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...

[Karl Hayes]

Evening fellow home brewers.

Does anyone have any time to help a newbie All-Grain with a recipe? I've bought the equipment needed to attempt my first Boil in a Bag - No Chill batch over the next few days and I'm looking for a simple recipe
to get me started. I would like to start off with the simple Pale Ale
recipe on the BIAB quick start guide:

"For a 23 Litre recipe (US 6 Gallons)
4.6Kg Pale Malt
56 grams Pellet Hops such as Cascade (This is for bittering, aroma and flavour)
1 x Packet of dry Yeast US-05
1 x Packet Irish Moss"

 

However:

1. I'm not overly excited about using Irish Moss as I'm not too fussy about sediment.
2. Any suggestions wrt hops?
3. I would like to increase the hop content, both bittering and flavour.
4. I have at my disposal Torrefied Wheat and Amber Malt. Would either/both of these be an acceptable addition to the grain bill?

As I said, I'm a total newbie at All-Grain so any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Cheers

[Karl Hayes]

Hi guys (and gals?)

 

I'm about to make the plunge into all-grain and I've purchased the extra kit necessary for BIAB and No Chill methods. Can anyone advise a complete noob on a simple recipe to get me started?

 

I've had a look at some beer calculators but they confuse the crap out of me.

 

I intend to follow the simple Pale Ale recipe on the BIAB quick-start-guide that's floating around,

"4.6Kg Pale Malt
56 grams Pellet Hops such as Cascade
1 x Packet of dry Yeast US-05"

 

This recipe calls for 14g bittering hops for 60 mins (reduced to 40 mins to allow for No-Chill), 14g flavour hops at 30 mins (reduced to 10 mins) and 28g at 15 mins (on cubing).

 

If I'd prefer a more bitter and hoppier brew, should I just double the bittering and flavour hops? 

 

Any further advice would be appreciated.

 

I also have some black malt, torrefied wheat, amber malt and roasted barley for future projects. I'd love to hear of any additions which would enhance the simple recipe above....

 

Sláinte

 

 

[Llew Bardecki]

I'll offer a few suggestions:

There's really nothing to be lost from putting your bittering addition in at the start of the boil.  You'll squeeze a wee bit more alpha acid out of them, at no real cost.

 

If you're using NZ Cascade hops with 8-9% Alpha Acid and aiming for an all around hoppy beer I'd do something like:

28g @ 60

56g at cubing

56g dry hops

 

This would have you on the hoppy side of the BJCP guidelines for American Pale Ale.

 

As for other ingredients, I might throw in a touch of that amber malt for a bit more character.  Only 150-250g would probably do.  If you could easily get hold of 250g of pale or medium crystal malt, that wouldn't go amiss either.

 

Finally, if you're bumping up the hops you might want to mash a degree or so hotter than the recipe suggests just to give a bit more sweetness to balance the bitterness.

 

Hope this helps, Happy Brewing! (And Hoppy New Year too! :)

[denimglen]

Agree with all those points above, especially on hopping and the addition of those specialty malts.

 

I'd mash at around 66 - 67 if you include about 400 - 500g of specialties, and a bit higher, 68 - 69 if you got with 100% pale malt.

 

As for cubing/no chilling  as far as hops go, for a 1050 beer, these are the IBUs I get at different times for 28g hops at 8% alpha:

 

60m - 28.5 IBUS

90m - 30.5 IBU

120m - 31.1 IBU

240m - 31.4 IBU

480m - 31.4 IBU

 

As you can see the for the bittering addition no matter how long it's boiled the bitterness value doesn't change much so I'd just add the addition at 60 minutes and me done with it.

 

You'll also get some bitterness from the addition into the cube.  Which at a guess would top you up to about the 40 IBU mark which is about right for the style of beer.

[Karl Hayes]

Thanks for the assistance guys.

 

For a 1st attempt, it wasn't too bad. I used NZ Hallertau instead of Cascade as my LHBS was out of stock. 34g at 60 mins and 45 at 10 mins.

 

I added 150g of Amber Malt and 50g of Black Malt

 

My two areas of concern are:

Temps drifted low during mashing, about 64.5 at one stage

The final volume was 17.5 Litres, from an original volume of 30 Litres - a lot of evaporation during a 90 minute boil I suppose. Does this mean I should top up to 23 Litres before pitching?

 

Thanks again for all your help

 

Sláinte

[denimglen]

The mash temp's not a biggie - It will probably dry out a little more than you'd get otherwise.

 

With my system my pre-boil volume for a 90m boil is about 34L, my post-boil post-cool volume is about 24L with around 4L lost to break material and hops leaving 20L going into the fermenter.

 

So if you transfered all the break material and hops to the fermenter then you've boiled off 12.5L - which isn't too bad but a bit on the high side.  I'd drop your flame down on your burner if that's the case.

 

If you did leave a few litres behind in the kettle then on your next batch just adjust your pre-boil volume to compensate to get your full 23 L into the kettle.

 

Whether to top up or not?  Depends - if your gravity was higher than anticipated then add some sanitary water the fermenter to hit your OG and get closer to your volume.  If the OG was correct (or lower than calculated) then you've got to make the call if you want more beer at lower ABV or less beer at the right ABV.

[Karl Hayes]

Thanks. My OG is 1.061 which is a little higher than beersmith reckons it should be so I will add about 3 Litres of purified water to the fermenter to bring it down to about 1.055

 

Happy new year

[jt]

No brew this weekend, but I'm considering the Super Alpha Ale for the weekend after
Now I'm not sure if I should do this as a brown or pale - I suspect that a good dose of Super Alpha may be a bit over doing it in a Pale - but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

Anyway, if you can stuff wallet loads of high alpha American hops into a beer, then why not New Zealand ones, I thought ?

 

So the choice is either a Pale which lately is 85% Malteurop, 15 % Cara / Crystal or a Brown which is the Pale plus 5% chockies. I'm toying with doing a Pale one week then a Brown the next
Either way, it's 1034 with '05

So it's really just a case of when do the hops go in. I was thinking of 25gm / 28IBU 60 and then 25gm at either 1 or 0 minute
Or maybe I should go with all from 20 minutes onward for the same IBU

Any good ideas ?

[Stu McKinlay]

pale pale pale... and go hard

 

Ralph at Toru Boys was predicting Super Alpha to be the next big thing. Put your money where his mouth is...

 

Summer Alpha

88% Malteurop

12% Caramalt 35

1g/L at 10, 5 and 0 (and any extra for bittering to hit your desired IBU)

 

I'd possibly push up to 1.040....

[jt]

Ralph at Toru Boys was predicting Super Alpha to be the next big thing 

Shhhhhh ... I want it all for myself !

 

I'd possibly push up to 1.040....

Yea, maybe, but I'm on a less is more at the moment - but I've got a week to think about it

 

Could be 9% cara and the rest crystal 90 .. or the dark

 

and any extra for bittering to hit your desired IBU

That's a toughy, somewhere between 70-100% IBU:OG, not decided.

May do a few of these, start low and build up to breaking point

 

And thanks for the encouragement Stu

[Stu McKinlay]

Definitely go lowish first... 70-80 and keep it really pale. Let the hop tell you what it wants. Be one with the hop.

[jt]

Yea, it's 70% then Stu  - that gives me the 60 minute bitterness I usually like