How to make the can of malt hopped extract stronger

[walkerzed]

i just buy the cans of the liquid HME and trying to think of how to make it stronger cause i mad a lager with Brew Enahancer 1 and it turned out to be 3.2 and i was wondering how to make it at least 4 or 5%?

[ICzed]

Hey Zed :)

 

Here is the easiest way to do it.

 

1. Use the lager can again and the BE1 but also add a 500g pack of light dry malt extract. These can be found in Big W (if you're an Aussie) or your local home brew shop.

 

With the dry malt you should get around 4.5% once the beer is bottled. And the beer will taste better too with the dry malt.

[Bolchy]

Skip the be1 if you are going to your lhbs and buy one of their kits... also what yeast did you use. A true lager yeast done at low temps will attenuate (eat more of the sugars) then the kits ale yeast will. Making a stronger beer and probably more true to the lager as well.

[Otto Von Blotto]

That's a lot of faffing around if you don't have an easy way to control the temp though, along with needing to pitch about double the yeast that you do for an ale. The only reason I brew true lagers now is because I have a fermenting fridge and can easily grow the yeast up for them.

 

I'd be inclined to ditch the BE1 as well. Try a can with 1kg dry malt and 200g or 300g dextrose. It'll not only taste better but your ABV will be more in the range you're after.

[ChristinaS1]

FYI, the Coopers Cervesa and APA kits come with a blend of Coopers dry ale yeast and a third party lager yeast. If you don't have a brew fridge but can manage to keep your temps at 18C, then this blended yeast makes a nice lager-like brew with higher attenuation than the Coopers ale yeast by itself; the lager portion dries it out.

 

The only problem is that 7gm of blended yeast is not enough for a typical gravity brew, as there is only 3.5gm of each type. Coopers recommends pitching it warm, at 22-24C, and then dropping it down to 18C over the next 24 hours. While that does work, some better options are:

 

1.) buy two APA/Cervesa kits and use both package of kit yeast in one brew, and use US-05 in the other. Be sure to rehydrate them.

2.) make a simple starter with just one rehydrated pack of the blended yeast the night before. See the Shaken Not Stirred starter method thread.

 

Cheers!

 

Christina.

[walkerzed]

Hey Zed :)

 

Here is the easiest way to do it.

 

1. Use the lager can again and the BE1 but also add a 500g pack of light dry malt extract. These can be found in Big W (if you're an Aussie) or your local home brew shop.

 

With the dry malt you should get around 4.5% once the beer is bottled. And the beer will taste better too with the dry malt.

 

So use about a pound of DME in my next lager batch and should up the ABV to 4-5%?

[JAXBRO]

I agree with Otto, if your going with brew enhancers ditch BE1 I'd go with BE2 and add 500-750g LDM, this will get you a higher ABV and will taste more like beer, then of course add your hops.

I recently did a cerveza with BE2, 500g LDM, 25g cascade and 25g amarillo, absolute cracker and easy as, 8 weeks in the bottle and better than the commercial mexicanos.

 

Cheers