Need some advice

[Fisher kel Tath]

I want to make a Braggot, but have never made a beer before.

So yea...where to start.

Could I take a beer kit, reduce the normal ingredients by a portion, and replace the other portion with must?

But really, I'm just looking for advice for beer brewing, figure after a solid year of mead making, it can't be too hard to start with...

 

[AToE]

Most of the beer kits I've seen actually require you to add more fermentables, either sugar or DME (dry malt extract), to reach their proper ABV. So you could simply replace this with honey, and if you'd prefer it higher ABV you can add even more honey (remember it won't finish dry though, so unless the kit says what the final SG will be, you'll have to wing it a bit with your starting SG guessing where it'll finish to get a rough ABV potential).

I'd personally copy one of the recipes here though, doing a recipe with DME or LME and then adding your own hops and some specialty grains (just need to be steeped for 1/2-1 hour for flavour and colour) maybes it much more personal and fun than a kit.

 

[Fisher kel Tath]

Problem is, I dun know what 90% of the ingredients in beer taste like, so choosing them is a bit of a headscratcher, except hops, I don't know what the difference is between varietals, but I know I generally don't like beers with a lot of them (big fan of Belgians)

 

[AToE]

Hops you have 3 main factors from what I understand. Some varietals are more earthy and some more citrusy. Then, you have hops added earlier in the boil (usually 60 min) for bitterness but not much actual hop flavour or aroma, near the end for more flavour, and right at the end, or during primary/secondary for extra aroma.

I like belgians too, but I like the ones best that do have a decent hopping, I do want to at least know they were there.

The only other significant ingrediant is malt. Malt is the sweetness, depending on the grain and roast style/time/temp there's a wide variety of flavours (check morebeer.com for descriptions, will give you a loose idea).

EDIT: Belgian beers actually get most of their unique taste from the very unique yeasts used.

I haven't been able to piece together a decent recipe on my own yet, but I'm working on it.

I don't think the kit is a bad idea at all, you just won't learn anything from it (no boil for kits usually, no anything that has to do with making beer - they're usually just add water kinda thing).

 

[Tannin Boy]

I want to make a Braggot, but have never made a beer before.

So yea...where to start.

Could I take a beer kit, reduce the normal ingredients by a portion, and replace the other portion with must?

But really, I'm just looking for advice for beer brewing, figure after a solid year of mead making, it can't be too hard to start with...

I have just begun the journey of brewing beer...
I also have never done it before either. Sounds like a finicky master to meccasion14: I have been reading " How To Brew " by John Palmer and as of this point it is an excellent read. May be worth your consideration.

Good Brewing,

 

[fathand]

I am not sure what the protocol is so I apologize if this breaks forum rules but I would suggest heading to one of the larger online homebrew suppliers and checking out one of their recipes.

Here is one from Northern Brewer where they have posted the ingredients and the procedures. This gives you at least a starting point.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/meadkits/NBWildflowerBraggot.pdf

 

[akueck]

If you've never done beer before, a kit is a good place to start. I swear I've seen a braggot kit somewhere, but of course now I can't find it.

The kit you choose will have (usually) some malt extract, a small amount of grain, hops, and yeast. You can get all-grain kits if you want to go that way, but for now it's easier to start with extract. Personally I would encourage you to make the kit as-is without trying to make a braggot out of it first. See how the beer comes out and you can make it again with honey to turn it into a braggot. I like this approach since you might want to add or subtract ingredients from the kit to make your braggot, but only if you know what you get in the first place.

 

[Fisher kel Tath]

Malt extract takes the place of sparging right?

I'm trying to figure out what the difference between 3 types of kits MoreBeer has.

 

[AToE]

Extract takes the place of mashing (soaking the grain in hot water so that the complex sugars break down into fermentable ones) and sparging (percolation rinsing of the grains after pouring off the main liquid).

All you have to do is dissolve the extract into hot water, then boil it with hops to extract bitterness from the hops.

Extract comes in both liquid and dry, and generally either light/pale, amber and dark.

 

[akueck]

The 3 main "categories" are usually extract, partial mash, and all grain. It's more of a sliding scale from one end to the other, and most often "extract" includes some "specialty grains" whereas full extract does not.

Extract kits derive fermentable sugars from malt extract (thus the name). Malt extract is what you get when you soak the malt in water and then separate the solids from the liquid--the liquid is called extract. It's sold in concentrated form for convenience, either liquid (still has some water, usually heated to concentrate it) or dry (spray dried, etc, almost no water content). You "reconstitute" the concentrate like you would frozen apple juice in a can. The specialty grains that often come with extract kits are for color & flavor but usually add little or no fermentable sugars. They just need to be steeped in warm water to extract the useful stuff.

All grain kits are just that, a pile of grain. It's on you to mash the grain (soak in water) and separate the extract (aka lautering). Sparging as noted is just rinsing the grain to get more of the sugars out. All grain gives you more levers to pull in terms of how the beer turns out (mash temperature, time, how you get to temperature, sparging rate, etc). But obviously it's a little more involved and usually needs some extra equipment to handle all the grain and extra water involved.

Partial mash is halfway between, more or less. You use some concentrated malt extract, and some grain. This way you can do some of the all-grain type methods to tweak the flavor of the beer, but you work with smaller amounts of grain which is less of a hassle.

You can make any method as easy or complicated as you like, however. Just because all grain sounds more complicated doesn't mean it's more difficult, although it is usually more time intensive. Either way, for beginners it's good to start with extract kits to get you used to the process flow and how different ingredients influence the outcome (those specialty grains are really important). Many brewers never "move on" to all grain because they don't need the added control/work to produce good beer. (most beers can be made with extract and they will be indistinguishable from all grain beers. there are exceptions.)

Hope that helps.

 

[Fisher kel Tath]

Yea, If I do pick up brewing beer, more likely to go partial mash than pure extract, And what I've read for all grain just makes it sound more equipment intensive, so that will need to wait.

either way, need buckets, and a pot first...

and as beer doesn't require the super long term aging of mead, I only need 1 set of EQ for beer.

 

[wildoates]

If you've never done beer before, a kit is a good place to start. I swear I've seen a braggot kit somewhere, but of course now I can't find it.

The kit you choose will have (usually) some malt extract, a small amount of grain, hops, and yeast. You can get all-grain kits if you want to go that way, but for now it's easier to start with extract. Personally I would encourage you to make the kit as-is without trying to make a braggot out of it first. See how the beer comes out and you can make it again with honey to turn it into a braggot. I like this approach since you might want to add or subtract ingredients from the kit to make your braggot, but only if you know what you get in the first place.

Something like this? Or this?

They have several kinds of beer kits that use honey, and each is offered with several kinds of yeast. I just searched on "honey" on their website.

Hey, I'm in Oslo doing laundry--what else do I have time to do?

 

[akueck]

Something like this? Or this?

Sort of. Those sound more like beers with some honey swapped in for the malt extract. "Braggot" is a pretty loose definition though so they could totally count. I feel like I've seen a kit that was more "mead-like" with the malt playing second fiddle instead of "beer with honey".

I've done all-grain with just the equipment I got for doing extract beers. It was kind of clumsy but it worked and turned out beer just the same. You *can* buy more equipment that is specifically for all-grain batches, but with a little ingenuity and a serious lack of space/disposable income you can make it work with very limited supplies. The trade-off you most likely will have to make is batch size, since a 5 gallon pot on your stovetop won't be able to make 5 gallons of all-grain beer without bending the laws of physics--or doing two back-to-back brew sessions and combining the results. (You can eke out 3 gallons though.) I recently added a $10 2-gallon cooler and a $1 stainless steel braid for a filter to my equipment set, which makes the process smoother (no moving grain from pot to pot). The ball valve I bought was kind of pricey and overkill, but it sure is pretty.

 

[AToE]

I'm going to try all grain 5-6 gallon batches on my stove, but with two pots, both just over 3 gallons... here's to hoping!

 

[wildoates]

Sort of. Those sound more like beers with some honey swapped in for the malt extract. "Braggot" is a pretty loose definition though so they could totally count. I feel like I've seen a kit that was more "mead-like" with the malt playing second fiddle instead of "beer with honey".

I've done all-grain with just the equipment I got for doing extract beers. It was kind of clumsy but it worked and turned out beer just the same. You *can* buy more equipment that is specifically for all-grain batches, but with a little ingenuity and a serious lack of space/disposable income you can make it work with very limited supplies. The trade-off you most likely will have to make is batch size, since a 5 gallon pot on your stovetop won't be able to make 5 gallons of all-grain beer without bending the laws of physics--or doing two back-to-back brew sessions and combining the results. (You can eke out 3 gallons though.) I recently added a $10 2-gallon cooler and a $1 stainless steel braid for a filter to my equipment set, which makes the process smoother (no moving grain from pot to pot). The ball valve I bought was kind of pricey and overkill, but it sure is pretty.

My son manages to brew in the most miniscule Oslo apartment I could imagine, and he goes whole-grain. His kitchen is so small you can hardly turn around in it, and his stove looks like an Ikea toy stove (it is from Ikea, made by Whirlpool)--probably takes all 4 burners to heat his brewpot. Yeah, it can be done. But you really have to want to, and having beer being heinously expensive is a great incentive.

 

[BBBF]

Yea, If I do pick up brewing beer, more likely to go partial mash than pure extract, And what I've read for all grain just makes it sound more equipment intensive, so that will need to wait.

Research B.I.A.B. (Brew In A Bag) when you're looking to make the transition from extract to grain. Instead of spending the cash to build or buy a mash tun, you put your grains into a cheap, paint strainer bag, mash in your pot and lift the bag out to drain all the wort.

 

[Fisher kel Tath]

So ordered a pot. Looking through the kits on Midwestsupply, can't decide on which to begin with for just beer.

As for the braggot itself, I'm working on 2 different ideas, making one beer based and one mead based.

 

[Tannin Boy]

So ordered a pot. Looking through the kits on Midwestsupply, can't decide on which to begin with for just beer.

As for the braggot itself, I'm working on 2 different ideas, making one beer based and one mead based.

FKT,

What Pot did you choose and how large?
Midwest is a great site and am thinking of a 15 Gallon unit.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/boilermakertm-15-gallon-kettle.html
So the max finished product is 8 gallons a bit over a single corny keg capacity
but I think a call to them is in order to confer. If I could end up with a 5 gallon batch seems to be the best fit for keging????

 

[BBBF]

If you like them, I would recomend porters for your first batch. Roasted grains can hide a lot of flaws.

 

[Fisher kel Tath]

FKT,

What Pot did you choose and how large?
Midwest is a great site and am thinking of a 15 Gallon unit.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/boilermakertm-15-gallon-kettle.html
So the max finished product is 8 gallons a bit over a single corny keg capacity
but I think a call to them is in order to confer. If I could end up with a 5 gallon batch seems to be the best fit for keging????

5g basic pot. Start small after all, if i had the room for a conical, I would too, but yea, I have hard enough time not getting nagged about having my equipment around as it is...and money too...


Thinking of their Holiday spiced ale, figure i'll start sometime in late september/early october...