop to 10ºC, which took overnight.

We'll look forward to good feedback once you crack the first one!

[Oliver]

Hi milliner,

How did this turn out? Worth the effort?

Cheers,

Oliver

[milliner1986]

Actually I'm havin a bit of a stalled ferment atm. tried stirring up- no good so racked and re pitched rehydrated 04 yeast 2 days ago. also turned up temp to 20* but ambient temp been lower than that the last few days. Gravity is at about 1014. I got no idea what it should be but I'm pretty sure should be lower than that. any advice?

[chadjaja]

A lot of the time you will have trouble getting so4 to get lower than 1014 especially if its an extract brew. I'd say its done and give it a few days to see if it moves a pt or two.

What was the gravity when you re pitched?

[milliner1986]

1016 when re pitched. looks like from what your saying I'm gonna end up with a midstrength beer which i dont really care if it tastes good. I'm hoping the next few days are a bit warmer which might kick it in the guts a bit. What do you think I should do next time? Obviously adding more malt will make it sweeter but can i balance that out with dex or long hop boil or should I venture closer to the dark side and get a liquid yeast?
Cheers for ya help,
Paul

[chadjaja]

I would of left it at 1016, probably would of got down those two pt's on its own and less chance of introducing anything nasty and save you yeast. A little bit of patience

Getting it lower with extract would most prob involve dex or even white sugar. You could try this recipe with some so5 and see how you like it. The willa hops will shine even more using that and it should get it down a little more.

[milliner1986]

Ok thanks chad will probably bottle in the next couple of days

[milliner1986]

recalculated on brewcraft calculator must have done something wrong the first time og 1042 fg 1014 = 4.4%. Now no longer fearing creating bottle bombs i bottled this morning.

[milliner1986]

G'day guys haven't been on here for a long time been living to work not working to live and all that. Have tried a couple of these beers and am very impressed. Which reminds me Earle I owe ya one will send soon. Head retention is great and definately not too sweet. If anything probably a little overcarbed cuz I added my usual 150g of dex for bulk priming but forgot i did a 20L batch not 23. Will definately do this this one again sometime but try US-05 as advised.

Haven't had a chance to put another brew down since but am hoping to next weekend. Am thinking boonies LCPA - seems pretty simple for a novice extract brewer.