Hey BA's looking for some help with a brown ale kit recipe. My first time trying to homebrew and thought a kit would be the easiest way to start. I want to add toasted coconut and brown sugar to the brown ale base and was wondering when the best time to add these would be. With the malt extract? Before fermentation? Before bottling? Thanks in advance for the help.
I have never brewed with toasted coconut so I have no recommendations with that ingredient. My practice is to add sugars at the end of boil so I would suggest that you add the brown sugar then. Cheers!
If it's your first time homebrewing I would read www.howtobrew.com and familiarize yourself with the overall brewing process. Next step, brew the kit per the instructions without adding your own spin on it. I made a couple bad beers by making tweaks to known recipes without knowing how those tweaks would change the beer.
I totally agree with @SFACRKnight and @VikeMan. You'll have enough problems just getting that first batch done, but OK, if you're going to be a rebel and do it though, forget the brown sugar because you're not ready for that. The toasted coconut, however, is do-able. Simply buy unsweetened shredded coconut, maybe a pound or so, even three in 5 gallons for a wallop! Once your fermentation is done (you should know when that is) toast the coconut on a baking tray in your oven on the middle shelf at @ 350F. It should be browned, very browned, and have given off a lot of oil, but not burnt at all, and add that into a muslin bag and drop it into your fermenting bucket (if you're already using a glass carboy forget it). Give it 5 days or so and then pull it out and proceed normally. Good luck!
Don't ever listen to people who tell you to hold back. Have fun and be creative. You have nothing to lose if you are willing to make mistakes and learn from them. As for your question, I will leave that to others.
It’s his first Brew....He has no idea what he’s doing which is fine... that’s why we said follow the kit. You wouldn’t take someone who has never driven a car before and out them on the audobon would you? Nothing wrong with taking it easy on your first go about.
Thanks for the replies. I've read How To Brew so I have some idea what I'm doing and what to expect but theres nothing like experience and actually doing it. I think I'll just forget the brown sugar and try adding the coconut after fermentation and see what I end up with.
To emphasize what Jim posted above of: “It should be browned, very browned, and have given off a lot of oil, but not burnt at all,…” If you do not ‘remove’ a lot of the oil of the coconut it will likely impact your head retention. Cheers!
Consider how much time, money and effort your gonna put into this brew, and how many gallons. By all means do it up dude. Can’t know to ya do. But also maybe consider something easier at first and without frustration at the end. Good luck!
@Prep8611 Your point is well received but he's just a-brewin' and he showed some respectable ambition. There's so much good advice on here and so much fear, too. I guarantee Jerry Garcia experimented from the start and gave the deadheads something incredibly special.
i get that new brewers want to make something that feels distinctly theirs. I sure did. My first 20 or so batches included forays into brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, pumpkin, spices, cherries, wild rice. But all of those beers were highly flawed and some were damn near toxic (my early use of adjunct sugar invariably resulted in the most unforgiving hangovers ever). I really didn’t enjoy these beers. Like so many other brewers, I found my sweet spot brewing classic beer styles, focusing on understanding basic ingredients and learning process. Once I got that down, I had more success with the less conventional, although still find myself enjoying the basics more. Not saying the op shouldn’t try brown sugar and coconut. Just hope he brews something he enjoys, because that seems like a higher priority than brewing something different.
Unless they are brewers with many years or decades of experience who have seen this situation and how it typically turns out many times over. You need to personally witness a bunch of newbie first/second/third brew days. After you have, you'll give different advice.
You are comparing something like brewing which like baking is scientific in its approach to something like music which is purely creative with no rules to follow for success. You are generally giving pretty poor advice and I think it’s a detriment to the OP and other new brewers who stumble upon this thread. I had a brewing partner who taught me a lot of the basics and we still followed recipes cause it was a better chance that we would succeed and I wouldn’t become discouraged.
Prep, I respect your reply, but it's bad advice to restrict someone's creativity simply out of fear, doubt, and concern. It just is. And to others: Experience should not be used to discourage a properly formed, self-imposed challenge in beer making. Vikeman, trust me when I say your experience is invaluable and your posts helpful. I think it would be better to ask questions about one's situation, like time/money factors, number of brews planned, outside experience, or other, before we hold someone back from bringing delicious beer to the world. Prep, what is so right about your car driving metaphor that you must critique the Jerry reference? I chose that analogy because of the OP's avatar, not for its precision. Besides, Jerry and the deads elevated beyond music in many respects. I totally agree that new brewers want to make something distinctly their own. I'm glad he is getting some good advice about how to go for the coconut. We all have our opinions. Discouraging experiences are part of learning. Lastly, coconut and and brown sugar won't ruin any kit if we give the advice he is seeking.
Properly informed? He has made 0 batches of beer and he wants to go off script. How is that properly informed? At this point, he knows little about how that first brew day is going to go, and how hectic it is going to be. You are missing the point. Nobody is saying that a particular ingredient will necessarily ruin a kit. They're saying it's dumb to wing it before learning the basics. To use your own analogy, Jerry Garcia didn't write a mind-numbingly boring jam the first time he picked up a guitar. That took time. And IIRC, he first learned about music playing the piano.
@StealYourFaceStout Brew it up man. If it turns out as hoped, awesome. But if it doesn’t well... A lot a experienced brewers here have poured thoughts, opinions, and advice. Go for it but learn, like anything in life.
