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...

[KJ Henderson]

Thanks but my trial has expired and its a bit beyond me, I havnmt really changed any of the recipe from the program apart from the grain bill. The total amout of grain is just under 2kg if that helps 1.2 of that being Marris Otter. Being my first ever I am giving cutting myself a little slack with gravities and volumes, just need the first out the way with resonable result.

[denimglen]

Sweet, I deleted that recipe though haha.

What equipment are you using as a mash tun? And what is the whole grain bill?

From there I can check your figures for the mash and sparge as I'll need to estimate the deadspace loss of the mash tun and the water absorption of the grain.

It's a little daunting at first but after batch one you'll see it's incredibly easy. Your mindset on gravities and volumes is good - if you're not too pedantic with these it makes the day a lot easier. It doesn't matter what the volume and gravities are, at the end of the day you'll still have a batch of beer, and that's a bloody good start :-)

[KJ Henderson]

Thats good to know, I figure with the 10L setup I have it wont hurt as much if its a stink batch.
Heres the grainbill-

Marris Otter 1.2, Flaked Barley .48, Roast barley .24kg

Im using a compact 10L chillybin with a braided hose fitted so itll be a very tight squeeze but at least the dead space will be next to none...fingers crossed

[denimglen]

If you tilt the bin near the end of the run off you'll get little to none deadspace, but I'd account for about a cup just to be safe.

Have you got any more maris otter? You might be a bit short on your gravity with 1.2kg, but if you can up it to 1.5kg you'll be in the gravity range for a stout. If not, and you are short on OG, then worst case is you'll have a low ABV stout.

Either way I would mash in with 6.5L of 73C water (this will use about 8L of mash tun space) and target a mash temp of about 67C. Mash for 60 mins, run off. Then sparge with 9.5L of water at about 85C, which will give you a sparge temp of about 70 - 80 C. I wouldn't mash out, I've found it doesn't really do anything.

This will give you a preboil of about 13.5L, which after boil off, the decrease in volume from cooling and a little loss to trub should give you about 10L in the fermenter. Just take as many temperature, volume and gravity measurements as you can and it'll help you be a bit more accurate next time around.

Good luck and most of all have fun!

[KJ Henderson]

Thanks a lot for that its good to know there are people at the end of a keyboard to help out. I will up my Marris like you suggest as i have more to spare. Ill keep posted on my outcome and hopefully have a nice drop by the end. Cheers

[KJ Henderson]

First brew done. In fermenter so fingers crossed.
So what gave me a bit of grief and will have to work on...
1. Temperature control of mash and sparge water.
2. Bringing the batch to the boil faster.
3. Cooling the batch faster after the boil.
Im not out of the weeds yet but we will see in time...

[vdog]

Just after some lager help - I'm far too impatient to wait for a proper lager to be ready (specially at this time of year), so thinking of doing one with dirty ol' US-05 fermented at 15c. Aside from Joking's advice to pitch at 18 and drop it a degree a day after signs of fermentation, then rest at 20 for a few days, is there anything else I should know? Any particular hops that are good/bad/indifferent? I used Czech saaz in a lager last year which was good, but thinking of a motueka/nelson sauvin combo this time - anyone done that?

[JackoNZ]

Hey vdog, I've got Mot/NS lined up for a pale ale next. Advice given to me seemed to be unless you want the NS dominating go maybe 50% less NS than Mot. I reckon those two hops should be great together.

[James P]

NS and cascade has proven a winner for me in the past. Czech Saaz was my go to before NS / Riwaka dominated my hop bills.

I have used S05 many a time for pseudo lager as per Joking above. Three weeks from grain to brain.

[vdog]

Thanks guys, think I'll have a crack at Cascade/NS this time round (did a cascade/mot combo on a pale ale a couple of months ago and didn't like it as much as all-Cascade).

[vdog]

One more question James - do you need to pitch higher for the cooler ferment or will 05 still truck through it as normal?

[James P]

If you pitch at 18~ 20 and lower then no need to pitch more yeast, however it would probably be an idea to increase your pitching rate if you wanted to pitch lower than 18C.

My experience with using s05 @ 15C was a little slow to get going, so I would probably recommend a warmer start, and reduce. Early spring saw my temperatures drop down to 14~15C over the course of fermentation with any issues.

S05 is supposedly rated between 15 and 24C, so it has a great range tolerance.