Does the recipe look ok ?

Hi,

I have tried copying a recipe, but changed some ingredients with what is easily available to me, and what I like (or think I may like, as this is my first all-grain not from a kit!)

Håndbryg.dk : BeerCalc recipe: copy of Bitter Brown ale 2008

Thank you, any comments greatly appreciated,...
walther

looks good, I like the dark brown sugar. How are you calculating your efficiency?

Thank you for the reply,

I have not yet calculated my efficiency, as I have only made one brew on my equipment. (Bock, tastes great, but head only lasts 30 sek,...)

I use a large tank with all the water in from the beginning.
Inside I have a large bucket with a mesh in the bottom, and all the grain in.
During the mash I circulate the water through the bucket while heating to correct temperature.
I do not sparge, but let the bucket drain while boiling and add the runoff in the end.

I am guessing this gives me an average efficiency ?

Thank you,
walther

Find a way to sparge.
just my.02

hi,

I think I read somewhere that you could do without sparging, if you just use a little more grain ?

Not true ?

Thank you,
walther

I think that grain bill is interesting. A bit complex, I would probably let it in the bottle a few extra weeks before drinking. I've never used Cluster for a flavor hop, so I am curious about that, you'll have to report back on that.
I'm with Jaybird on the sparging, you're losing an awful lot of fermentables.

Still undecided on sparging

My guess is that since I use a lot of water during sparging (end volume + one Litre pr. kg. grain + expected boiloff), my mash is very thin, and thus the mash caught in the grain will also be thin?

I will need to measure it of course.

I will report back on both sparging and hops,

Thanks for the comments,
walther

I am confused by your spreadsheet, boil volume 20 L? Do you mean final volume or volume at the beginning of the boil?

Also 8125 grams of malt (17.9 #'s) is a lot of malt especially if the 20 L's is your boil volume like your recipe says.

I think your data may be a bit messed up.

if you are mashing all grain you should sparge. Don’t sparge too much this is how I would do your recipe:
18 # of malt
Mash 1.5 qts per pound: (18#*1.5qts)/4= 6.75 mash 154*f
Total LBS Grain X .20 (Grain-Absorption-Rate) = Water Absorbed
18#(.20)= 3.6 gal absorbed
6.75 mash - 3.6 gal absorbed = 3.15 gal in boil kettle
Now it says you are shooting for 5.2 gal (20L) which I would advise against:
you want that at the end of your boil, figure in 1gal/hour boil off

5.2 gal + 1 gal boil off = 6.2gal in boil kettle

6.2 gal - 3.15gal= 3.05 gal sparge 185*F