BeerBorg

It looks as though I'll have a short day at work today, which means I'll have time to run out to my LHBS and get supplies for Sunday's brew-day. I've decided that, rather than buy Mr. Beer or BrewDemon kits, I'm going to go the DME/steeping grain/hops route. Still a short brew day, and less expensive.

But it's been a while since I've done DME recipes, so I have to give it some thought. I'm going to go through the hops supply and see what I've got already, and that may influence my decision. I've got a variety of specialty grains, and might combine some of them for color and body and some extra flavor. If I have enough of the right kind of hops, I might make a kind of dark IPA; I don't have anything really hoppy in the works at the moment.

This is kind of like starting over....

Once again, your talking my style. Blackduck and I dabbled with a black IPA. Not a CDA but a hoppy beer that was dark. We used Midnight Wheat and you can steep some and get the color you want. You could likely cold steep some Carafa II or III and get a nice dark color too. The Midnight Wheat in a full mash only gave it a very, very slight roast that was mostly only noticeable when warm. But, it was basically your average IPA, albeit hoppy but black.
Looking forward to hearing where you go with this.

Midnight Wheat is a great dark malt; so are Carafas - another one you could use is Belgian Debittered Black Malt. To get the color without the roasted flavor, you can try cold-steeping these overnight, rather than in 160F water for 30 min. Think of it as cold brewed coffee. This will still add a touch of roast, but no harshness or astrigency. Alternatively, you can see if your LHBS carries Sinamar - all the color with no flavor.

Actually, guys, while I'm grateful as always for your valuable input, I'm going even more basic than that!

I'm just going to get four pounds of Light DME, use 1/4 pound Crystal 40, and 1/4 pound of Special B, and use Nugget hops in the traditional 60/22/7 schedule, 1/4 ounce each. And then I'll dry hop another 1/4 ounce just before bottling.

Quick 'n' dirty, but should make a good, if not terribly distinguished pale ale. Not even all that dark; QBrew tells me it's a 15, with the darker limit of an American Pale Ale at 14. Whatever.

I'll save my more ambitious experiments for 5-gallon AG brew days. With the LBK, right now, I'm looking for ease of preparation.

Just drink with your eyes closed and it'll look dark.

Beer-lord wrote:Just drink with your eyes closed and it'll look dark.

No! I might miss my mouth! I'll just turn the light off.

I'm with you Dave. Tonight, I'm sneaking in an extract brew to try and whip up a Blue Moon clone for my wife. I was going to go AG but until I know the recipe is good I want to keep the brew day short. I don't want the beer to get too dark so I'm doing 1/2 the DME at the end of the boil so I'm now having to adjust my hops for the better utilization. It feels like starting over again sometimes.

It's funny how when changing process things don't feel as comfortable again.

I guess I'm lucky or just weird, in that I'm ok with doing all those things since I do it all the time... any given 4-6 batches, I've got an HME + DME and/or hops, DME/LME/Steeps, a PM, or a lower (1.50ish or <) gravity BIAB AG in there somewhere... Any BIAB 1.06+ is a PM for me. (pot is really just not big enough). So all the processes seem natural to me still. But if I brewed a whole year with just one kind of process I could really see how switching back could make me feel uncomfortable. I mainly decide on what process I'm going to use based on my available time and what I've got on hand.

Mine went quick and easy, it just seemed like there were a few times where I felt I should be doing something!

All went well. I forgot that the nice thing about extract brewing is that you don't have to worry about hitting your projected gravity.