1st time all grain recipes?

hey guys, i just finished kegging my apfelwein, and im ready to move on to my first all grain beer

as such, i would love to hear some suggestions for a relatively easy, but delicious, recipe for a 1st time all-grainer

thanks!

There are lots! What do you like to drink? You can make just about any style of beer with a single infusion mash, so as long as you stay away from mult-step mashes or decoctions, you'll be fine.

A nice APA usually only has base malt and crystal malt, but since all of the grains go into the mash together that really doesn't matter. You could do an oatmeal stout, an ESB, a brown ale, etc. It might be easiest to do a dark beer first. Not because the recipe is easier, but the darker grains can "hide" a flaw or two, if you accidently mash or sparge too hot for example.

As long as you stay away from decoctions, step mash., lotsa wheat, rye or oats and anything super high gravity, all recipes will work very much the same in all grain.

The real question is: what do you want to brew?

Yeah, for the love of satan, whatever you do don't try a high gravity beer. Chances are on your first AG you will have WAY lower efficiency than you planned for... this can be doubly disappointing if you were shooting for a really high OG.

In fact, you may even want to try a low gravity beer (something under 1.045). This will essentially allow you to use more of your water for sparging, increasing your efficiency.

yea, i have heard that a dark beer first can hide any poor clarity issues...

idk, i guess any porter or stout would be delicious... any simple recipes anyone can recommend?

one of my first all-grain batches ever, and (I think) the first recipe I drafted myself from scratch. It's not a well-constructed recipe - it's a bit of a kitchen-sink batch, but I totally lucked out and got an amazing (and repeatable) Maple Stout:

43% 5 0 American Two-row Pale
23% 2 12 Maple Syrup
13% 1 8 Melanoidin Malt
9% 1 0 Caramunich III
4% 0 8 British Black Patent
4% 0 8 German Chocolate Wheat
4% 0 8 German Caramel Wheat

Ed Wort's Haus Ale

it uses few ingredients and is a well tested recipe. I've probably made it ten times in the last year....

+1 I chose Ed Wort's Haus Pale Ale for my first AG brew about 18 months ago. Simple, straightforward ingredient list and procedures, Nottingham dry yeast makes it a snap. It helps that it's a very nice beer, too!

yea, that recipe seems to be the best recommendation.

jgoette said:

yea, that recipe seems to be the best recommendation.

Click to expand...

I just posted an oatmeal stout recipe, and it came out great!

The great thing about it (for me) was I have hard water and sometimes my lighter colored beers don't come out great. Stouts, on the other hand, are perfect using my tap water. If you don't know your water make-up, maybe you would like to do a beer that is amber colored or darker. If you're using bottled water or know your water makeup, please just ignore me!

Good luck with your first batch. Keep it simple; batch sparge, SIM, etc. I disagree with with the fact that dark beers hide flaws more. If you miss your temps on any style it can affect taste. As long as you hit your temps and water/grain ratios you will be ok.

Recently, I have had a lot of luck with the recipe book Clonebrews. While I don't know how close these recipes are getting to the real thing, every recipe has turned out absolutely superb. We did a New England Amber and the last one was an Anchor Steam Clone, both are very tasty. We didn't even bother getting a bottle of the original stuff to test it out

They do a good job of giving all-grain instructions, even though the recipes are primarily extract-based. I would suggest sticking with known recipes that others have tested and found to be good for your first few batches. Otherwise, you can't tell if it is your process or your recipe...

My first allgrain was a Belgian Golden Strong. It's a really easy recipe:

11# continental pilsner malt
3# table sugar (beet is preferred, but cane is fine too)
2oz saaz (90 min)

mash 149*F & boil for 90 minutes. I added the table sugar to the fermenter at about 65% attenuation, but you can dump it into the boil 10-15 minutes before flameout. Really, anytime during the boil is fine.

WLP570 yeast.

Make a big starter and ferment at 65*F.

Yum!

barrooze: that sounds like an easy recipe, except i don't have the stir plate and what not needed for a liquid yeast...

jgoette said:

barrooze: that sounds like an easy recipe, except i don't have the stir plate and what not needed for a liquid yeast...

Click to expand...

You don't need a stir plate to make a starter. I made a 3L wort with extra light dme, boiled for 10 minutes with a few hop pellets. I cooled a bit and poured into a washed and sanitized gallon milk jug. When the temp was down to 65-70*F, I pitched the yeast, shook the jug like crazy to aerate, and covered the opening with aluminum foil. I brewed the Strong Golden the next day.

Easy peasy\.

BTW, I totally forgot an ingredient! Please look at the ingredient list again!

barrooze said:

My first allgrain was a Belgian Golden Strong. It's a really easy recipe:

11# continental pilsner malt
2oz saaz (90 min)

mash 149*F & boil for 90 minutes.

WLP570 yeast.

Make a big starter and ferment at 65*F.

Yum!

Click to expand...

For what volume? That doesn't look like enough malt for a standard 5g batch. 3g?

pnj said:

Ed Wort's Haus Ale

it uses few ingredients and is a well tested recipe. I've probably made it ten times in the last year....

Click to expand...

I also did this as my first AG batch, but tweaked it a bit by changing the hops used and adding in Munich malt.

Ed's Haus Pale Ale was my first too. In fact it was my first batch ever. I think it's a lot of people's first AG attempt. It's really easy and comes out great no matter how hard you try to mess it up. I've made variations of it a lot of times and it's always delicious.

passedpawn said:

For what volume? That doesn't look like enough malt for a standard 5g batch. 3g?

Click to expand...

6 gallon batch @ 70% efficiency.

It's basically JZ's recipe from "Brewing Classic Styles"

O.G. 1.072
F.G. 1.007
IBU:32
ABV: 8.5%
Boil: 90 min
Preboil Volume 7.7 gallons

passedpawn said:

For what volume? That doesn't look like enough malt for a standard 5g batch. 3g?

Click to expand...

I caught the post before I realized I left out the 3# of table sugar. oops!

passedpawn said:

For what volume? That doesn't look like enough malt for a standard 5g batch. 3g?

Click to expand...

Hey, no fair. That 3# wasn't there before!