new to brew- help understanding recipe

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fun4stuff

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Hello,

I'm new to beer brewing (familiar with wine and mead brewing). I was hoping someone could help me understand a recipe that I would like to make this weekend.

Recipe is listed here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f73/be...dal-dragonmead-final-absolution-clone-137219/

Extract:
3 x 3.3lbs Pilsner Light malt extract LME
1 x 1lbs Amber DME
1 x 1.5lbs Belgian Candy
12.4 total pounds of fermentables

Hops: (IBU came out at 23 but you can range from 20 to 25)
2 oz. German Hallertau 3.8%AA 60min
1 oz. Styrian Goldings 3.4% AA 30min
1 oz. Saaz 2.8% AA 3min


My understanding of the steps involved:
1. Boil 3 gallons of water (no grains to steep)
2. Remove from stove and add the malt extracts (pilsner LME, amber DME) and Belgian Candy. Stir and dissolve.
3. Put back on stove and resume boil. Continue stirring.
4. Once boiling resumes, start adding Hops. First add German Hallertau, then 30 mins later add Styrian Goldings, then 27 mins later add Saaz, then 3 minutes later take off stove.
5. Put in primary, cool to 80 degrees (add 3 gallons of cold water), to bring to total volume of 6 gallons.
6. Once at ~80 degrees pitch yeast (starter).

Are these basically the steps that I need to take? Some people mentioned adding the belgian candi at the end of the boil?

Thanks!
 
You are certainly on the right track. I would suggest splitting your malt extract additions - add around a third of the total of the extract at the beginning of your boil, and when you have about 10 mins left in the boil stir the rest in. This will help your hop utilization rates and keep the resulting beer as light as possible.
 
I've never done an extract brew myself, but I;ve heard experienced people say to add maybe 1/3 of your malt extract at the beginning and the rest at around 15-10min from flameout. This will prevent any darkening or scorching of the malt sugars. The reason for the early addition I believe is to help give enzymes to any malts you are steeping.

I would also highly recommend adding the candi sugar near flameout. This will preserve more aromatics which is the reason you are using the candi sugar and not cheap table sugar in the first place. I actually to prefer adding all my syrups and stuff directly into the fermentor at 2-3 days in. This preserves even more flavor and doesnt keep the initial OG lower to make it easier on the yeast.
 
It all looks good. My only suggestion would be to get your wort down below 70 before you pitch the yeast. They will be happier and will thank you for it.
 
fun4stuff said:
One other question- What does "3.8%AA" mean?
Click to expand...

That is the alpha acid concentration in the hops. The alpha acids are what isomerize during the boil to give you bitterness. The higher the AA, and the earlier they are added to the boil, the more bitterness they provide. The actual numbers can be used with beer calculators to project the bitterness of the final beer. Lots of different calculators available, so that's a whole different topic.

Brew on :mug:
 
Since you're boiling 3 gallons of water, use no more than 3lbs of extract in the boil to get good hop utilization. do your hop additions, then add the remaining extracts & sugar @ flame out. Since the wort is still boiling hot & pasteurization happens in seconds @ 160F, it'll be fine & the beer will be lighter colored & cleaner.
 
So I was using a couple online recipe builders (brewer's friend) and noticed that a low boil size decreased my IBUs... a 3 gal boil size for a 6 gal batch size had my IBUs coming out ~half what they should be (bc of dec hops utilization).

From doing prior searches, it appears I can correct for this by adjusting the SG of what i boil.

As mentioned above, I will be adding ~2/3 of extract at the end of the boil. So this should compensate for the low boil size and bring my IBUs up?

Using brewer's friend and checking "late addition" under the fermentables, it appears that I can bring the IBU up to where it should be adding 4.9 lbs pilsner lite LME in the beginning and adding 1 lb amber DME, 1.5 lbs belgian candi, and 5 lbs pilsner lite LME at the end.

Is this correct? thanks again!

EDIT: unionrdr, thanks for the response. i didn't see your post until after i posted this! What do you think of my calculations using brewer's friend? I'll add the candi at the end, but does it matter if i add pilsner lite or amber DME in the beginning?
 
fun4stuff said:
So I was using a couple online recipe builders (brewer's friend) and noticed that a low boil size decreased my IBUs... a 3 gal boil size for a 6 gal batch size had my IBUs coming out ~half what they should be (bc of dec hops utilization).

From doing prior searches, it appears I can correct for this by adjusting the SG of what i boil.

As mentioned above, I will be adding ~2/3 of extract at the end of the boil. So this should compensate for the low boil size and bring my IBUs up?

Using brewer's friend and checking "late addition" under the fermentables, it appears that I can bring the IBU up to where it should be adding 5 lbs pilsner lite LME in the beginning and adding 1 lb amber DME, 1.5 lbs belgian candi, and 4.9 lbs pilsner lite LME at the end.

Is this correct? thanks again!
Click to expand...

Yes, and no. It's not the SG in the boil that changes hops utilization- it's the size of the boil. Adding 50% water to a batch at the end, after the boil, decreases the IBUs since water has 0 IBUs.

Boil as much as you can fit in your pot and still bring it to a nice boil, using one of the cans of LME. Add the rest of the extract and the sugar at the end. That should be fine.
 
It appears I should also make a starter. Using a few different sites I see that I'll need about 403 billion yeasties. I don't have a stir plate.

Assuming an OG of ~1.073 (6 gallons) according to yeastcalc.co, I'll need about 403 billion yeasties.

http://www.yeastcalc.co/yeast-pitch-...ter-calculator

So to make a 2 L starter, I'd dissolve 8.05 oz DME in 2 L water and then boil, cool, add yeast as described in yeast starter post (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/how-make-yeast-starter-pictorial-76101/).

According to the calculator, I would only have ~205 billion cells after ~24 hrs.

So I would then refrigerate the starter overnight, decant the next morning, allow to come to room temp.

Again add 8.05 oz DME to slightly less than 2L water and prepare as described in yeast starter post. After cooling to 70-80 degrees, pitch yeast slurry from solution above (what is left after decant and coming to room temp).

Then after an additional 24 hrs, according to the calculator I'd have > 400 billion yeasties.

Is this correct?

Screen Shot 2015-01-03 at 6.12.36 PM.png
 
m00ps said:
I've never done an extract brew myself, but I;ve heard experienced people say to add maybe 1/3 of your malt extract at the beginning and the rest at around 15-10min from flameout. This will prevent any darkening or scorching of the malt sugars. The reason for the early addition I believe is to help give enzymes to any malts you are steeping.
Not correct. Enzymes are present in the husks of grains, Not in extracts. Furthermore, enzymes are only necessary to convert starch to sugar. Steeping is to leach out flavors from specialty grains, therefore no enzymes necessary. Yes, I'm picking nits. However, the forums are here to exchange information. If I were incorrect (which happens regularly) I'd want someone to set me straight.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 

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