Munton's Cedarex - Low ABV Beers

[Fingar]

Hi Folks,

Well here is my first real post!

As a big fan of using Munton's Cedarex for my brews, I have had what I consider some great results having 24 brews using the stuff, mostly using recipes in Greg Hughes' Home Brew Beer book. This could just be me, but when it comes to ale with a higher ABV (5% and above) the extract seems to give great tasting beer - English IPA (5.5%), 60 minute IPA (5.7%), Russian Imperial Stout (7%), Dubbel (6.6%) have all produced great, flavoursome beers, however, life is not always about higher ABV (really?), but when I brewed ale at below 4% such as Yorkshire Bitter and Summer Ale, the flavour wasn't as full as I had hoped and expected despite some healthy hop additions to achieve IBU at around 30 IBU's.

Has anybody else noticed or experienced this?

Cheers... Fingar.

PS hoping to become a big boy soon and do some all grain for the first time.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Gravity is flavour. More grain more malt taste.

If you are using less, then you only have a few other sources of flavour: hops and the yeast itself, though varying your types of grain can help too.

[Kyle_T]

Gravity is flavour. More grain more malt taste.

If you are using less, then you only have a few other sources of flavour: hops and the yeast itself, though varying your types of grain can help too.

Couldn't be further from the truth, there are excellent sub 4% knocking about all over the place, it is much harder to make a well crafted low ABV beer, than a high ABV hop bomb.

[timbo41]

Out of interest how are you getting cedarex. I was under the belief muntons didn't sell direct

Edit scratch that found it in a few places....bet its messy to use though isn't it?

[Fingar]

[quote="timbo41"]....bet its messy to use though isn't it?[/quote]

It comes in a gert big jerry can and pours out quite nicely if left at room temperature... I usually pour it into saucepans for weighing and before putting into the boiler. The only issue I have is that a new can (at 25kg) can be a bit of a strain for my wimpy arms!

[oakerspocus]

How long can you keep a 25kg can once opened?

[borischarlton]

You will be able to make a wonderful sub 4% beer with Cederex. You will need to add some sort of crystal malt, which one depends on what depth of colour and flavour your after. You can steep the crystal or add it to the boil. If your making standard type bitter then try CaraVienna at about 5%, this will add body as well as flavour. You could also try using a less attenuating yeast such as WLP002, this also leaves residual sugars boosting the body/flavour.

Cheers

Rob

[Mattpc]

You can get 25Kg of Cedarex Light from several of the bigger homebrew shops for £64 including uk delivery. It's great! It makes homebrewing much more affordable than the ususal tins for £12 for 1.5kg. I sometimes wonder with Cedarex if it isn't the fact that we forget to take in to account you need to use more Cedarex than you would do sugar to get the same alcohol content. Cedarex does not equal sugar in terms of yeast fuel.