Green Chile Ale

I plan on brewing up an ale as my first allgrain that I found in a book of mine and would like to see if anyone here can help me detail water amounts to match whats needed.

The recipe from the book is as follow...

(7.5 lbs) Breiss Pale Malt
(1.0 lbs) Crystal Malt 20-L
(0.5 oz) UK Kent Goldings *60 minute boil*
(0.5 oz) UK Fuggles *60 minute boil*
(0.75 oz) UK Kent Goldings *20 minute boil*
(0.5 oz) UK Fuggles *20 minute boil*
(1.0 lbs) Fire-Roasted Green Anaheim and Jalapeño Chilies/Peppers with skins
(1/4 tsp) Irish Mosh *10 minute boil*
(1 pack) US-05 Yeast

According to this book:
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.012

Beersmith (with my equipment entered and 75% efficiency) claims:
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.011

I believe 80% or more would put the FG at where it is in the book...but i'm shooting for 75 to be safe.

The book calls for
8.5 qt @ ~140 and hold at 132 for 30 minutes
4 qt @ ~167 and hold at 155 for 30 minutes
Then it says to raise to 167 for mash out, lauter then sparge with 3.5 gallons of 170 water.

Beersmith (with my 75% and equipment...) calls for something else. It calls for..

11 qt. @ 140.5° for 30 minutes @ 132°
5 qt. @ 212° for 30 minutes @ 155°
6.25 qt @ 212 for Mash Out @ 170°

Sparge with (according to beersmith) 2.28 gallons.
Top off to reach 6.5 gallons for boil.

Can anyone run the recipe for me and double check my doings as this is my first all grain and im new to beersmith so I don't know if i'm doing something wrong and its obvious or not...Thanks for any help given!

I'd recommend going with single infusion for your first run, just mash at 152F and call it a day. You might also round up to 8 pounds 2-row to account for the probable lower efficiency of your first AG. Water amounts are really easy, just add up all your grain, multiply by 1.25 to get total quarts needed, then divide by 4 to get gallons. I always warm some extra water in case I need to make adjustments after dough in. You can always adjust the mash temp by adding hot or cold water. For sparge water, just heat up 1.5 x the original amount plus a little extra.

..............*can't help it*

When you do something "crazy" like a pepper brew (which I have done also and LOVE) for your first AG, how do you know what went wrong?

You are introducing more variables when experimenting, so get your AG process down and then start the experiments. Otherwise, you won't know if it was your temps or an unripe pepper causeing this flavor or that.

SORRY! Just my 2 cents.

I agree. If you're dead set on a pepper beer, maybe ferment it, bottle half and do a secondary with peppers on half the beer so you can make sure your AG process worked without having the pepper flavor interfering with tasting the beer.

Well, i've bought the ingredients already minus the peppers so maybe I should just go about doing a pale ale as mentioned and then rack onto the peppers in a secondary. This sounds like a solid idea to be honest.

GrantH said:

Well, i've bought the ingredients already minus the peppers so maybe I should just go about doing a pale ale as mentioned and then rack onto the peppers in a secondary. This sounds like a solid idea to be honest.

Click to expand...

I would tend to agree with the other guys, keep it simple for the first one. If your are heart set on a pepper beer, try it with an extract batch first. If you are adventurous though, go ahead an try it, just don't get discouraged if it doesn't work out.

Or.......stick a roasted pepper in 6 or so bottles.

I'm sure it does, but i'll ask anyways.

If I mash at 152, and use 2.65 gallons for Mashing and 4 gallons for sparging (per JonK's numbers) wouldnt the gravity change between the two processes being looked at?

Welllllll we hit the 1.046 mark perfectly. We mashed at 152 for an hour and had to mash a second portion of water, ~2 gallons to get an extra half gallon. This may be the "improper way" but it seemed to have worked given 75% efficiency numbers. I will update everyone on FG as soon as we find it.

A pound of chili might be too much. I used 6 or 7 for 5 gallons and it was perfect. Fired them on the grill then cut them in 1/2 and tossed them into the fermenter. Recipe is in my sig. Chili beer is not for everyone, but I know I love it.

Can anyone convert this recipe to extract for me through brewsmith? If so, thanks a lot in advance but if not no worries I apprciate this posting!

Cheers!