Back Log: Free beer 1.0 (12/04/2011)

http://freebeer.org/blog/recipe

FREE BEER version 1.0 (codename: “Vores Øl”)

Recipe for 25 L, (5.6% vol.)

Ingredients:

1800 g Pilsner malt

1200 g Münschener malt

300 g Medium Caramel malt

300 g Lager malt

18 g Tetnang bitter hops

15 g Hallertaver aroma hops

90 g Guaraná

1200 g Sugar

Safbrew T-58 Yeast

Method:

Crush the malt and steep at 55 °C in 15 L water for 90min.

Filter the mixture and pour 10 L water over the mash.

Add hops, guaraná berries and sugar and simmer at 98 °C for 60min.

Chill to 25°C, filter the mixture and pour into a container.

Add Yeast and leave sealed in the container at 20°C for 14 days for primary fermentation.

Transfer the mixture to a clean container and add 100g sugar and 2 tablespoonful yeast from the bottom of the primary fermentation container.

Bottle for secondary fermentation and carbonation and leave at 20°C for 8-10 days.

Store bottles at 12-14°C for another 14 days.

Can’t find where to buy guarana berry, so it might lack some flavor... and caffeine. Also used ~60% brown sugar, so taste might be a little different than using corn sugar as suggested.

Also should note we added sugar while steeping the malt instead of simmering the wart.

Since the batch is smaller than the orginal recipe, I’ve used less yeast for fermentation also, hopefully eyeballing it is good enough.

Bottling secondary fermentation starts on 12/18

Bottling is rather painless with an extra hand thanks to Alex. We didn’t evenly distribute into all 7 bottles though. This time we did add sugar, about 20g for 1 gallon, hopefully it’s enough to create bubble.

Beer taste great, foams up pretty well, but the beer’s color is darker than a usual Pilsner because of brown sugar and the medium caramel malt. We can try to make a lighter color variation by using a pale caramel malt and cane sugar or corn sugar.