Brewing with excess stock

[Flan]

I’m planning on using up some excess malt extract, spraymalt and yeast that i have over from purchases i haven’t used so i have 2.4kg of mangrove jacks pure malt enhancer, 500g of muntons light spraymalt, Mangrove jacks Liberty bell m36, i also have a couple of MJ m44 west coast yeasts (all 10g sachets) so I’m thinking of doing it as a kind of kit beer but what type of beer would it produce if i did it to 23litres using
2.4kg of malt extract
500g light spraymalt
and maybe 25-30g of saaz for dry hopping.
1kg of dextrose and
which yeast should i use or should i get a lager yeast.
I don’t mind if it’s a lager or an ipa type ale i just want to brew.
Does this sound like a good way to use up my excess ingredients. I’m open to any suggestions or recommendations as to what to use and how much of. Thanks for any help, I’m still a very Inexperienced brewer so any thoughts will be appreciated.

 

[fury_tea]

You're not far off a lager-y style ale with those ingredients but you could do with a bittering hop.
30g of Saaz boiled in some of the malt for 30-60 mins would do it.

 

[Flan]

You're not far off a lager-y style ale with those ingredients but you could do with a bittering hop.
30g of Saaz boiled in some of the malt for 30-60 mins would do it.

Thanks fury, would it be any good dry hopping or would it be best to boil

 

[fury_tea]

I wouldn't dry hop the Saaz myself. You need a bittering hop. Do you only have 30g of Saaz and that's it? You could do with adding some hops later in the boil as well if possible

Have you ever made an extract beer from scratch before? If I was you I'd read some articles, watch YouTube vids and search Saaz extract beer and see what comes up. Steal s recipe and you. Should be good to go.

 

[Flan]

I wouldn't dry hop the Saaz myself. You need a bittering hop. Do you only have 30g of Saaz and that's it? You could do with adding some hops later in the boil as well if possible

Have you ever made an extract beer from scratch before? If I was you I'd read some articles, watch YouTube vids and search Saaz extract beer and see what comes up. Steal s recipe and you. Should be good to go.

No, I’m only on my 2nd kit beer, I’ve got a MJ czech pilsner on at the moment and my first was a youngs American ipa. I don’t have any hops at the moment i’m just looking for ideas of how best to use up the extract i have. Preferably without a boil involved as i only have a small 9l pot at the moment so that’s why I’m just doing a few kits to get the process down before i move on to AG brews.

 

[fury_tea]

Hops serve a few purposes in beer. One is bitterness and we get most of that bitterness from boiling.
Most recipes, unless it's using hopped extract (where hops are already added to the malt extract) or you're brewing an NEIPA will have some amount of bittering where you add hops and boil for an amount of time.
Hops will have an Alpha Acids rating (AA) which will help you determine the bittering power of the hop. Boiling hops for longer periods gives us more bitterness but drives off flavour so we can add more hops later in the boil to get more flavour and aroma back. Most recipe builders like brewer's friend, brew father etc will work out the bitterness for you using your AA% and the time you add it in the boil.

So if you are brewing it from unhopped extract you will want some kind of boil. Now, that could be as easy as 500g of your dried malt extract in a few litres of water in your 9l pot (some wort helps the process of extraction) add the hops, boil for 30 mins and then add the rest of your extract and put it in your bucket before adding the rest of your water.

I inputted your figures into brewer's friend. A 23L beer with your fermentables would be 3.8% so if I was you I'd brew to 20L and get that up to 4.5%. see below for 20L beer with a 30 minute boil (50g Saaz at 30 mins and 20g at 05 mins)

That's a pretty passable pseudo lager beer type think I think. Fermented with one of those yeasts above at the lower end of their temp range should be fine. It won't be lager crisp but with plenty of conditioning it'll be fine.

 

[DocAnna]

I'm with @fury_tea that the Saaz hops really are better suited to a lager and are not an aroma hop suitable for a dry hop. You don't need to do a whole boil for an extract brew, and since you don't need to concentrate the wort then you can do a small scale boil in your pan, about 6 litres out of your 9 litre volume would work for a Czech type pilsner lager. You say you don't have any hops, so I'm guessing you've still to buy some- since they come in 100g packs usually you might as well build a recipe round that. Your yeasts aren't a good fit for a lager, but the liberty bell would be better than the West Coast one, ideally pick up a pack of a dried lager yeast - Crossmyloof do v inexpensive ones or pm me and I'll send you one of my spares.

Suggested recipe - dissolve the spray malt in 5-6 litres of water, boil for 60 mins and add 60g Saaz at 60 min then 20g at 10min before the end of the boil, and 20g just after taking it off the boil. Put the lid on for the last 10min to sterilise it and transfer the lot to the sink to cool in tap water. Once cooled for about half an hour, using a sieve strain into your fermenter and add warm/cold water, the Liquid malt extract and 600g of the dextrose to make up to 23 litres. Add the yeast and ferment cool for a couple of weeks - if you've a cool room next to a garage that would be better.

This recipe should give an ABV of 5.0% IBU about 29 and an OG of 1.046.
The remaining dextrose 160g of it anyway can be used for priming the bottles as well.

Anna

 

[DocAnna]

Apologies to @fury_tea as you'd posted while I was typing and pretty much said the same thing.

 

[MrRook]

No reason you can't use saaz in an ale, if that's all you have. I recently did an ordinary bitter with mittlefruh that came out great.
And you don't need to do a long (or any) boil with extract.