Joining in the fun....

[Pinto]

Well, after an unexpected windfall i've made the decision that I want to get more invested in my beer making than opening a tin of extract and throwing it into a fermenter so I've decided that Im going to start extract brews, leading onto all-grain hopefully in a few months (especially as the kits are sort of interchangeable )

I'll be ordering a nice stainless 50l pot from the malt miller (already have a 10kW burner for my roofing tar pot) and i've decided that Im going to try making a cream ale ( I remember quite enjoying McCaffereys and Caulders in times past) and i've found the following recipie :

Cream Ale

Malts
1.5kg extra light DME
1.5kg light wheat DME
500g Caramel 60L (steeped for 45 minutes at 65-70 deg C)

Hops
28g Cascade for bittering (60 minutes)
14g Saaz for flavor (20 minutes)
14g Tettnang for aroma (end of boil)

Yeast
Wyeast German Ale

Extras
1 tsp Irish Moss (10 minutes)
100g Lactose @ 15 minutes
50g real vanilla extract

Priming
>50g Lactose
100g vanilla (Be careful! This may be too much vanilla for some people.)
100g Granulated Sugar (as it'll be the first resident of my new shiny pressure keg i got for my birthday )

No liquid quantity given but it sounds like a 23l run to me.

Any thoughts on the above ? I also have the following questions if you can help..

1) German Ale Yeasts seem to be a little thin on the ground - are there suitable alternatives readily available ? s-05 or a nottingham perhaps ?
2) Caramel 60L.... same as Caramalt ?

Im sure there will be more... but I know where to ask

[Fuggled Mind]

Any thoughts on the above ? I also have the following questions if you can help..

1) German Ale Yeasts seem to be a little thin on the ground - are there suitable alternatives readily available ? s-05 or a nottingham perhaps ?
2) Caramel 60L.... same as Caramalt ?

That is a lot of vanilla. If you want to create vanilla beer, I think it still looks a bit much. Is 50g vanilla extract a mistype?

If you want a neutral yeast, Nottingham and US-05 both work well. I

Never used caramalt but Caramel 60L is just regular crystal malt. Americans use lovibonds and the British use EBC. What colour profile are you looking for?

Cheers

Jason

[Pinto]

You'll need to forgive my ignorance of the technical aspects but i *think* im after a colour between 15-30 EBC (so a very pale ale) - I still very much have "L" plates on. As to yeast, Neutral would be ok (but maybe a little bland )but given the overall vibe of the beer is to create something easy drinking, smooth and fruity, do you think a whitebeer yeast fermented at higher temps to give banana charecter would work here ?

I was thinking that 50g of vanilla sounded a bit heavy too - its a conversion of the imperial quantity recipie I obtained so I'd probably go for half that quantity and add in the secondard if/as needed.

[Jocky]

50 gram of vanilla what?

100 grams is 40 vanilla pods, or a lot of vanilla extract.

I would suggest that you use vanilla extract (not flavouring) and when you get to bottling/kegging you just stir in a a few ml at a time and taste it until you're happy. Less is definitely more - it will need to be a subtle hint of flavour, not vanilla ice cream.


Crystal 60L will just be called Crystal Malt here - it might be marked as EBC 140 too.

[Jocky]

I should also add 'Caramalt' is what the Americans call Crystal 10L.

[Pinto]

Discovered the magic world of "BrewMate v1.22" today

I think i could be lost in this for a while - but its VERY instuctional

[Pinto]

Another question - when calculating a brew using DME only do I assume 100% efficiency ? thanks

[Jocky]

Some brewing software gets you a long way...

To answer your question, yes, you can assume 100% efficiency for malt extract.

I was thinking about your recipe earlier, in particular your comment about Caffreys and Calders. Both Caffereys and Calders were called 'cream ales' as a branding exercise, referring to their use of nitrogen injection during serving to get a smooth head like Guiness. They are entirely distinct from the American style of ale know as 'cream ale': http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Cream_Ale

So I'm not sure whether you've got a recipe there for what you think it is there...