Making Up A Recipe - Think it will suck or no?

I posted this in General discussion which was probably the wrong spot as it is a recipe question. Sort of.

I'm thinking REAL seriously about just throwing together a 5 gallon batch using my own homegrown hops which I THINK are Millenium. I'm intending to use an ale yeast and go with about 5 or six pounds of DME with the goal of getting about 5-6% ABV.

That's it. That's the recipe.

I don't have a hygrometerwhateveritis thingy and while I might get one down the road I don't see it happening right now. My tech knowledge of all this is VERY slim, so things like IBU and OG readings and the like will just make my eyes glaze.

I've looked at a website calculator or two and all I can figure out so far is estimated color.

What I'm really after is input. It's a very basic recipe. What do you folks think it would taste like? Good, mediocre, swill? I understand malt is going to go a long way on determining end ABV, so am I in the ballpark for the goal?

Any thoughts would be MUCHMUCH appreciated and thanks.

That will taste just fine I'm sure. I would strongly recommend steeping 12oz or so of crystal malt for flavor and head retention. If you use 6lbs of DME you will get about 5.3% ABV according to Beer Calculus . homebrew recipe calculator. When do you plan on adding the hops in the boil?

If you search "SMaSH" (Single Malt and Single Hop) you will find that several folks do just what you are talking about. I like the idea of SMaSH because you can find out just what your homegrown hops can or can't do for a beer.

vapor2020 said:

When do you plan on adding the hops in the boil?

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I was thinking of adding the hops right after the malt - ya know, for the sixty minute boil. Then after the boil is done, I'm thinking of adding some more for finishing (right?)

I'm really hoping the recipe will work out well. It would be nice to only have to buy the DME whenever I want to make a batch o' beer. As it is now, I've got a big ziplock of the hops in the freezer - probably a pound or so. I figure that's enough for at least two batches, maybe three. Meanwhile, that hops vine is only going to get bigger.

I second the recommendation for some crystal, although the SMaSH suggestion for finding out what your hops taste like is a good one, too. That aside, it's pretty hard to actually screw up a beer.

Taste it at 30min, add more hops if it's not bitter enough.

Little update:

Brewed this up couple days ago. I ended up using 6 lbs of light (not lite, but light in color aka pale) LME, 1 lb of light DME and the backyard hops. I didn't use any kind of scale, so just grabbed handfulls of hops and tossed them in.

Side note on the hops: In getting the malt and some other stuff at the LHBS, I quizzed the guy on what kind of hops he thought I might have after describing. In the conversation, he advised giving them a taste. More bitter = more better, basically. Anyhow, I gave one of the ones off the vine a lil' taste. Good God! WAYYYYY bitter - spit it out and it stuck with me for over an hour. I really think these are Nugget if not Millenium based on leaf, cone size and shape, and just that bitterness.

Back to brewing. These were green, undried hops out of the freezer bag. I estimate maybe a couple ounces used total with probably 1.5 or so for the full boil. To be perfectly honest, I'm now a little concerned I may have used TOO much hops.

According to the ABV calculator thing linked above, it estimates out at 5.2 ABV, light/golden in color, and hoppy/bitter.

Did you taste the wort? I find it's always good to taste the wort on its way from kettle to fermenter. It'll give you some idea of the finished beer's flavor.

Look at it this way - if it does turn out too bitter, you have an excuse to brew another batch with less hops and blend them.

What concerns me most is that, without weighing the hops, you'll have trouble duplicating the recipe if it turns out to be the most astoundingest, bestest beer EVAR. Anyhow, it'll be beer, and it's yours. That's the best kind of beer!

Bob

Update -

It's ready for bottling having sat around in the fermenter for three weeks. Has a real nice aroma and I like the color - kinda golden.

On a taste test, MAN does it have some bitter to it. Unless this mellows with some time in the bottles, I would have to say I used too much hops. It should be drinkable if you like a lot of hops, but if you don't, you won't want any part of it.

On the up side, I've learned the hops out back are hell on wheels for bittering. They've got to be one of the higher AA varieties. Next time I'll use about half of what I did.

I've always found bitterness diminishes very quickly once beer is carbed. On any sort of pale ale, I usually find my post-fermentation hydrometer sample to be nearly undrinkable, but after a week in the keg on gas, suddenly it's heavenly!

I suspect it'll be A-OKay.... After all, you noted that these homegrown hops were *not* dried, so 2 oz of undried hops is hardly anything.... once dried, it's the equivalent of like .5 oz or less.

Yeah, I'm with Chriso on this. The beer will soften after a few weeks or months in the bottle. The first good beer I made was undrinkably harsh at bottling, but two months later was great beer. Give it time - and try not to drink it all before it's ready!

Update -

I couldn't handle the suspense anymore and cracked a bottle for a test run last night. It had been - what? - 12 days since bottling. I wasn't expecting too much by way of carbonation and was hoping for a mellowing of the bitterness.

The report is this. I'm way psyched :rockin:

Carbonation after 12 days is very good and should be even better after some more time. Great head, great little bubbles that kept on coming all the way through, great lacing on down the side, great mouth feel, just great, great, great. I was very much doing the happy dance.

As to taste, it had definitely mellowed from a "Ye Gods!" bitterness to a strong hoppiness. I've been buying RedHook Long Hammer IPA and it reminded me of that as far as the hop presence. Additional time in should mellow it even more. Major point to take away for me is that for purposes of brewing up something I like without getting fancy on the recipe, I have no need to buy hops ever.

I'm going to fire up another batch before too long and plan on amping up the octane a bit - I'll go with eight pounds of LME instead of six pounds plus 1 pound of DME which should boost it from about a 5.3 ABV up to about a 5.8 or so - and easing back on the hops somewhat but not as drastically as I thought I'd need to.

Good to hear. Like I said before -- and as others have implied -- it's tough to really make a bad beer. I've discovered that if something goes wrong, the beer doesn't usually go bad, it just turns into another style!

Be careful with upping the fermentables AND lowering the hops. If you increase the amount of DME you use, I bet you could get away with using the same amount of hops.

The higher your gravity is, the less IBU's you will get from the same amount of hops.

Edcculus said:

Be careful with upping the fermentables AND lowering the hops. If you increase the amount of DME you use, I bet you could get away with using the same amount of hops.

The higher your gravity is, the less IBU's you will get from the same amount of hops.

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Thanks for the tip on this. I'll keep it in mind. Right now I'm checking FedEx as my 8 lbs of LME from Williams Brewing is on the truck for delivery today, so a boil and new batch is in my near future.

I think like I said batch 3 (batch 2 of mystery hops) will be basically the same thing but with more LME. I'm thinking batch 4 I'm going to venture off a bit and go with the mystery hops, the 8lbs LME, and toss in a pound of crystal 40 for the flavor and richness additions.

Sir I believe you have a hop problem. I would like to help assimilate your plague. Go ahead and send me as many pounds of hops as you need to get to a manageable point. I would hate for you to be unable to enjoy your backyard due to overvineage. I will dispose of them at no charge. And you're welcome.