1st PM: Recipe Critique

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Chad

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I'm getting ready to brew my first partial mash beer. I don't have the BTUs or kettle space to do all-grain at the moment, but I think this might come pretty close.

With the help of my local HBS, I've adapted Yooper Chick's Corn Cream Ale recipe. I was originally just going to cut the grain amounts in half for the mash for a 2.5-3 gallon boil, do a late extract addition and make up the rest with water. The HBS suggested extra grains to make up for poor extraction and also recommended not cutting the flaked corn or steeping grains (Carapils & Biscuit) in half. What I've ended up with is this:

Cornucopia Cream Ale, 1st iteration
  • 3lbs Marris Otter
  • 3lbs American 6-row
  • 1lb Flaked Corn
  • .5lb CaraPils
  • .5lbs Belgian Biscuit malt
  • 2.75lbs British Extra Light Dry Malt Extract

Mash the grains at 150f for 75min w/2.5gal. water (1.25qt./lb); sparge with 3gal. (1.5qt./lb) of 170f water.

Hops are
  • 1oz Hersbrucker (pellet) for 60 min.
  • .5oz Saaz for 10min. (this is when I'll add the DME)
  • .5oz Saaz at flameout

I'll pitch an XL smack-pack of Wyeast 2565 Kolsch yeast (just to keep things interesting).

My concerns:
  • I realize I'm not going to get maximum efficiency with a grain bag rather than a real mash tun, but that seems like a cubic buttload of grains for a partial mash, 5-gal. batch.
  • Will I end up with too much wort? Runnoff plus sparge should come in somewhere upwards of 5 gallons. What do I do with the 1.5 - 2gal. that won't fit into my pot (without risk of boilover)?
  • I've plugged this into a couple of recipe calculators and come up with high OG/FGs. Even with nearly 80% apparent attenuation I probably won't get down to the 1.010 for the style.

Am I missing something? Or am I just overthinking this?

Thanks for your help.
Chad
 
Chad said:
Cornucopia Cream Ale, 1st iteration
  • 3lbs Marris Otter
  • 3lbs American 6-row
  • 1lb Flaked Corn
  • .5lb CaraPils
  • .5lbs Belgian Biscuit malt
  • 2.75lbs British Extra Light Dry Malt Extract
Mash the grains at 150f for 75min w/2.5gal. water (1.25qt./lb); sparge with 3gal. (1.5qt./lb) of 170f water.

Hops are
  • 1oz Hersbrucker (pellet) for 60 min.
  • .5oz Saaz for 10min. (this is when I'll add the DME)
  • .5oz Saaz at flameout
I'll pitch an XL smack-pack of Wyeast 2565 Kolsch yeast (just to keep things interesting).

That seems like a big grain bill for a PM. I've done some low gravity AG's that used less grain than that.

Chad said:
...but that seems like a cubic buttload of grains for a partial mash, 5-gal. batch.

Ahhhhhhhh, the old cubic buttload conundrum.

Did you account for any grain absorbtion? That will reduce the total amount of wort that you collect. I think maybe the guy at your LHBS missed the part where you told him you were doing a PM.
 
just dont get to technical with it ,youll take all the fun out of it ,,da yooper chick has good recipes ,,i know i made a black beery wheat from one of her recipes ,it was a beautiful batch of beer ,oh yea .
 
I'd recommend downloading beersmith and tweaking your recipe. I used it on my first PM and it was a lifesaver.
 
Yeah, it's a pretty big grain bill for a PM. If you can't boil it, I'd really suggest scaling down the grain quantity until you can. With 8 lbs total grain, you're looking at an absorption rate around 0.15*8 = 1.2 gallons. With 5.5 starting gallons, that's still 4.3 you're going to need to boil.

Keep your specialty grains, but I'd scale back on the 2-row.

EDIT: You should also still make sure to make a starter even with the smack pack.
 
Thanks for the help, folks. I appreciate it. I downloaded the Beersmith trial. They are definitely getting my $20. With the software and some reading in Designing Great Beers, I've been able to tweak the recipe. I hadn't taken grain absorption into account, so I'm a little less worried about having too much wort now. This is the first time I've used anything other than steeping grains (and only the 2nd batch brewed), so didn't even realize that I'd be losing water to swollen grains.

I have an odd brew kettle, an 18.75qt. stock pot. That's a little over 4.6 gallons, so I can get away with just under 4gal for the boil. Upping the boil and dropping the dry malt extract to 2lbs (from 2.75) gets me right in the OG/FG range I was looking for. I'd much rather reduce the DME than the mashing grains. I want all the mashy goodness I can get. I'm figuring about 65% efficiency using a grain bag and a single batch sparge.

Recipe: Cornucopia Cream Ale
Brewer: Chad Ward
Asst Brewer:
Style: Cream Ale
TYPE: Partial Mash
Taste: (0.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 3.80 gal
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 5.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 12.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 20.00 %
3.00 lb Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 30.00 %
3.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 30.00 %
1.00 lb Corn, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 10.00 %
0.50 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 5.00 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.00 %
1.00 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker [3.50 %] (60 min)Hops 8.8 IBU
0.50 oz Saaz [3.50 %] (10 min) Hops 1.6 IBU
0.50 oz Saaz [3.50 %] (5 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
1 Pkgs Kolsch Yeast (Wyeast Labs #2565) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 8.00 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
75 min Mash In Add 10.00 qt of water at 164.5F 150.0F
 
I just recently got a kettle big enough to do a 6.5 gallon boil. Before that, I used two smaller kettles and boiled them on the stove. It wasn't ideal, but it worked and allowed me to go AG sooner. I used my canner for one and my soup pot for the other. I don't know if your stove can do that, but I thought I'd mention.

I agree with on on reducing the DME and keeping the grain bill if you can. I think you'll be very pleased with the results! 65% might be a good estimate of the PM, but you might want to do some figuring at 60% also, just in case!
 
Lorena, thanks for chiming in. This is your recipe, so I'm glad you've had a chance to give it a once-over to see what you think.

I agree about splitting the wort into two containers, and I may do just that on the next batch. I want to get a couple of beers under my belt before leaving the extract training wheels behind completely.

By the way, what do you think of the substitution of Wyeast 2565 Kolsch yeast for the more neutral Safale? And I know I should brew this at least once before screwing with it, but it seems an ideal candidate for a thumb-sized chunk of peeled fresh ginger in the fermenter for an even more citrus/floral top note. What's your opinion?

Take care,
Chad
 
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