My 1st AG recipe

I am picking up the ingredients today and brewing tomorrow. I attended Bobby_M's seminar last week so I feel pretty good about the process. Here is the recipe I will be using. The hops are what is recommended I am not sure they will be available. I will know in 3 hours.
ESB
10 gallon batch
18lb 2 row
16oz caramel 40L
4oz chocolate
2oz roasted barley
4oz kent goldings 60 min
4oz fuggles 10 min

Well, I know I can get you the goldings in about 2 weeks so if you can't get any English hops now, hold off on this one until next time.

At this point it looks like it doesn't matter. I ordered on Monday and was told the shipment would arrive on Thursday as it does every week. Just not this week. He now hopes it will come in today. I am beginning to remember why I started ordering everything from the internet.

I learned something on my 1st batch this week that you might want to think about at least for your next batch.

Sometimes the % AAU of the hops you receive are much less than what the % AAU the recipe calls for, drastically affecting the predicted IBU outcome.

On my next batch I will be paying closer attention to the % AAU of the hops vs. recipe.

As stated above the ounces of hops you use (for bittering) do not matter. You are more concerned with the AAU's than ounces. AAU's=AA% x ounces. For flavor and aroma ounces are more important than AAU's (or HBU's) because the alpha acid percentage difference won't affect the total IBU's of the beer as much as the actual weight difference will affect the flavor and aroma. So for bittering it's better as a rule of thumb to go by IBU's and for flavor and aroma it's better to go by ounces.

Another thing. I think this beer will be much darker than you are expecting it to be. The 4 oz of chocolate will turn this beer brown. The 2 oz of roast will make it even darker. Of course I don't know if you are using pale chocolate, english chocolate, american chocolate, etc. but I would be weary of any ESB recipe with that much roasted malt in it. It will for sure be too dark for the intended style.

Actually, the color should be just fine on this beer, as it is a 10 gallon batch, assuming you use U.S. chocolate (which is the most widely available and least expensive).

I do wonder about the roasted barley, though. In the small quantity you have, it probably will come through as a bit toasty or nutty. I think you have a nice beer on your hand. I am interested to see if you really wind up with an ESB, but it will be a good beer, nonetheless.


TL

Well I picked up all my stuff early last week. Some of the grains had to be substituted but for pretty much the same malt no real big difference. So saturday I went for it and brewed my first AG. I made a few mistakes along the way but nothing big. The worst was messing up my 1st sparge. I somehow like an idiot missed my volume by 2 gallons under. So I split the rest in two and actually ended up with a 3 step sparge. Right now it is cooking away I think the 5 gallon is done with blow off. I hit my gravities pretty close even though I set beersmith up for 80% efficiency. I would like to thank Bobby_M for his seminar or I could have screwed this one up big time. My pre boil gravity was estimated at 1.048 I hit 1.050. Last runnings was 1.015 I don't know how the 3 step sparge affected things. I used the same amount of water either way but the time was longer I am sure. My original gravity was estimated at 1.059 I hit 1.057. After I figure in that I planned on a 10g batch and ended up with a little over 10.5g I come up with an 81.3% efficiency. I am not happy with the way my false bottom (ss screen) worked it looked like alot of stuff got through. The taste will tell. Thanks again Bobby_M.

Well I kegged my first AG earlier this week. It finished out at 1.014 5.64% target was 1.010 - 1.016. On the high end but within range. The first 5 gal won't get to rest long since I am almost out it will probably be sampled this weekend.

Sounds pretty good to me. High end of the range is better than 3 points over. If your IBUs are there to support it, it shouldn't be too cloying.