Recipe Advice Thread

[denimglen]

Thought it might be handy to have a thread for some of the more advanced brewers to give some advice on recipes.

Let's see how it goes eh...

[Reviled]

Bahaha, love the analogy ;o)

[Ally Mcg]

Okay, so as a bit of a novice with American hops i wanna maximise the flavour so I'm planning an APA to celebrate something. My birthday? The fact I've hops? Nah, any excuse i can think of will do. Anyway, would appreciate any thoughts on this

Allys APA

1.8kg tin Muntons Finest Pale
1kg Marris Pale
.4kg Caramalt 20L
20g Simcoe @90
10g Amarillo @15
5g Simcoe @15
15g Amarillo @5
5g Amarillo, 5g Simcoe, 5g NZ Cascade dry hopped

US05 Yeast.
16 litre batch, 11 litre boil. Mash at 67 for 1 hour. 90 minute boil.
Beersmith says to expect 1.053OG and 42.8IBU which is spot on for the style, but thinking i could do with either some more hops at 15 or something to make the body a bit more exciting. Cheers in advance for any comments

[Mike Neilson]

Lower the 90min addition and up the end hops to around 40g total each addition and If you want a real hop bang Quadrupal your dryhop. Then you will get bang for your buck!! It shouldnt be to over hoppy this way if you do add about 70g each addition at the end and 70g dry hop!! I find american hops more forgiving than NZ hops with Nz hops I find sometimes less can be more and I find with american hops less is fantastic and more is Best!! if you know what I mean.

[Ally Mcg]

Totally agree re the hops, trouble is I've only 90g each of Simcoe and Amarillo so I'm half hedging my bets, I'll take the 90min down to 10g and then split my final addition 30g at 5 and 40g dry hop and for the amarillos up the 5 min to the same and whack whatever is left in as dry hops. Cheers, might as well go all in with my 90g than mince about and try and get two brews outta them!

[Mike Neilson]

You wont regret it!! Sulphate it to!! about a teaspoon and If its not enough in this one you can up it again!!

[Ally Mcg]

Sulphate?? Whats that?

Argh, now i feel like even more of a newbie!

[Mike Neilson]

Calcium Sulphate, The Sulphate makes the hops alot more brighter and pronounced and the calcium Ion, raises ph, hardens the water and improves buy increasing hotbreak, to me to much calcium strips the beer though!!

[Ally Mcg]

Cool, ta - the only sulphate i could think of was horrible Sodium Met which i didn't think you'd be suggesting I'd add to a beer.

I'll check it out - as far as i recall Chch has quite soft water. I'll do some playing online and work out what a good amount would be - cheers!

[JoKing]

Gidday Crabbey. What kind of results are you after for this brew? Do you have a picture in your minds eye of what you want... or more correctly: do you have a flavour on your minds tongue? Do you know what style you are after creating?

This recipe look much like a hybrid of UK Pale and US Pale Ales. You have the darker colour and higher FG of a UK Pale, and the High SG, bitterness and fruity hops suited to a US Pale Ale... as well as the yeast. It should be quite interesting if it turns out like this.

In my opinion, the FG may detract from some of the hops in here somewhat - maybe shoot for 1.012? This can be acheived by mashing at a slightly lower temp 65 - 66 degrees for an hour. Also - your zero minute hop addition is a bit slight... would you be interested in getting up to around 30 grams or so?

Good Luck!

[JoKing]

I think your recipe is fine as it is. To maximise the impact of your home grewn hop addition, throw them in the blender and annhialate them. This will increase surface area and better utilise hop / wort contact... maybe up to 20%

If you're looking for balance, I can predict that (if the beer turned out as per the recipe) the beer will be leaning towards the malty side... slightly sweet: Not too sweet though: just leaning.

Mashing at 66 should get you slightly lower in FG. I think that 1.012 will be nicely balanced here. Be sure to be kind to your us-05 with nutrient added to the boil, and a thorough aeration before pitching. US-05 is a very strong attenuater, but you still have to be nice to it - otherwise it can lend some vanilla-ry, honey type flavours in the brew.... which could be out of place.

Ferment this at 20 degrees if you can, and you shoud get plenty of fruit from the malt and hops. 18 degrees will give you maltyness and subtle fruityness from the hops. 16 degrees will be crisp malt flavour and clean hop notes.

Good Luck!

[JoKing]

There was a thread somewhere on here regarding this... Reviled seeked the same advise... Denimglen put him onto the WyEast rep here in NZ... I think this is what is necessary - it has all the correct types of nutrients for a healthy ferment.

[denimglen]

Yeah boe, [e-mail].