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...

[Richard Rice]

I agree with Rob.  There is a time and place for mashing in that high (low alcohol bitters,etc) and I don't think this is it.  However, with the addition of sugar, that will dry the beer out...

It's an interesting recipe - I can't tell if it will end up being sweet from a high mash temp or balanced and dry-ish from the sugar addition.  I do that now with my high abv IPA style beers because it brings up the gravity, helps dry out the mouthfeel without affecting flavour.

Are you using BIAB?

[Mr Agsy]

Again, thank you for your advice richard .. Me being a complete novice @ all grains ,you and rob are prob right to mash @ a lower temp.. I don't want to ruin my first ever all grain .. 

Yes I will be BIAB mate..

[Richard Rice]

So, sparging with BIAB - you will need a tray.  Once mash is done, pull the bag out, sit it on a tray.  When I did BIAB, I had the top of a keg with holes drilled in the bottom.  I would sit the bag on this, then rinse the grains with the sparge water.  Otherwise, your other option is to use the full boil volume and skip the sparge step.  I used both methods and always got good beer regardless.

If that's the recipe and you got it from a reputable forum/website, chances are it will work - just seems a bit odd.  Do you have the link for the recipe, I'd like to take a closer look.

[Mr Agsy]

Ok mate I think I got that right, I understand what you say about having holes on the bottom of a keg so that the water trickles onto the mash and thus not upset the husk sediments.. I'm so looking forward to trying this brew, as I went to buy 4 bottles of leffe the other day and they wanted $26  , my eyes nearly popped out my skull ..me being orig from Scotland you can understand why LOL

Here is a link to the orig recipe..Please do not hesitate to give me any more advice as it will be very much appreciated..

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f71/revvys-belgian-blonde-leffe-clone-2...

[Crusader-Rob]

I currently run BIAB, and it works great, I run slightly differently to Richard, as I don't sparge my grains, I just mash the full volume. and let it drain.

do you have any brewing software? As your running BIAB your efficiency may be lower? Richard will probably be better suited for sparging. Mine typically sits around 65-68% depending on the beer, etc. If your efficiency is lower than the attached reipce, you'll get a low OG instead of 1.068. SO be mindful of that.

richard what sort of efficiency do you get on your BIAB? with a sparge? Might be a good starting point for agsy.

[Richard Rice]

I was averaging between 65-70% as well.

I don't recall the sparging actually increasing the efficiency a whole lot - maybe a couple of points. 

Agsy, if you are doing it all in one pot, you need to pull the grain bag out before you sparge...the purpose of the tray was not about disturbing the grain bed, but rather to just get it out of the wort and allow you to rinse off the extra sugar.  Otherwise, just start with full volume BIAB. 

If this is what you really want to make, give it a go, see what happens. 

[Mr Agsy]

Please excuse my noob questions, so when you both say 65-70 % efficiency  are you saying that's around 30 % from the desired Original Gravity of 1.068..

Am I right and saying that if I do not sparge the brew will have more depth of flavor  as it will be less watered down?

Do you mind If I add you both to my friends list? Once the brew is completed and bottled/carb.  I would like to send you both some bottles to give me an appraisal of my very first all grain brew.

[Richard Rice]

Go for it, Agsy! 

Interestingly enough, I recently had some watered down brews because I used too much sparge water.  But that was my fault and there were some complications in my brewdays that also affected my beer.  That said, so long as you use the correct volume of water, it will not be watered down and sparging does not affect the depth of flavour, body or mouthfeel. 

Those are some very important questions - can I suggest you go read some of Jon Palmer's How to Brew?  It's free online and has loads of information that I still reference.

[Cain Harland]

100% efficiency is the maximum gravity (sugars) you can extract out of a volume of grain, in a lab and ground to a fine powder. In that setting they have no concern for flavor and re getting lots of extra tannins and yuck stuff from the grain just to get a measure of what is extractable from it. I get about 75% now with a batch sparge. I gather some folks on here get 80 - 85% on their flash rigs. Some of the BIABers and no spargers get a bit less efficiency but they save on time and equipment by using a little more grain. The general consensus is that consistent efficiency is more important than high efficiency because once you know what efficiency your rig and methods will produce you can tweak the grain bill to match, and an extra kg of grain costs bugger all.

I have read much above 80% and you have to be careful not to extract too much tannin etc, although commercial brewers get well into the 90%s.

In answer to your question: If you use less water or get a higher efficency your brew will be less watered down. If you don't sparge you will just be using your sparge water in the mash, either way you will use the volume of liquid you want pre boil + the amount your grain will absorb. If not spargeing brings down the efficency then you are effectively and watering down your brew, but from what people have been saying it won't bring it down very much. So it comes down to time / effort / equipment to sparge Vs cost of a little more grain.

If I BIABed I would probably go no sparge but my mash tun wouldn't hold a full grain bill + all that water. I guess that's a consideration for BIAB too, no sparge may require a bigger pot than sparge for the same grain bill, because all the grain and water are in there at the same time??

[Crusader-Rob]

go for it.
the efficiency as cain said is the amount of sugar you can gt out of the grain. if you get brewing software (beersmith etc.) it helps you to work out where you stand, for a higher gravity beer, suggestion would be to sit around 655 efficiency, so you may need to increase the baser grain slightly to reach it.
I can look later tonight on my software and give you a better idea of where you should be sitting for weights etc.

[Richard Rice]

Cain, when I ran BIAB, I would do smaller batches cos I didn't have a pot big enough to do the volumes I wanted.  I'd rather have less beer that tasted good!

Agsy, I agree with Cain; consistency is more important.  Once you know what you efficiency is, you can then brew according to that percentage.

[Nathan]

Anyone see anything stupid with this,M y first go at customizing a recipe.

8.53kg Pale Malt

0.10kg Carafa II

50g Newport@60mins

50g Cascade@30mins

50g Perle@15mins

2X US05

28g Amarillo dry hopped

23L