Need Help! Left out the dried malt!

What went wrong? Was this supposed to happen? Should I throw it out? What do I do now?

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Otis
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2004 10:48 pm

Need Help! Left out the dried malt!

Post by Otis »

Hi everyone!
First time brewer here...I am trying to make an American Cream Ale from a kit. I used a 3.3 pound can of Cooper's Brewery malt extract (light), 1 1/2 oz of bittering hops, 1/2 oz of finishing hops and 11g of Nottingham brewing yeast. The batch size is five gallons. The problem is that I have just realized that I forgot to add the 2 pounds of spray-dried malt that was included in the kit. I started the fermentation Monday. If I am reading the hydrometer correctly, I measured a specific gravity of 1.028 at 70 degress, corrected to 1.029 at 60 degrees. Bubbling started that afternoon. Yesterday was wonderful! It was bubbling and swirling with foam on top and a life of its own! It is still bubbling today (Wednesday) but the activity has slowed down some.
Is my creation doomed? Should I see it on through to bottling? Will I end up with "near beer" or worse?
Thanks!
Brewer2001
Double IPA
Double IPA
Posts: 170
Joined: Fri Sep 07, 2001 1:56 am

You could do any one of these things.

Post by Brewer2001 »

Otis,

All is not lost.

You could just let it finish and bottle. (your starting gravity was not so bad.)

You could use 3/4 cup of the malt as priming before bottling (this would give you a maltier flavor)

You could boil the malt in a 'mini' batch and add this in a secondary fermentation vessel to the initial batch. This would be a complete secondary fermentation.

At any rate it should taste good.

Good brewing,

Tom F.
Otis
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2004 10:48 pm

Thanks for the reply!

Post by Otis »

Hi Tom!
Thanks for the reply...I can sleep easier now knowing that all is not lost!
I will probably just go ahead and bottle it...I will let you know what I decide to do and how it turns out!
xbrewer
Light Lager
Light Lager
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri May 11, 2001 6:37 pm

more info

Post by xbrewer »

While I agree with Tom that the batch is not lost and the easiest thing to do is go ahead and ignore the ommision of the dry extract, you should be aware that ommitting 37.7% of the malt will produce very light beer and will little resemble what the brew is supposed to be.
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