Recipe Critiqe please and thank you!

2 gal boil for 5 gal total.

grains @ 155 for 30 minutes.


I call it Multigrain Fuggles Red:

% LB OZ Malt or Fermentable ppg °L
75% 6 0 Northern Brewer Pilsen LME 34 2
13% 1 0 Amber Dry Malt Extract 45 13
3% 0 4 Weyermann Caramunich II 60 33
3% 0 4 Chocolate Rye 24 250
3% 0 4 CaraWheat (Caramel Wheat) 35 40
3% 0 4 Biscuit Malt 36 23

use time oz variety form aa
boil 60 mins 2.0 Fuggles pellet 4.5
boil 1 min 1.0 Fuggles pellet 4.5

YEAST STRAIN: 1335 | British Ale II

What are your thoughts? This is my first "custom" recipe. I wanted some deep caramel notes with edges of roast malt layered over complex grain flavors. With a more malty focus. And I wanted to make it a little "bittery", so the fuggles are there to create that english bitter hop profile.

It's basically an irish red/english bitter/rye ale.

It has no category...perhaps American Amber.

bumpity bump bump

Looks tasty to me. Biscuit malt really should be mashed, so you might get a bit of starch haze, but other than that it sounds like an interesting mix of flavors. Good luck brewin it.

Looks good but with that small of a boil, use of extracts, and those dark specialty grains I think your end product is going to come out much darker than you anticipate.

Is 2 gallons really the most you can boil? If you could boil even 3.5 gallons your beer would taste much much better.

Oldsock said:

Looks tasty to me. Biscuit malt really should be mashed, so you might get a bit of starch haze, but other than that it sounds like an interesting mix of flavors. Good luck brewin it.

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Really? I thought belgian biscuit could be steeped. Is it worth the biscuit then? Is there something simmilar that doesn't need to be mashed? Victory Malt? Aromatic malt?

DrinkNoH2O said:

Looks good but with that small of a boil, use of extracts, and those dark specialty grains I think your end product is going to come out much darker than you anticipate.

Is 2 gallons really the most you can boil? If you could boil even 3.5 gallons your beer would taste much much better.

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I can boil more, but usually start off with 2 gal for my steeping grains...it's just what I do. Habit, that's all. I have a 16qt pot that I usually use. The color is neither here nor there for me, I'm expecting copper to brown, but perhaps I'll try a 2 gallon steep, then add 1 gallon when it's time to boil for a 3 gal boil. That will change the hop profile a little, I'll look into that.

Wally556 said:

Really? I thought belgian biscuit could be steeped. Is it worth the biscuit then?

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As far as I'm aware the only things you can steep are cara/crystal malts and dark roasted malts. Biscuity is just lightly kilned, similar to amber/brown/victory so it doesn't have much enzymatic power of its own, but it still has plenty of starch. I'd just skip it, you have plenty going on already (or just toss in a pound of base malt and do a mini-mash).

I've steeped it many times and there are many recipes that do use it as a steeping grain. It does add some flavor but less than when it's mashed. I'd use 8 oz. It's still so little starch haze will not be a problem.

Thanks!

I think I'll keep it in 4 oz isn't much at all, it shouldn't ruin the brew, right?

going to the store today or tomorrow.

Wally556 said:

Thanks!

I think I'll keep it in 4 oz isn't much at all, it shouldn't ruin the brew, right?

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Oh, it'll be good. I've also steeped biscuit/victory, and it turned out fine!

YooperBrew said:

Oh, it'll be good. I've also steeped biscuit/victory, and it turned out fine!

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Thanks. I think this brew'll be unique and tasty, but being my first "creation" I'm a wee bit nervous. I've done my fair share of kits and my fair of kit tweaks (slight hops changes, etc), but nothing like this before.

Wally556 said:

I can boil more, but usually start off with 2 gal for my steeping grains...it's just what I do. Habit, that's all. I have a 16qt pot that I usually use. The color is neither here nor there for me, I'm expecting copper to brown, but perhaps I'll try a 2 gallon steep, then add 1 gallon when it's time to boil for a 3 gal boil. That will change the hop profile a little, I'll look into that.

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In general the more volume you boil the better your beer is going to taste. I would recommend always boiling as much volume as your pot can handle (watch out for boil overs though).

DrinkNoH2O said:

In general the more volume you boil the better your beer is going to taste. I would recommend always boiling as much volume as your pot can handle (watch out for boil overs though).

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I'll shoot for 2.5-3 gallons. That'll bring my ibus up a bit. But that's ok.

Ingredients purchased. The grains smell (and taste) great raw!

OK, so I'm calling this an "International" ESB.

I'm going to move this to secondary. Would adding some adjunct (corn sugar, honey, etc) be a good idea to help dry it out? If it is a "bitter" I suppose it should finish dry.

Wally556 said:

I'm going to move this to secondary. Would adding some adjunct (corn sugar, honey, etc) be a good idea to help dry it out? If it is a "bitter" I suppose it should finish dry.

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Well, if the FG is ok, I don't see any reason to add more fermentables. It seems like you would have had a decent OG with those ingredients.

The OG was about 1.057. So, I'll check the SG before I secondary. 75% atten would make it 1.014, it'd be nice to be a little lower than that. Hopefully I'll get a higher attenuation.

Wally556 said:

The OG was about 1.057. So, I'll check the SG before I secondary. 75% atten would make it 1.014, it'd be nice to be a little lower than that. Hopefully I'll get a higher attenuation.

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Adding sugar really only lowers the FG is you add it instead of malt. Just adding sugar now would lower the gravity slightly with the addition of ethanol, but your beer will have just as much residual sugar.

Oldsock said:

Adding sugar really only lowers the FG is you add it instead of malt. Just adding sugar now would lower the gravity slightly with the addition of ethanol, but your beer will have just as much residual sugar.

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Good point. But wouldn't lowering the FG "dry" it out a touch by altering the OG FG ratio?

You can get a 5 gallon pot for as low as 17 bucks online. You should do it.

rexbanner said:

You can get a 5 gallon pot for as low as 17 bucks online. You should do it.

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I would love to, but my stove won't get 5 gallons to a rolling boil, it can only do about 3. And I don't want to move outside just yet.

Wally556 said:

Good point. But wouldn't lowering the FG "dry" it out a touch by altering the OG FG ratio?

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You would get some effect, but not that much. Let’s say you have an OG 1.057 to FG 1.014 beer, 5.5% ABV (http://www.realbeer.com/spencer/attenuation.html ). There is still .022 of residual extract in the beer. If you add enough (~11 oz) table sugar to raise the alcohol 1% you would have a beer with an effective OG of 1.063, the ethanol created would only lower the FG to 1.013, and it would have the same .022 residual extract.

Assuming you are adding some water along with the sugar this would also play a small roll in diluting the FG/sweetness, but the effect would be minimal. Although adding enough water to hold the ABV constant despite the additional ethanol from the sugar addition might be a good way to reduce the sweetness (although it would also reduce the bitterness and “malt” character), in this case ~.9 gallons with the sugar would result in a beer with an effective OG of 1.053, FG 1.011, 5.5% ABV, and .018 residual gravity.

I don’t find attenuation figures to be a good measure of how sweet/dry a beer is. A big beer can have a higher attenuation than a low gravity beer and still taste sweeter. As an example, think about how sweet a 75% AA barleywine is (1.120 to 1.030) compared to a 75% AA bitter (1.040 to 1.010). That said ethanol certainly helps to balance out some of the additional sweetness that comes with higher OGs.

In my opinion (after all that) the easiest way to reduce sweetness is to lower the FG by adding a higher attenuating strain of yeast. US-05 is great for this, it’s bailed me out on a couple of bigger beers that stalled ~1.030 with their original strain.

Oldsock-

good point. I'll just check the FG, if it's 1.014 or lower, I won't do anything.

Thanks!

Wally556 said:

Oldsock-

good point. I'll just check the FG, if it's 1.014 or lower, I won't do anything.

Thanks!

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Worry about how it tastes more than the numbers, plenty of tasty low-mid gravity beers with less than 75% attenuation. Carbonation will help it seem drier as well. Let us know.

Oldsock said:

Worry about how it tastes more than the numbers, plenty of tasty low-mid gravity beers with less than 75% attenuation. Carbonation will help it seem drier as well. Let us know.

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Yeah, good point.

I'll let you know.