Will this make a decent beer?

Hold the enzyme until after your mash - do a conversion test on the wort with iodine to see if you need it, then denature the enzyme as soon as possible. By that, I mean wait until your wort is ready to boil, add the enzyme, and keep checking with iodine every few minutes. Unless you want Bud Light, as soon as the wort passes the iodine test, start boiling. Your problem using the alpha-amylase will be that the non-malt variety is more heat-stable and will chew through the dextrines as well, giving you more fermentables than less. I agree with your assessment - brewing is cooking for engineers - but what I find "artistic" is a well-crafted German pilsner. Another might find a Belgian IPA a work of art - I find it vaguely poisonous tasting. Nice to see you're "into" it and are trying to save a recipe. You might get something great, you might get swamp water but you will get beer and since it's your own, you will enjoy it.
 
That's why we start simple. ;)
There's more to the whole thing than just throwing ingredients at it. It's not rocket science but there is a learning curve and it might be worthwhile to get some of the most basic concepts and processes figured out before wasting time and money on something that may or may not be drinkable.
Good luck.

That's a good point. Just like when you make pasta with water, flour, and egg, you have to get the technique and the mix right, or you won't make noodles.

None of it is difficult, but recipe, ingredients, technique, water chemistry, etc are all a part of it.
 
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So for the first one, and since I have no equipment for mashing and trying to do it as simple as possible.
Somehow we got from no mashing equipment to a full mashing schedule complete with adjuncts, added enzymes, iodine, etc. My head is spinnng! :D :D :D
 
Haha, yeah. I have a tendency to do that with my hobbies, I always fall down the rabbit hole :D
Same with my aquariums, started with a small simple setup with a few common fish and plants. Now I got a full blown Japanese style planted aquarium with a full CO2 setup and the works, even grow my own aquarium plants under lab conditions. Why can't I just enjoy the simple things? CO2 comes in handy though with the brewing :)

Already looking for a used brew pot in the 20-30L range to do more of a BIAB for my next batches.
 
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Yeah...you'll get sucked in. :)
You'll find that dead simple extract brews have their place but even though I occasionally have reason to do them still, I've never gotten close to the quality of flavor that I get with all-grain brewing.
 
My reasoning exactly. Initial plan was to get some LME and Hops, thats it. Then I did some more research and thought "Hey, lets put some grains in there for some added flavor"......and here we are.
 
I've had some really excellent beers that were extract based but the only way to achieve anything worth drinking is to do a steeped-grain full-boil. You'd be surprised how much malt flavor and body you can get from just steeping Cara/Crystal malts to release their converted sugars and by using DME and making the full wort volume and boiling down exactly as you would do with wort that you converted through mashing, you can get a really good beer. Quickie brews with steeped grain and a 20 minute boil and late-addition LME are never as satisfying in flavor in my experience.
 
Counterpoint - My first beer, a extract only, one-hop beer, took a silver medal at the Colorado State Fair. It depends on what you want - I like subtle, balanced beers. If that's what you like, extract and hops alone will work just fine. If you like stronger flavors, you'll have to steep. As always, if you want three opinions, ask two brewers.
 
My first beer, a extract only, one-hop beer,
LME or DME? I've just never had a lot of luck with the LME/late addition beers I've done.
 
DME. LME, you never know how old it is and if it stays around too long, it starts to taste like ink.
 
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DME. LME, you never know how old it is and if it stays around too long, it starts to taste like ink.
That's the key. The lazy brews I do to make a starter and (hopefully) have something to show for it are usually extra wort from a mash and LME. Sometimes it works and I attribute that to fresh extract. Even though my local store goes through it, they buy bulk in big carboys and if it's been a few weeks since they opened it or it's been sitting in the back room for a while before they even get around to opening it, it yields less than great results. ;)
 
Mine is 5 months old, I don't know if that counts as fresh?

Still have not made the brew, my neck acted up all of a sudden.

Done a lot of research though. Think I'm gonna make me a 4000w electric plastic kettle out of one of my fermentor buckets. With a Inkbird 106vh PID. Would cost me about 60$ to make, and then I have a 6.5g mash tub, and I can use it for distilling (shhh). Thats a pretty good deal if you ask me.
 
Mine is 5 months old, I don't know if that counts as fresh?
Not necessarily...Likely the stuff that's sealed in smaller containers holds up better but bulk stuff seems to deteriorate relatively quickly. Probably not going to be a problem. It would be interesting to try some side-by side comparisons of older vs newer stock.
 
I've done that, in a way. I got one of those big blue containers the LME comes in and used the remnants inside to make a beer. Old tastes like ink. Really, like ink. From the smell, imagine how a Bic pen would taste, that's the flavor. After the test, I won't use LME again, even though our local homebrew shop goes through it very quickly.
 
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So I finally got the brew going. Ended up Mashing for about 80 min on 66-67c. Still wasn't enough to convert everything. So I filtered off and sparged the grain, added the wort back to the pot and raised temp to 68c. Added about 2 gr of Alpha-Amylase and after 15 min everthing was converted. Measured every 5 min. Then started boil asap to kill the enzymes and did the hops.

According to the brewhouse calc I got 73% efficiency, not too shabby for a first time and all I have is a 9L pot :p

OG was at 1.052 before pitching, hoping for a FG of 1.011-1.009

PS: The wort tasted amazing, some carbonation and a little cooling and I could drink that stuff straight! So hope is still there :D
 
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Congratulations on your first brew! Sounds like it went pretty well all things considered. Cheers!
 
Wow you actually tested your conversion? Swanky. I just let it buck and have come within 1-2% every time so far except when I do something stupid.

Carbonated wort would probably make a great kids drink to go along with adult beverages, I'm just not sure about mold, etc... I carbonate water in a keg and use lemon or whatever is available for flavoured carbonated water.
 
Wow you actually tested your conversion? Swanky. I just let it buck and have come within 1-2% every time so far except when I do something stupid.

Carbonated wort would probably make a great kids drink to go along with adult beverages, I'm just not sure about mold, etc... I carbonate water in a keg and use lemon or whatever is available for flavoured carbonated water.
Carbonated wort is sold in Latin America under the name "Malta." Easy to make if you keg: Make your wort, stabilize it with metabisulfite and sorbate, just as you would an off-dry wine, then carbonate and package. More trouble if you bottle but I'd think if I can hold the pressure of naturally carbonated root beer in a plastic soda bottle, I could hold the pressure of a naturally carbonated malta-style beverage. It'd go with a dark wort mashed at a relatively low temperature.
 
Curios. My last batch of cider started at 1.056 OG, and now 16 days later is 1.000, finishes at about .0998. Same yeast (US-05), same nutrients, same pitching method, ferm. temp even slightly higher.

But my beer now, around 46 hrs since pitching I'm already at 1.018! At this rate, it will be done fermenting in a day or two. Hop flavor is nice, could add a tad more bittering, decent head and a nice color. Buuuut the body is a little lacking, even for my taste. What would be a good substitute grain for the pilsner for my next batch? More body, but still light in color-grain. Pale malt?

btw, I can't get American malts for some odd reason my Local brew shop has like 40 kinds of malt, all European.
 
But my beer now, around 46 hrs since pitching I'm already at 1.018! At this rate, it will be done fermenting in a day or two. Hop flavor is nice, could add a tad more bittering, decent head and a nice color. Buuuut the body is a little lacking, even for my taste.
Not sure I understand, but are you critiquing an unfinished, unattenuated beer to figure out how you can improve the next batch? If that's the case, there's no way you could make decisions or have a real idea of what it's like until it's finished and carbed.
A quick drop in gravity is common over the first 2-3 days. It slows quite a bit and even though it may have gone nearly all the way in a short while, it may take several days or a week just to drop the last couple of points.
 

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