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...

[Michael]

I wanted a feel for the Kohatu hops. What do you folks think of below?

Kohatu APA
American Pale Ale
Type: All Grain Date: 28/01/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.02 l Brewer: Michael
Boil Size: 33.67 
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Pot (18.5 Gal/70 L) and Cooler (9.5 Gal/40 L) - All Grain
End of Boil Volume 26.89 l Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 21.32 l Est Mash Efficiency 76.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage 
Ingredients

Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.00 kg Malteurop Pilsen (3.6 EBC) Grain 1 69.6 %
1.00 kg Carahell (Weyerman) (25.6 EBC) Grain 2 17.4 %
0.75 kg Carared (39.4 EBC) Grain 3 13.0 %
20.00 g Kohatu [6.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 14.7 IBUs
20.00 g Kohatu [6.80 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 5 11.3 IBUs
Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 6 -
20.00 g Kohatu [6.80 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 7.3 IBUs
20.00 g Kohatu [6.80 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 8 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 9 -

100g Kahatu [6.80 %] Dry Hop

Est Original Gravity: 1.051 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.046 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.0 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 %
Bitterness: 33.2 IBUs Calories: 427.1 kcal/l
Est Color: 15.6 EBC
Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge Total Grain Weight: 5.75 kg
Sparge Water: 24.43 l Grain Temperature: 22.2 C
Sparge Temperature: 75.6 C Tun Temperature: 22.2 C

[MrC]

That looks like a lot of Carahell and a lot of Carared.  I reckon that beer will have a HUGE body.

Hopping looks good & will definitely give you a good taste of Kohatu.  I just hope all that Carared doesn't hide it.

[Michael]

Yip. I was a little worried about the Carared giving me hell. I do want a lot of body for the beer though. Maybe I am overdoing it a bit.

[jt]

Do you have a standard or favourite grainbill that you can use for a benchmark ?
I use the 85% pale. 15% crystal for my low gravity beers. Other people might go 90 pale, 5 crystal, 5 wheat for your standard 1040 or 1050 ale

[Chris Banks]

I have no experience with Kohatu but I think with that much body you could up the IBU

quite a bit? Just my preference though. 

[Michael]

You know me mate. I normally push the boundaries with bitterness. However, I am planning to leave this a bit lower for the wife. She cannot stand how bitter my beers normally are.

I should have just made a cider for her. ;)

[jt]

It's a no win situation Michael, trialling a new hop for the wife

Get down the supermaraket in the morning, first thing, get some apple juice and make her that cider. While she's all pleased with that, start weighing out the kohatu like you really mean business !

[Michael]

I normally go somewhere around 10% - 12% crystal and mash a bit high. Really, I ended up going as high as I am right now since I wanted more colour, and did not have anything darker. Kind of like doing surgery with a sledgehammer I reckon.

[Michael]

Modified the recipe.Since I already milled the recipe, I am having to make a larger batch (37L) to get more reasonable percentages. Now it is as follows:

Malteurop Pilsen - 7kg (80%)

Carahell - .75kg (11.4%)

Carared - 1kg(8.7%)

Upped the hops to 37IBU.

[Liam Callaghan]

I'm just making up some recipes to start my first Saison beers next week and am a bit lost on the carbonation levels.  I'm using Beersmith2 and trying to work out how much sugar syrup to add before bottling.  

The default is Carb Level 2.3, but this appears to be the default for every beer...

They are supposed to be a highly carbonated, I'm just not sure what the figure relates too...

Any advice would be appreciated.

L.

[Liam Callaghan]

It says in 'Brew like a Monk' that Orval targets 10g of carbon dioxide per litre (5 volumes).  Is this the figure (5) I should be putting into Beersmith2?  

[Doublehoppy]

Liam,

 

"Brewing Classic Styles" gives a target carbination for Saison at 3 to 3.5 volumes CO2. To give you an idea, the Saison you tried last week had 200gm sugar in 26 Litres. This was probably around 2.8 volumes.

Fermentation temperature has an impact on the amount of sugar required for a certain carbination as less CO2 is absorbed into the beer at higher temperatures.

I developed the attached spreadsheet from info on the web, so not 100% sure of accuracy of values used. Key your variables into the green cells and it will give you the amount of sugar to add.