Input on Rye IPA recipe

I've been searching for ideas for a partial mash Rye IPA recipe and this is what I've come up with. The purpose is to get an IPA with a taste of rye that isn't too overpowering, some mouthfeel and a hoppy character from Northern Brewer and Cascade hops. ABV should be around 6%.

5,8 gal batch size (converted from SI units)
OG: 1,061
FG: 1,015
IBU: 58,3
Color: 11,3

8 lb Pale Liquid Extract
1,75 lb Rye Malt
4 oz Crystal 120
9 oz Cara-pils
9 oz Cara-red

0,7 oz Northern Brewer (60 min)
0,7 oz Northern Brewer (40 min)
1 oz Cascade (20 min)
1 oz Cascade (10 min)
1 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 package of safale-05

- How does the grain bill and hop schedule look like? Anywhere near my goals?
- Is one 11,5 g package of dry yeast enough for 1,061 OG?
- Mashing and boiling is done in two one-gallon kettles, do you see any potential problems with that?
- What mash temperature should I aim for? 158 F?

Not sure the rye will convert itself. DP is around 30. Better throw a pound of pale malt in there to be safe. Most LME uses a good amount of carapils. I wouldn't add anymore. I assume the C-120 and C-Red are for color. Looks good. I would mash closer to 150F to maximize fermentables. Don't see how you're gonna do it using 1 gallon pots!

Looks good to me. I have a similar recipe, honey malt vs C120, S-04 vs S-05. One package is fine. Try and see and adjust afterward, you will likely get a decent brew from this recipe. I might advise a lower mash temperature, personally I would go around 152-153-154 maybe, but 158 might be really great!

Cheers!
Steve

There is a Cane and Ebel recipe floating around. It is a delicious rye IPA by Two Brothers.

Poobah58 said:

Not sure the rye will convert itself. DP is around 30. Better throw a pound of pale malt in there to be safe. Most LME uses a good amount of carapils. I wouldn't add anymore. I assume the C-120 and C-Red are for color. Looks good. I would mash closer to 150F to maximize fermentables. Don't see how you're gonna do it using 1 gallon pots!

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So, drop the carapils and add in some extract to the mash. The crystal and cara-red malts are also for some body and taste. Do you think they can come through all the rye and hops and are they even necessary for adding body?

I was thinking about splitting the mash 50/50 within the kettles. I've done this before for a stout that had 4 lb of grain. I was also thinking about the higher mash temperatures to leave some more body to the beer. Is this good or should i just go with fermentability?

Thanks for the input so far, here is the revised recipe:

8 lb Pale Liquid Extract
1,75 lb Rye Malt
4 oz Crystal 120
9 oz Cara-red

0,7 oz Northern Brewer (60 min)
0,7 oz Northern Brewer (40 min)
1 oz Cascade (20 min)
1 oz Cascade (10 min)
1 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 package of safale-05

Rye malt will convert itself, but I would recommend adding 1 lb of flaked rye to the mash to get more mouthfeel and maybe 1 lb of 6 row to assure conversion of the flaked rye.
Flaked rye really gives a nice mouthfeel, different from that of wheat or oats.

skeezerpleezer said:

There is a Cane and Ebel recipe floating around. It is a delicious rye IPA by Two Brothers.

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The C&A clone seems to be quite similar to the other recipes i have looked at. Would anyone suggest changing the crystal and cara-red for some munich and aromatic malt? Or maybe just munich?

Stout-n-Braggot said:

Rye malt will convert itself, but I would recommend adding 1 lb of flaked rye to the mash to get more mouthfeel and maybe 1 lb of 6 row to assure conversion of the flaked rye.
Flaked rye really gives a nice mouthfeel, different from that of wheat or oats.

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I can't get flaked rye from my homebrewshop, can it be bought in grocery stores or somewhere else? If not, then it's not an option for me.

Some grocery stores or whole food stores will have flaked rye, worth searching for.
It surprises me that your LHBS wouldn't have flaked rye, its a pretty common adjunct...

Stout-n-Braggot said:

Some grocery stores or whole food stores will have flaked rye, worth searching for.
It surprises me that your LHBS wouldn't have flaked rye, its a pretty common adjunct...

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I live in Finland and homebrewing isn't that big in here, yet

Is flaked rye the same that can be used to make porridge?

Yes, it ought to be the same thing as what would be used for rye porridge.
Hopefully the rest of Finland will catch up with you and will make homebrewing a widespread hobby there!
If you like the character the rye giver this beer I would recommend trying something with a large percentage of rye when/if you get into all-grain brewing, the best beer I ever made was nearly half rye.
Good luck!

Thanks for the input guys. I think I'm going with most of the other recipes and splitting the amount of rye between malt and flakes. And maybe throw in a bit of pale malt to help with the conversion, say 1 lb. Mash at 155ish.

8 lb Pale Liquid Extract
1 lb Pale Malt
1 lb Rye Malt
1 lb Flaked Rye
4 oz Crystal 120
9 oz Cara-red

I think this grainbill looks quite good for some mouthfeel, rye flavor and a nice reddish color. Maybe some light sweetness too.

Anything more I should consider?

Go for it...

Karbalos said:

The C&A clone seems to be quite similar to the other recipes i have looked at. Would anyone suggest changing the crystal and cara-red for some munich and aromatic malt? Or maybe just munich?

Click to expand...

Not sure what the change in flavor would be between the grains, but C&A is really good. Probably my favorite rye beer.

This bad boy is going into brewing during the next week or the following. But I was still thinking about dryhopping this. Is 1,5 oz of cascade into primary for 7 last days of a 3 week fermentation good? Less/more time or hops?

Sounds like a plan!

Phew, the brew done and bottled. It is has now been ~1,5 weeks bottle conditioning. First of all, we made some changes to the recipe because of upgrading into a BIAB all-grain setup with 2 x 10 qt kettles.

The final recipe was:

10 lb Pale Malt
1 lb Rye Malt
1 lb Flaked Rye
4 oz Crystal 120
9 oz Cara-pils

1 oz NB 60 min
2 oz Cascade 10 min
1 oz NB 10 min
1 oz Cascade 1 min

Intended to be a 5,8 gallon recipe. But sure enough, being our first all-grain, we got abysmal efficiency (47%). We topped up with less water than planned and got 4,2 gallons of 1,051 wort. I was quite afraid that we'd end up with a massive hop bomb, and the IBU:s were also in the high 70's.

After drinking the first bottle I must say that the hop flavor has a real hard time coming through, which seems quite strange since we put in 3 oz at 10 min and another oz at flameout. I just hope it will come through better with some aging. There is a notable taste difference to non-rye ales, but the rye flavor isn't as clear as I was hoping for. Mouthfeel is decent even though the OG was only 1,051 and FG as low as 1,010. There is a sugary kind of sweet aftertaste, but i hope it's only the priming sugar (DME for 2,3 vol CO2) since the beer is still a little young.

All in all a very balanced and quaffable APAish beer with a little rye taste and some hoppiness. But compared to what we were trying to accomplish, way too balanced. But still, lessons learned and a very drinkable and tasty beer.

Thanks for all the help with formulating the recipe.