Help Us Brew in Africa / Recipe Help

Looks like you have enough for approximately 2 gallons of "normal" gravity beer. Not sure what is available to ferment in but depending on bucket or glass jug size available you could do two one gallon batches. If you haven't brewed before an excellent starting point is John Palmer's how to brew. The first edition is even available for free online: http://www.howtobrew.com/

Assuming no local homebrew supply store we can probably help you come up with some creative ways to ferment that are still sanitary. Any number of food safe plastic buckets with lids can be made into a fermentor. You didn't mention yeast, do you have brewer's yeast available? Mail order dry yeast, sanitizer and an airlock would be on my list.

Edit: Also extract does not need to be mashed so you don't need to worry about brew in a bag or a mash tun unless you want to move to all grain down the road.

 

This and the rest of ChrisMyhre's post rings true to me. One additional point. You probably would not want to use all 6.5 oz of those hops with only 2 gallons of normal strength beer. It likely would come across as unbalanced and very bitter.

I probably would think of this as an English pale ale and use 0.25 oz of millennium as a 60 min addition (i.e., boil for 60 min), 0.5 oz of Willamette and Crystal as a 5 min addition. And dry hop with a blend of up to 1 oz of Willamette and Crystal. The yeast depends on availability, but some that I might use for this are Fermentis US05 or S-04, Danstar Nottingham or Windsor, maybe Coopers, Muntons, Mangrove Jack strains that look like they are supposed to make English beers. If I had a choice in the matter, I like Windsor.

But really, there are other possibilities you could explore, too. Belgian single or some sort of generic lager come to mind.

 

Welcome to the BA site and to the Homebrewing forum.

It sounds like you will be brewing the 'primitive' version of a beer, meaning you will have difficulty with the sanitation part of the process for your equipment. If you don't have access to a standard sanitizing solution that brewers use (Star San, One Step, Iodophor, etc.) you can get away with using other things such as a thin solution of bleach, but beware that you'll need to rinse the equipment very well before you brew beer or you'll have off flavors associated with that stuff.

Read the online version of How to Brew that was posted above because it deals with the sanitation issue, and read back into this forum or do a search for threads that deal with sanitation. It is hugely important.

 

If all you have is malt extract, then you aren't doing BIAB - that is an all-grain procedure.
If you do have access to malted barley, then you're set for BIAB - maybe with help from the extract.
There is also other grains over there that people make fermented beverages with - it's not beer as we know it, but it's something.
If you have a food safe, sealable (airtight) bucket, you can use a blow-off tube instead of airlock - a hole in the lid a touch smaller than a piece of (food safe, of course) tubing, stick the tube in the hole (getcher mind out of the gutter!!) and lead it to a smaller jar outside. partly fill the jar with water, and make sure the end of the tube is submerged.

 

Doing liquid conversions in my head, it looks like your 10 L buckets would be around 2 gallons. If you ingredients work out so that you brew a 2-gallon batch of beer, you'll want your fermentor to have enough head space to contain the krausen bubbles that will form on top of your beer. If you can't provide the head space, you can downsize your beer batch, or go ahead and brew it all but use the bucket plus your spare bottles as fermentors (keeping head space and adding air locks to them too). It's not the ideal situation, but it sounds like you're on the hardship tour with what you have available to you. (Since it is likely that you plan to bottle this batch of beer, and if you were going to use these spare bottles, then you've got some soul searching to do. )

 

I'm going to assume rural Zambia is hot and you don't have air conditioning. Basically, the ambient temperature for clean ale fermentation needs to be in the low 60s. Fermenting at high temperatures makes rocket fuel. There are some yeasts that do fine at higher temperatures. Most ale yeasts don't.

I don't want to discourage you from making beer, but there are many things that need to be in place before good beer can be made. Don't be surprised if your first attempt makes you develop a greater appreciation for African lager.

What ambient temperature you have and which yeast are you planning to use?

 

Welcome to the forum!

This was going to be my first question too. Do you have a spare refrigerator you can crack open? You'll find a cold room or go with a Saison yeast. http://www.homebrewsupply.com/belle...OmkwP8ipcdiQKT897KdoPX5i_-fWzOiuQEaAs-y8P8HAQ