Dark Ale - Partial Mash and LME

Dark Ale - Partial Mash and LME

A dark beer that looks like a porter, but close your eyes and this is a very nice refreshing beer with a hint of tropical fruits, medium body and a gentle lingering bitterness.

Made with mashing some grain for colour and labour, using LME and powdered malt to add the base malt character and then adding hops to give bitterness and flavour.

This Dark Ale has lots of character, with a smooth pallet, hints of citrus, grapefruit, caramel & chocolate, not too sweet and a gentle hit of bitter.

This is a very easy drinker perfect for the cold nights or even great chilled on a hot summers day.

It should come out at approximately 5% ABV.

In this recipe we use Liquid Malt Extract, Spray Malt and Grain to give 40 pints of a great tasting beer.

Ingredients:-

Scroll down to see what equipment we'll need.

Equipment:-

Scroll down to see how to make this recipe.

Method:-

Method:

Warm tin of malt extract in bowl of hot water.
Boil 6 pints of water in a kettle. Here we use a temperature controlled mashtun / boiler with a heating element.
Empty tin of malt extract into boiler / mashtun (currently turned off)
Add the 6 pints boiling water and stir until all combined.
While stirring, sprinkle in the spraymalt until dissolved.
Top up to 3 gallons with cold water.
Turn on and bring up the temp to 70°C.
Put your grain into a mashing bag and tie closed but leave lots of room for the grain to move about (think about how a tea bag works).
When it reaches temperature, gradually lower the mashing bag with the grain into the liquid in the boiler and gently swirl it / agitate it to prevent the grain clumping.
Lower the temp of the boiler / mashtun to 68°C Leave to mash for 30 minutes
Boil 3 gallons of water to use for sparging.
At this stage I prefer to open the bag of grain and suspend this over the top of the boiler / mashtun in a sieve.
Gently pour the boiling water over the grain so as not to disturb any of the grain. Keep going until your sparging has added 2 gallons of liquid in the boiler / mashtun.
Turn up the temperature to 100°C to a rolling boil.
Once it reaches a rolling boil start the clock
@ 0 mins add the Saaz hops
@ 15 mins add the Goldings hops
@ 45 mins add 25g Mosiac hops
@ 45 mins add 1 tsp Irish Moss
@ 60 mins turn off the heat and add 25g Mosaic hops.
Add the 350g brewing sugar and stir until dissolved.
Insert a wort chiller coil and cool your liquid to 20°C
Strain off your liquid into a brewing bucket.
Take an SG reading with a hydrometer
Pitch the yeast
Place in a warm place at 20°C for 5 days.
On day 5 add 25g Mosaic hops
24 hours later Syphon into clean bucket
Add the 50g priming sugar and barrel / bottle

I hope you enjoy this beer recipe using a mixture of grain and malt extract and spraymalt (aka a partial mash). You can of course play with the ingredients to adjust it to your taste, possibly use more hops with a higher alpha acid content at the 0min of the boil if you want your ale to have more bitters. Or you could add more spraymalt / sugar if you want a higher alcohol content. Or even halve the amount of black malt to have more of a red ale.

If you would like any guidance please contact us and we will be happy to help.