Teething problems

[Finneptitude]

Dear All,

I thought that I would move on from using a kit and do a bit of extract brewing. I need some help...

I followed the recipe for White House Honey Ale carefully. It was a recipe for just 10 litres as I thought that this might be easier to start off with. The recipe called for me to steep the speciality grains (300g) for 30 minutes in 3 litres of water, then remove and pour a litre of boiling water over the grains (in a muslin bag) into the pan afterwards. I was then to add the malt extract (800g), and bring to the boil before adding some hops and gypsum. I then had to boil the wort for another 45 minutes. The problem was, that after I had finished, I only had 2 litres of wort left. The other 2 litres had evapourated! The recipe then called for me to top up the wort to 10 litres using cold water. Stupidly, I didn't take a SG reading.

So, I have two questions...

1. Will the mixture be strong enough to produce a tasty ale?
2. How can I reduce the amount of wort lost during my boil?

I hope that someone can help,
Finn

[Clibit]

1. Not really no. You are looking at 3 - 3.5% ABV I think. Where is the recipe from? Have you told us all the things that went in it? What about honey mummy?!
2. Just boil more water. You will get more from the hops. If you can boil about 12 litres, you should end up around 10 litres, if it's less top up with cold after.

The recipe on the Whitehouse website is for 19 litres...

2 (3.3 lb) cans light malt extract (about 3kg of LME)
1 lb light dried malt extract (454g of DME)
12 oz crushed amber crystal malt (340g crystal)
8 oz Biscuit Malt (227g Amber malt)
1 lb White House Honey (454g honey)

Approx halve those and you have the fermentables for 10 litres. In the absence of LME you would need around 1.5kg of DME, or a can of LME plus about 200g DME, plus 200g ish of honey. If you want to have a similar strength to the original. Watch it being brewed at the Whitehouse...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-vi ... er-brewing

[Finneptitude]

Thanks for the response!

It was a kit that my local brewing supplies shop (here in the Netherlands) put together. The bitter hops were goldings (20g) and these went into the main boil. The aroma hops were fuggles (20g) and had 5 minutes right at the end. After the boil, I put in 250g of clover honey. The yeast was 'Windsor dry ale'.

I read that you lose comparatively more during the boil if you make small amounts. So, I'm guessing that making bigger batches is the way to go...

[snowbeast]

I just use one pot similar to biab. 10l then bring to 63 *C. Steep grains in the bag for the said amount of time. Remove bag and rinse grains. Then boil and top up with water from rinsed grains. Top up little bits at a time to not affect the boil to much.
Give it a try