Similar results from completely different recipes

[dedken]

Hi all,

In April in I did my first extract (80 Shilling) and three weeks ago I did my first partial mash (based on GW's Summer Lightning clone). The 80 Shilling turned out lovely. I tasted my PM'd Summer Lightning (after 7 days conditioning) yesterday and despite the different malt levels and completely different hop schedule, it tastes virtually identical - i.e. waaaayy too malty to be a summer ale - for the record I used 1.8kg lme and around 300g dme to 2kg pale malt. I actually used about 200g less malt than my calculations suggested I should. Is this what happens when you use extract (as in, does extract always contribute the same taste)? If so I'm going to be very disappointed over the next month whilst doing further partial mashes.

[EoinMag]

Hi all,

In April in I did my first extract (80 Shilling) and three weeks ago I did my first partial mash (based on GW's Summer Lightning clone). The 80 Shilling turned out lovely. I tasted my PM'd Summer Lightning (after 7 days conditioning) yesterday and despite the different malt levels and completely different hop schedule, it tastes virtually identical - i.e. waaaayy too malty to be a summer ale - for the record I used 1.8kg lme and around 300g dme to 2kg pale malt. I actually used about 200g less malt than my calculations suggested I should. Is this what happens when you use extract (as in, does extract always contribute the same taste)? If so I'm going to be very disappointed over the next month whilst doing further partial mashes.

I find that with large amounts of malt that the beer needs longer to condition for the extreme maltiness to back off. Try it in another two or three weeks and see if the profile is more balanced, it should be.

[dedken]

That's what I was hoping. I realised I tried it young but it tasted so good straight out of fv that I couldn't resist seeing how it was going. What also concerns me is that the hoppiness will fall off as well, will it not? And there seemed to be little hop aroma in the first place.

[EoinMag]

The hops will get less with time, but that will normally take longer than the malt flavour will to condition out.

[EoinMag]

To counter that maltiness the next time and take some of that body away, use some lyles golden syrup in the recipe in place of some of the malt extract, it lightens the body a bit.