Hey guys, I’ve settled on a recipe I think would make a tasty Kolsch style beer. I’m looking to brew a beer that Coors Light guys can enjoy as well as me. Any thoughts/ideas appreciated:
Depends why you’re using it. With your extract you’ll have plenty of body, especially with the wheat dme. If it were me I would drop it.
And if I were making a beer for people who solely drink BMC I would leave it at what you have and not include any whirlpool hops. If you are inclined to use done I would do so judiciously.
Not gonna please bud lite drinkers if they are still drinking that stuff with all the good offerings around. I understand that its affordable which may be part of it and i get that. But personally idt brew it and not try to replicate bud light. Just bring a 30 pack and brew something to please some and yourself. A little whirlpool hops just to ad some nice aroma. My opinion
Funny you mention a 30 pack because I buy one for them once/week😂 I’m prob asking too much of extract to build a quaffable yet superior and still familiar brew for them. I may whirlpool, I might just brew two batches and let them do a taste off.
Kolsch is very light… very pale… low ABV… Been a long time since I brewed one, but seemed… 6 lbs Pils and 1 lbs wheat… Hope you can find some soft water… I like any noble hops in this one too… light handed… Keep it simple… You are a chef… making a light dish needs alot of this and that to make it a …? (no)…
Is that all you can drink a week? … Clowning there brother…
Sneezles61
I think the recipe looks great. I agree with others that you can ditch the specialty grains altogether. One thing I would consider is adding a touch of corn sugar or table sugar to dry the beer out a bit. When I used to make extract brews, I would notice that the beers would finish on the sweet side. Adding simple sugar would help combat this. If it was my beer I would probably add ½ lb corn sugar. Also, @sneezles61 is spot on with his comment about soft water.
Interesting about the soft water. I hadn’t considered messing with the water profile. Just moved in to a new place so not sure how it stacks up. Will def head to my local-est brew shop for some tips and chems to adjust the profile if necessary. You are correct, subtle simple shit needs a light hand and technique has to be spot on. Ahem, the 30 packs are for the club members, I stay away from that stuff:joy:
Thanks @CS! I was first looking at making a honey kolsch, and @brew_cat mentioned the honey is really just there to dry it out. I have some spare corn sugar so that will definitely make it into the mix. I need to do more research on brewing water chemistry
I would stay away from water chemistry until you 1) have a good understanding of it 2) know YOUR water chemistry. If you have hard water at home you can use distilled water to cut the minerals in your extract. The water chemistry was decided when the manufacturer produced the extract.
Carapils/cara foam is a dextrine malt used to improve body, head retention, and mouthfeel. The same thing wheat does! To me dextrine malt is over used in beer. I understand there might be a need, but still is often overused.
Good point that the chemistry is decided when the extract is created. Never thought of that. Maybe I could use distilled and adjust to a soft water profile? I may just use tap, it tastes good and neutral to me. Some posts about my town’s water mention hardness, and I looked up the local water report, not like I could really understand it. Thanks!
If you use distilled you are adding NO additional minerals to the beer. Any tap water, no matter how soft will add minerals. No way around it. If you have a water report for your city, post it and we’ll discuss it/help you out. But the minerals are already in your extract. So no real need to add more, within reason and if you know your report. That’s why you can get away with distilled water as an extract brewer.
Ah ok, now I’m understanding. Sometimes it takes me a while:joy:Thanks. Here is the water report for my city from 2018. I think I will go straight distilled water + extract.
Thats a foggy report… But what I can tell, Alkalinity looks high… Pulling from 4 different sources…
So using distilled/RO water would be good… Loopie has you headed in the right direction…
CS has a valid point too with some sugar to dry out a brew… but its not warranted here.
Sneezles61
Yeah boy. I agree that water report is a mess. Since you’re doing extract focus on distilled water for now. Might be worth getting a water report from Ward Labs. But if your water is coming from different sources, it will change. And from that report pretty drastically at that!
… Clowning there brother…
