"almost all rye" rye amber ale

So, I love Rye...There, I said it...and now that is out in the open, i thought I would get everyone's opinion on one of my next brews. This came to mind when I was looking at a He'Brews Lennys RIPA clone and stumbled upon crystal rye malt. I realized I now had everything I needed to do an all rye beer.

Now, I don't think rye malt has the diastatic power to convert everything, so I will throw in a bit of 2row, but mainly this is going to be an all rye beer.

07 lbs 00 oz Rye Malt
02 lbs 00 oz 2 Row
01 lbs 08 oz Flaked Rye (maybe I'll toast it...)
00 lbs 12 oz Crystal Rye
00 lbs 04 oz Chocolate Rye
02 lbs 00 oz Rice Hulls

0.50 oz Columbus 60min (34 IBU)
0.50 oz Cascade 5min (2 IBU)
0.50 oz Willamette 5min (2 IBU)

Est OG- 1.056
Est FG- 1.012
SRM- 16
IBU- 34
ABV- 5.7

Either WLP001 or WLP002 haven't decided yet. Maybe WLP014 London Ale...

I know some people have been saying crystal rye gives off some weird flavors...well, I am hoping to find out

I am hoping for hear from a few people who have had experience with either large % of rye malt in the grain bill or who have used crystal rye before.

Let me know what you think, hopefully I will be brewing this in a week.

Cheers

Kyle

It's going to be a gooey messy mash, but I think I'll survive lol

If diastatic power is what you're after, I'd use 6-row instead of 2-row. It also has more husk, which would help you out. I love rye, so I made a beer similar to what you're proposing. The lesson I learned is that you can have too much of a good thing. I'd try a 50/50 or 60/40 mix--maybe in a small batch--and see how that goes. If you like it, you can work your way up incrementally to see how much is too much.

What was it about your rye that you didn't like? Was it just "too much rye" or did that much rye bring about any off flavors? How much of the specialty rye grains did you use?

Sorry, just curious.

Thanks for the input.

Kyle

I think it was about 75% rye. I don't usually care much about the beer's appearance, but this one loked like a glass of milk. Anyway, that spicy & drying effect that rye has was way overdone. I'll concede that other people's tastes are different and that their procedures and recipe formulation may be superior.

Rye Malt can self convert, not sure if it can convert the specialty rye varieties though.

Not sure about other maltsters, but Briess rye malt has a DP of 105, which is way more than necessary to convert specialty grains. That having been said, there's not much to convert in chocolate and crystal rye anyway.

kingwood-kid said:

If diastatic power is what you're after, I'd use 6-row instead of 2-row. It also has more husk, which would help you out. I love rye, so I made a beer similar to what you're proposing. The lesson I learned is that you can have too much of a good thing. I'd try a 50/50 or 60/40 mix--maybe in a small batch--and see how that goes. If you like it, you can work your way up incrementally to see how much is too much.

Click to expand...

2 row and 6 row are pretty much equal in diastatic pwer these days.

kingwood-kid said:

I think it was about 75% rye. I don't usually care much about the beer's appearance, but this one loked like a glass of milk. Anyway, that spicy & drying effect that rye has was way overdone. I'll concede that other people's tastes are different and that their procedures and recipe formulation may be superior.

Click to expand...

Did you do any protein rest or use a clarifying agent to drop the protein out?

If it dried out a lot, I might try to mash a little higher, maybe shoot for 153 or 154

Maybe dry isn't the right word. Palate cleansing might be more accurate. I didn't use any clarifying agents or do a protein rest. That might have helped with the looks, but I still don't think I would have enjoyed the taste. There's a thread on here somewhere from someone who made and enjoyed a Rye SMASH, so it could work.

So this beer does indeed look weird. Has a super dense "milky" look like Kingwood_kid said. I added some gelatin to try to clear it up. I am a little worried though. The yeast I used (WLP002) acted very oddly when I was making the starter. It made an exceptionally dense cake that had the consistency of putty (as in, it maintained its shape even when heavily shook/swirled) and had a slightly vomit/dead smell to it (though not really "infected"). I pitched it anyways thinking that even if the yeast were dead, they would be food for whatever I pitched afterwards. But, low and behold, it took off like a rocket. Still has a strange kind of odor. I plan on kegging the beer tonite. Cross your fingers.