Just got back from Maryland Homebrew, and I think we’ve got everything we need to brew. OK, we might need a bag of ice for cooling the wort. I will check on our ice situation tonight. As noted earlier, I’m straying a bit from the original recipe. Here’s my list of substitutions:
- Substituted Cooper’s amber malt extract for Munton’s
- Substituted Munton’s dark plain malt extract for Munton’s stout kit
- Substituted White Labs 011 “European Ale” yeast for Wyeast #1007 German Ale yeast
- Substituted Breiss amber dry malt extract for Munton’s light/amber
The biggest change was using the plain dark extract in place of the stout kit. MDHB does not stock the Munton’s stout kit, but it presumably uses hopped malt extract. Hopefully the use of unhopped extract will not affect the balance of the finished product too much. We’ll find out.. that’s the fun of homebrewing. I may have skipped the stout kit even if it was in stock — the kits run $5 more than the plain extracts, and include extra yeast that I don’t need.
Everything I read about the White Labs yeasts says that they work best with a starter culture, so I will prepare one tomorrow night. I’ve used the White Labs stuff at least once before (since MDHB stopped carrying Wyeast) and I believe I used a starter culture then, too.