Help with understanding Malts

Ok so I have been reading John Palmers "How to Brew Book" and there is a lot of information to diguest. When trying to create an all grain recipe I think some of the basic understandings have slipped or I am just unsure of.

Here are some of my questions.

Do you mash or steep caramel and crystal matls?

How much Grist weight should a base malt be in an IPA?

I am wanting to do a single infusion - once I find what grains I am going to mash, how do I determine the ideal strike temp?

I'm sure I have many more questions but maybe if I figure some of these out, then I can get a handle on what I am needing to do. (Maybe an all grain recipe for an IPA that is similar to Hopluia would help?)

Get BeerSmith and scan through the recipe database. View examples of what your interested in and plug it in to see the expected results. Cheers!
This will help with what malt does what.
http://www.onebeer.net/grainchart.html
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Malts_Chart

the crystal malts can be mashed or steeped (since their starches have already been converted). if you're doing all grain then you might as well mash them with the other grains. if you're doing extract, then just steeping them is fine.

bbeckwith said:

Ok so I have been reading John Palmers "How to Brew Book" and there is a lot of information to diguest. When trying to create an all grain recipe I think some of the basic understandings have slipped or I am just unsure of.

Here are some of my questions.

Do you mash or steep caramel and crystal matls?

How much Grist weight should a base malt be in an IPA?

I am wanting to do a single infusion - once I find what grains I am going to mash, how do I determine the ideal strike temp?

I'm sure I have many more questions but maybe if I figure some of these out, then I can get a handle on what I am needing to do. (Maybe an all grain recipe for an IPA that is similar to Hopluia would help?)

Click to expand...

This calculator is a great tool to determine what your strike temp needs to be:

http://rackers.org/calcs.shtml/

As for the percentage of base malt in an IPA, every brewer is going to have a different percentage, but I'm guessing the majority of recipes will have the base malt be 80-90% of the total grain bill.

A few quick responses

1. Just throw crystal malts into the mash as well, this will allow you to be consistent

2. Most of the malt should be base for an IPA, can vary

3. You can calculate ideal strike temp, but will ultimately have to be determined empirically on your system

Do you mash or steep caramel and crystal malts?

It sounds like your are trying to get into all grain brewing? If so, forget all about steeping, you're just going to mash every grain you plan to use. (for reference, crystal can be steeped, almost any other grain needs to be mashed)

How much Grist weight should a base malt be in an IPA?

Brewing calculators are worth their weight in gold for the beginning all-grain brewer. First you need to figure out your target OG. For an IPA that could be anywhere from 1.060 to 1.070. Next you need to guess what your efficiency will be. Figure about 65% the first time out. If your efficiency is higher and your OG ends up higher (say 1.075), just add some water to the finished brew. Next I figure out the specialty grains I want in my IPA. Say you want 1lb of Crystal 20L. Add the 1lb of Crystal 20 into the brewing calculator, then just add enough American 2-row base malt until it says your estimated OG is between 1.060 and 1.070. This will most likely be around 12-14lbs. Brewpal is a great brewing app for ipad/iphone/itouch devices, it's only 99cents. Brewsmith has a free trial for the pc, and I believe promash does as well. I'd recommend checking one of those out.

I am wanting to do a single infusion - once I find what grains I am going to mash, how do I determine the ideal strike temp?

The type of grains have no influence on your strike temp, but the amount of grain, and their temperature do. Any brewing calculator will have a strike temp calculator. Punch in your recipe, type in the temp of the grain, and your target mash temp, and it'll give you the target strike temp.

Word to the wise, shoot at least 3-5* high on your first batch. Your mash tun will absorb some of the heat, and it's much easier to add an ice cube or two to the mash than it is to add more boiling water.

(Maybe an all grain recipe for an IPA that is similar to Hopluia would help?)

I've never had the beer, and looking at their website, they seem fairly pretentious, but I was able to gather a few clues. They use Belgian Abbey yeast for an english IPA which is really odd. Personally, I'd ditch it in favor of something like WLP007 or WYeast 1028.

Then they dry hop with Northern Brewer, Centennial, Zeus and Columbus. Zeus and Columbus are the same hop; i have no idea why they listed them separately, and I genuinely hope they know that they are the same hop (it's often called CTZ - Columbus, Zeus, Tomahawk.) Centennial and CTZ are American hops, Citrusy and resiny which don't belong in an English IPA. Northern Brewer is more enligsh, woody and earthy.

The English IPA, with American hops, and Belgian yeast just sounds like a train wreck to me. I can give you a nice recipe for an english IPA though.

14.5lbs 2-row (Marris otter would be nice here)
1lb Munich (light or 10L)
1lb Crystal 40L
1/4lb Crystal 80L

1oz Magnum @ 60min
1oz Northern Brewer @ 45min
1oz East Kent Golding @ 15
1oz EKG @ 5
1oz EKG @ 0
Dry Hop with 1oz each EKG and Northern Brewer
Yeast: White Labs WLP007 or WLP002. If Wyeast is avaible use 1028, or if dry, use Safeale S04
Mash at 152*
Ferment around 68*

+1 to getting BeerSmith II. It is $23.00 at Birdman Brewing, $27.00 most everywhere else.

There are about 15-20 different aspects to all-grain brewing that require simple calculations. It isn't hard to do on your own, but for $23.00, BeerSmith will do all of them for you automatically. You just enter your recipe, pair it with your equipment profile, and everything is automatically caculated. Water volumes, water temperatures, mash time and temp, mashout time and temp, fermentation time, yeast pitch rates, IBUs, SRMs (color), OG, FG, and lots more.

You can also design your own recipes pretty easily using a visual guide they have that shows the official style parameters then calculates if the ingredients you enter fits the parameters of the style you are trying to create. Great tool.

I personally would pay closer to $100-150 for BeerSmith, but fortunately, they sell it for $23.00. Go get it!

TopherM said:

+1 to getting BeerSmith II. It is $23.00 at Birdman Brewing, $27.00 most everywhere else.

There are about 15-20 different aspects to all-grain brewing that require simple calculations. It isn't hard to do on your own, but for $23.00, BeerSmith will do all of them for you automatically. You just enter your recipe, pair it with your equipment profile, and everything is automatically caculated. Water volumes, water temperatures, mash time and temp, mashout time and temp, fermentation time, yeast pitch rates, IBUs, SRMs (color), OG, FG, and lots more.

You can also design your own recipes pretty easily using a visual guide they have that shows the official style parameters then calculates if the ingredients you enter fits the parameters of the style you are trying to create. Great tool.

I personally would pay closer to $100-150 for BeerSmith, but fortunately, they sell it for $23.00. Go get it!

Click to expand...

I second that. Beersmith is necessary. I looked at every beer app I could, and finally broke down and bought Beersmith 2. No going back...

insubordinateK said:

I second that. Beersmith is necessary. I looked at every beer app I could, and finally broke down and bought Beersmith 2. No going back...

Click to expand...

I've been using brewTarget for over a year now and have been very pleased. From what I've read, brewTarget does pretty much everything beersmith does but is free

I would love to brew a Hopluia clone!

I have no idea why they label it an English IPA. It's not. It's closer to an American IPA, but isn't bitter, and has lots of aroma with very light malt but still some golden color. It's different in a good way!