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...

[Mark Kessell]

hi guys, Mark here.
i'm about to start my 1st "experiment" with all grain brewing. so, while i'm in the process of aquiring all the equipment, i thought i'd run my recipe past some more wiser minds to get some opinions.

a bit about myself. i really, really, really love IPA's.
my last extract IPA was brewed with 500g light spray malt and 50g cascade hop, and it turned extremely drinkable.

so, it was only natural that my 1st all grain is an IPA also.
been thinking about it off and on for a while now, and this is the current inception of the recipe.
took me ages to find a good base malt, and i recon i have. so here goes.

i'm trying to get a balance between the hop flavour and malty goodness. i want it a nice rich golden colour (if i can), rather than amber /coppery for this one. so any suggestions on grains most definitely welcome. i've been told that the colour is going to end up around 11.6. so if thats as coppery as i've been told, i'm probably going to have to alter the grains a bit to get the desired effect.

Ingredients:
7.0KG Bairds Pearle Pale Malt -- this looks to be the best i've found so far as a good base grain
1.0KG Bairds Caramel Malt 40L -- if this is too much, can easily drop to 0.5KG's
1.0KG Weyermann Munich Malt -- i've seen recipies using this, but not 100% sure. any thoughts?
0.5KG Special B Malt -- another speciality malt i've seen used. not sure if i can get that in NZ or what an alternative is.
0.25KG Weyermann Carapils Malt

as for the hop, i plugged this into a friends brewing program.
Boil time of 60 mins, boil size 24 - 25L, Batch Size 19 - 20L.

bittering:
25g Pacific Jade (60min) 34.8 IBU
50g NZ Goldings (45min) 18.7 IBU

Flavour:
30g Nelson Souvan (20min) 21.7 IBU
30g Riwaka (20min) 9.8 IBU
30g Pacifica (20min) 9.0 IBU

Aroma:
25g Cascade (dry hop 7 days into fermentation)
25g Hallertau Aroma (dry hop 7 days into fermentation)


it ended up being around 94-95 IBU's. with an estimated ABV of 8.8%.


i have several questions about this.
1 - obviously, as i'm after a nice rich golden colour to my ale, it's about grains being used.
2 - dry hopping. i've heard that people add more to bittering hop when using large amounts of dry hop. knowing my amounts to be small in comparison to others, can anyone give advise as to the balance here?
3 - i planned my original IBU's to be around 120-ish (45g - 50g of the flavour hop). given the grain make up above (with potentially a few changes) which is better for balance?


any opinions greatly received. :-)
and thanks in advance.

[denimglen]

Not to piss on the parade, but I wouldn't do such a big beer for your first AG.

You're gonna run into dramas all over the show, and then to deal with a high OG beer and a shitload of spent hops.

I'd go with something a little more subtle, around the 1.050 mark, that is balanced with the hops that plus-minus 10 gravity points isn't going to affect balance too much.

An alternative to Special B is Dark crystal.

1000g crystal is way too much.

A good grist for IPA/APAs is something like

86% Base malt (pearl malt is an excellent choice)
6% Carapils
4% Wheat Malt
4% Light crystal (around 40 - 60 Lovibond or 80 - 120 EBC)

[Mike Neilson]

Good Stuff man Welcome to all grain

First things first
Malt bill looks pretty good but as a rule of thumb with IPA's I reacon you need over 10% tops 16% (if your attenuation is spot on) Specialties, Special B leave that for you dubbels or Amber Ales, Cara Aroma is a substitute for it.

I This would be my malt bill

78% Pearl
10% Munich
6% Medium Crystal
6% Caramalt/ CaraPils

I worked Out you Effcientcy of around 59% so you would need Around

7.5KG Pearle
1KG Munich
550g Med Crystal
550g Caramalt

All avalible from www.libertybrewing.co.nz




Hops

For an IPA i would bitter 50% at 90 60 30, than finish with 150g of hops from 10 mins
and dry hop with about 60-100g from day 5 of ferment or when your about 2-5 points of you FG
Bitter for around 1 for 1 or 1.2 to 1 ratio of Ibu to SG, Oh and use at Least 250g of hops


I pluged your recipe in my computer and it spat back at me

1.090 SG, 53EBC which is very Stoutish!!

Good Luck!! man!! There will be loads of people coment on this with all good advice so listen to everyone as my IPA can be pretty full on!!

[JoKing]

I'd second that Malt bill Mike has suggested here for a couple of reasons. Special B is not really appropriate for these kinds of beers - plus you'll struggle to find it in NZ. Also, anything over 15% crystal is going to finish off way to sweet.

The only thing that I'd change out from Mikes Malt bill would be to swap the Medium Crystal with CaraPils. The Medium Crystal will deffinately get you into the copper colour you said you were trying to avoid. CaraPils will give you a fair amount of Caramel flavour, but not too much in the way of colour.

Finally your hops...

I think you're going to want to play around with your kettle additions. One dose of hops at 20 mins isn't going to give you the depth you need in a beer like this. And, as Mike suggests you wont get much flavour or aroma with the amounts you have posted - especially against that malt bill.

I'd suggest splitting your late kettle additions from 30 mins onwards, and make sure you have 10min additions as well as flame out additions. In total, you should be aiming for 150g in these additions as well as 100g for your dry hop: 250g in total.

It's up to you though, and up to your tastes. It doesn't really matter what your IBUs will be in the end, because what is more important is the amount you use late in the kettle and in the dry hop - this is the hallmark characteristic of an IPA. I can say that with the hop bill you have posted, the hop character will be under ballanced against the malt... which may be more to your tastes - but not really to style.

Also, have you thought about what strain of yeast you are going to use? This is important to consider because some strains are better at bringing the hops forward than others.

Keep us posted on how you are getting along with it.

Cheers.

[Mark Kessell]

actually, that was another question that i had.
my mate said that i might want to consider using 2 - 4 packs of SAF Ale yeast (blue pack?).

and i was just going to use that. though not sure about using 2 - 4 packs.

now with the grains, if the medium is going to give me a copper colour, is the Pearle grain enough to get the rich golden colour i'm looking for? or is there another speciality that would enhance this malt bill?
also, i thought carapils didn't give flavour or aroma?


also, mike is recommending boiling for 90 mins. given i'm starting with around 24-25L, and aiming for around 19 - 20L, is 90 mins going to be too long for those volumes? because i've seen recipes with boil times of my volume for both 90 and 60 mins (mostly 60 mins for my volume).


hops:
i actually had a mate post me mikes hop profile, and i was rather supprised to see around 750g+ of hop going into it. is that the sort of profile i'm needing to go to to balance out my malt bill? or will 300 - 350g (being a little more frivalous from the suggested 250g) be sufficient?



my mate uses the "boil in the bag" method, and he gets around 80% efficiency from his grains. but that requires mashing around 28 - 30L in water or so. tuns use less, and seem to produce greater efficiency from the grain. so, when mashing, how much water is recommended for mashing this volume of grain? however, boil in the bag is definitely the easiest method to use.

[Mike Neilson]

use as a rule 2.5L to KG of grain, Yeast Use the Red packet S05, Boil for 90 mins it helps in clarity and help caramilise the malt a little give you better colour. What gear you using to brew this beer? As if you get 80% eff with your original recipe you will be around 1.100 im guessing and your Hops will be all fucked!!

[Mark Kessell]

i'm using my mates gear as a base.

so he's got one of those large 40L pots, a 3 ring gas burner (ring inside ring type burner).
and i'm tossing up whether to use the boil in bag method, or borrow a mates mash tun build instructions and build me a mash tun. his seemed to turned out pretty good.

and are you saying that the more efficiency i get out of my grain will help in hop efficiency over all?

[Mike Neilson]

Nah your flavour and all that will be thrown off, and you wont get what you wanted, Build a mash tun dont get all Biab on it!! if it was good the big boys would be doing it!! sorry tyler!!

[Reviled]

Hey now dont be like that, IMO the way germans brew is closer to BIAB than using an esky mash tun and fly sparging!

Albrecht was saying all germans mash in the kettle, then drain it all out into the lauter tun, then batch sparge... Pretty similair to what im doing with my BIAB sparge really, apart from the fact that alot of the wort stays in the kettle when I pull the bag out...

So there ;oP lol

[Mike Neilson]

###########Warning This Is Only My Opinion#############

It makes sense to mash in the kettle, well insulated, able to step mash by a flick of a button and mash agitator doubles as a whirlpool. Why have two of these expensive items in the brewhouse? But the thing with biab is recirculation!!! this is the difrence between Biab and Conventional Mash, I think recirculation and proper sparge methods separates Biab beers and Conventional brewed beers I believe there is a rounder with more depth of flavour in conventional than Biab.

[Reviled]

You think recirculation adds depth of flavour? Interesting... I thought the main thing that recircing did was to use the grain bed as a filter for protein particles, which is why I can never truely achieve 100% bright beers?

[Reviled]

Also, another reason the big boys wouldnt be doing it, is cos it would be pretty hard to find a suitable bag capable of holding the weight of a wet grist for say 1100 litres.. Ive pondered it myself, but I doubt it would work...