First Attempt at Brewing w/o a Kit - Need Recipe Feedback!

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oswaldoSinCity

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Hello fellow brewers –

After months of using these forums for advice, I finally decided to sign up. This is my first post! I’m trying to do my first brew without a kit, and I have some questions.

Until now, my friend and I only used True Brew homebrew kits (6 brews total, to varying degrees of success). So, obviously, we normally work with extracts and pre-selected hops. On this occasion, I want to make a hoppy pale ale. I live in the desert and it would be great to have a pale for the early spring. I spent two summers in Portland, OR, and had some great hoppy pales. I guess the most obvious example is Deschutes’ Mirror Pond, but there were other regional breweries such as Caldera that made strong stuff.

Here’s my “rough draft” recipe for the pale:

Hops:
Chinook 11.8%
Amarillo 9.3%
Cascade 6.4%

Malt Grains:
½ pound Crystal/Caramel 60L
½ pound Crystal/Caramel 20L

Malt Extract:
6 pounds Munton’s Light Extract

Hop Schedule:
1 oz Chinook – 60 minutes
1 oz Amarillo – 15 minutes
1 oz Cascade – 10 minutes
.5 oz Amarillo – 5 minutes

1 oz Cascade – Dry Hopped


My most important question is about the hops. I expect that the Chinook hops will make this pale a bit more bitter than other pales, and I like that. The Amarillo hops are new to me – never brewed them, only tasted them in other beers…

Will this amount of hops overwhelm the beer? Do I have a good hop schedule, or should I change up the process? Am I missing something wildly important?

Anything helps – Thanks!
 
It'll be pretty hoppy, that's for sure, but I don't think it'll be totally out of control. That said, you might want to throttle back on that Chinook addition at 60 mins in favor of larger late hop additions. I get more enjoyment out of hop flavor and aroma over straight up IBUs, but YMMV.

Do you have some brewing software to help you out if you want to tweak this? If not, do a search for Brewtarget on this site. It's a pretty good free program if you don't feel like shelling out cash for Beersmith or ProMash right now.
 
sounds yummy to me as is! although you can probably see by my user description that my tastes go toward the overly hopped ales. Amarillo is good stuff.
 
Plug that into hopville and check the IBUs against this graph: understanding the relationship between hops and malt ... Should put you on the right track ...

The malts sound fine though ...

If you lived in Oregon and you like hoppy beers your recipe is right on target. I might consider reducing the initial bittering addition slightly, but overall you are on the right path. The hops you have chosen work great together. I have some very similar recipes.

When I feed my beer to people who don't like hoppy beer they feel it is out of balance, but most hop heads can't get enough. The graph here underestimates my desire for bitterness and hop flavor. BTW Caldera rocks, as do Oakshire, Ninkasi (in the past), and Laurelwood. Hope you can find what you are looking for.

PS: don't get me started on Ninkasi. Breweries shouldn't take controversial political positions.
 
Well if you like hops then you are on the right track! I just did two IPA's that had about 8oz of hops in each (was trying to clear out my old hops) of which about 6oz were late additions!

Tried one tonight and it is just like sucking on a hop cone, of course I love hops!

Keep us posted!
 
That looks pretty good. One thing I've learned with hops is the American high Alfa hops are great for bittering if you want the traditional citrus flavor. I have been playing with more European hops that give an earthy floral flavor.

My house beer is an APA that gets brewed once a week.

15 lbs marris otter
1 lbs crystal 60
1 lbs carapils

2 oz chinook @ 60 min
2 oz cascade @ 30 min
2 oz perle @ flame out
2 oz cascade at the end of primary
2 oz cascade at 14 days

Beer conditions for 4 weeks
 
that .5 Amarillo for the last 5 minutes won't add anything to your beer at all so either make it 1.5 Amarillo for 15 mins or just drop it.
 
I agree with bob; the Amarillo hops are great bittering, but for a late addition aroma check out cascade or northern brewer.
 
I like Amarillo for the late additions or dry hopping. But I see what Bob is saying about that small addition getting lost in this recipe.
 
I agree. Add the 5 minute addition to the 15 minute one & it'll taste better. I used 4.5oz of hops in 3 additions in mine,1.5oz each @ 25mins,16:50,& 8:30 left in the boil. I used Columbus,Nugget,& Cascade. The remaining .5oz of each in a 1 week dry hop for 6oz total.
 
So, perhaps I could scale back the Chinook (maybe, just .75 oz at 60 minutes?) and give the Amarillo more time (so, 20-15 min?).

I don't have any brewing software, but I'll check out that Brewtarget program ASAP.

Everyone is bringing up things I forgot to think about - IBUs, especially.

Thanks!
 
imho thats a bit too much crystal for that much malt. i think it may impart too much of a caramel sweet flavor. Personally, i use about 5-10%, youre almost at 15%.
 
sounds yummy to me as is! although you can probably see by my user description that my tastes go toward the overly hopped ales. Amarillo is good stuff.

Bingo - looks good, but I'd probably dry hop the Amarillo, a-la Hop-Head Red.
 
imho thats a bit too much crystal for that much malt. i think it may impart too much of a caramel sweet flavor. Personally, i use about 5-10%, youre almost at 15%.


I agree. This might be a little sweet. In the long run you might try something more like this:

1/4 # crystal 20
1/4# crystal 60
1/2 # Munich (I prefer Vienna though)

The munich should help give a little malt flavor without the sweetness that the crystal can leave behind.

Don't be afraid of other malts. Biscuit malt and Honey malt can also be worked into an IPA recipe with great success.

Try this one...let it mature...make a detailed assessment of what you like and don't like and then try again. This recipe is close enough that I think you should only make moderate changes each brewday. Cheers!
 
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