My next recipe - thoughts/suggestions?

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yashicamat

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I'm all a bit new to this making up beers lark.:eek: But I've got two of my own invention on the go now and when they move from their primaries I will want to be filling the carboy up with another.:mug:

If I describe the flavour profile I'm looking for first, then the recipe that I *think* will work, maybe you knowledgeable chaps could give a little feedback please?:)

I'm looking for a pale ale (straw coloured), a fairly light ABV (in the region of 3.8% to 4.7%) and with quite a bitter, hoppy finish. I am especially looking for a grapefruit flavour in the beer. Head retention would be nice as it's likely to be served through a proper beer engine.

My thoughts are (for a 5.5 US gallon brew):

4.4lbs light DME
1lb carapils crushed (steeped for 30mins)
4oz British crystal malt (80-140 EBC is the only one I can source, hence the small amount & steeped for 30 mins with the carapils)
12AAUs Challenger for bittering (60 min boil)
4AAUs Cascade + 1AAU Challenger for flavour/aroma (with 75% of these boiled for 15 mins, the remaining 25% for 5 mins)
Wyeast Brit Ale II


What do people reckon? I plugged this into the tastybrew beer calculator and it comes out with a likely 4.0% ABV beer.

Any feedback is appreciated. :) I'm new to this!
 
I would go for american ale yeast its more clean tasting and the citris character of the cascade will come out more. Also you may try swapping the carapils for 2L wheat malt. That will give you some head retention but not add much color.
 
I would go for american ale yeast its more clean tasting and the citris character of the cascade will come out more. Also you may try swapping the carapils for 2L wheat malt. That will give you some head retention but not add much color.

Thanks for the reply. :) Unfortunately (believe it or not) the selection for us over here seems to be far more restricted grain wise.:( Unless I'm missing the obvious online suppliers.
I presume wheat malt needs to be mashed rather than steeped? I can source that but I don't think it's "crystal" (I'm still learning all this terminology so bare with my if I'm getting mixed up.:eek:).
 
You need some 40L instead of 80L or higher as the taste will not be light with the 80L if that is what you are after. A small amount of wheat is good too as suggested. Go with WLP001 California ale yeast or an equivalent to contribute to great hop flavors. Keep the IBU's up to 30 or more.
 
Do you already have the hops, or do you need to buy them? Challenger doesn't strike me as the right hop to complement Cascade. Challenger is kind of a super-Goldings.

If you want grapefruit, I would use something like Centennial or Simcoe or even just MORE Cascade.
 
Unfortunately I can only get hold of 80L crystal - should I just completely discard this ingredient?

I do already have the hops and the bags are open (although sealed the best I could) so I ideally would like to use them up before moving ordering more hops. Perhaps use a blend of challenger and cascade for the bittering with cascade as the only aroma hop?
 
I would just go for the challenger then. Add it to bitter at 90 minutes, then just do smaller cascade additions in increments of 5 minutes from 20 to 0.

Challenger: 90min
Cascade: 20min
Cascade: 15min
Cascade: 10min
Cascade: 5min

The reason I would go for 90 minutes would be to maximize the AA's in the Challenger so you wouldnt have to use as much to get your initial bitterness. Also a larger portion of the flavors from the challenger would be boiled out leaving the many flavor additions of Cascades that you put in.
 
Took the words right outta my mouth, thanks Mirilis. :)
(I was busy tending the boilover monster on the porch, but it's fine now.)
 
Thanks. :)

On the wheat malt front, as it's primarily for flavour rather than releasing sugars, would this basic routine work:

Add 1lb wheat malt to 1.25 quarts water at 185F (so that the temp drops to 170F with the grains in). Pop into a warm oven and keep it at about 160 to 170F for an hour. Then remove, strain the liquid into the main brewpot. Pour a further 1.5 quarts (of 170F water) into the grain pot, then strain this into the brewpot. Then bring up to the correct volume and proceed with the extract side of the recipe?
 
You could probably get away by putting the grain in the bag and tossing it in the pot with 1 gal water and just let it steep for half an hour (as you bring your heat up to boil) Most of your fermentables will be in the extract anyway. Try and steep it and see how that works out for you. Some of the enzymes will still convert during the 30 minutes. THen just pull the bag out (dont squeeze) and toss it. Dump your extract in and go for it. You wont need the wheat for flavor.. just for a little head retention.
 
Thanks for the replies.:)

I was thinking about adding some Pale crushed malt to the wheat malt as well to perhaps give a little more flavour? May I ask why I shouldn't squeeze the grain bag? Is it to prevent too much starch coming out?

I've managed to get hold of a bigger boil pot today - it'll boil about 16 litres with a comfortable space for foaming (the actual capacity is closer to 19 litres). So I'd be boiling about three-quarter volume which should be quite good for hop utilisation I would have thought.
 
You can read here about Steeping Grains from howtobrew.com. He says you can squeeze it, but I never did when i did partial mash and steeping/extract recipes. I had a bag explode on me once.. i wasnt happy about it.

That was where read about squeezing the bag originally.:D

I shall give the recipe a shot with some pale and wheat malts. They are pretty cheap compared to the extract so I guess I've not really got anything to lose!:)

Thanks for your help with this.
 
i don't think you should ever squeeze the bag. you'd probably be fine, but it could extract tannins. the best way to get the most out of your grains is to run some 170°F water through them, using a strainer, after you're done steeping.

btw...you don't need pale malt with wheat if you are trying for conversion. wheat has more than enough enzymes to convert itself and others. it has more than most barley, actually.

if you're just looking for flavor and color, i wouldn't worry about steeping them for an hour. 15 minutes would be just fine, and i would STILL run the water over them when you're finished to get the most out of them.
 
i don't think you should ever squeeze the bag. you'd probably be fine, but it could extract tannins. the best way to get the most out of your grains is to run some 170°F water through them, using a strainer, after you're done steeping.

btw...you don't need pale malt with wheat if you are trying for conversion. wheat has more than enough enzymes to convert itself and others. it has more than most barley, actually.

if you're just looking for flavor and color, i wouldn't worry about steeping them for an hour. 15 minutes would be just fine, and i would STILL run the water over them when you're finished to get the most out of them.

I didn't quite follow the middle statement.:eek: My intention was to primarily get flavour/colour out of the grains, but if I can mash them to get some extra sugars etc. out of them then that'd be a bonus. I just didn't quite understand the bit about the enyzmes in the wheat being sufficient for a full conversion . . . almost implying adding something which didn't have any enzymes for converting itself could be done.:confused:
 
exactly. wheat has the enzymes you need for conversion, and you could add other grains, oats, etc. for more flavor and sugars if you wanted. i think it would be kind of a waste not to mash the wheat...it has so much potential.
 
exactly. wheat has the enzymes you need for conversion, and you could add other grains, oats, etc. for more flavor and sugars if you wanted. i think it would be kind of a waste not to mash the wheat...it has so much potential.

Ah right. My thoughts on adding pale malt was just to try and get a slightly fuller flavour but still retain the pale ale flavour profile. What other grains are there that wheat could take advantage of and convert but that would still retain the pale ale characteristics? Thanks. :)
 
How does this revised recipe sound?

4.4lbs light DME
2 lbs Crushed English Pale Malt*
1lb Crushed wheat malt*
12AAUs Challenger for bittering (75 min boil)
5AAUs Cascade for flavour/aroma (half for 15 mins, a quarter for 10 and a quarter for 5)
Muntons Premium Gold dry yeast**

*this is my idea on kind of mashing them, just basically get the flavour but any sugars would be great:

Place all the grain into a grainbag, drop this into 3.5 quarts of 185F water, then check temp as come down to 160F to 170F range. Cover and place into a 170F oven. Leave for 60 mins.
Remove grainbag and pour wort-ish liquid into brewpot. Then pour 4 quarts of 170F water over the grains to remove anything left. Then add this water to the brewpot. Top up to 15 quarts total.
Add half the DME, put bittering hops in a hop bag and start the boil. Add aroma hops to a second hop bag as the boil proceeds as detailed above. At 75mins, remove the hopbags and add the rest of the DME. Bring to the boil, then chill, add to the carboy and top up with preboiled water to 5.5 US gallons. Add yeast (which will have been rehydrated).

**I know the Wyeast American Ale was reccomended, but my nearest brewshop isn't local and I am not entirely comfortable with having liquid yeasts sent by mail. I also have some of this Muntons Premium Gold in and the latest beer, even though very immature, seems to taste very promising with little or no yeasty taste and a clean finish.


I appreciate this is still a bit rough around the edges and will undoubtably be a bit of a learning curve to say the least! Hopefully it'll produce a nice beer superior to an all-extract though . . . .

Any feedback on my amended recipe would be great cheers. :)
 
you're using 3 lbs of base malt. There is no sense in doing that without mashing, especially since doing a 60 minute steep is kind of pointless. and it's so easy. you almost got it...

mash in about a gallon of water (3.5 quarts would be just fine)

you want your temperature lower for the mash. shoot for a MASH TEMP (after grains are added) at around 150-155°F and let that sit for 30-60 minutes. then sparge (pour over grains as planned) with your 170°F water.

have fun!
 
you're using 3 lbs of base malt. There is no sense in doing that without mashing, especially since doing a 60 minute steep is kind of pointless. and it's so easy. you almost got it...

mash in about a gallon of water (3.5 quarts would be just fine)

you want your temperature lower for the mash. shoot for a MASH TEMP (after grains are added) at around 150-155°F and let that sit for 30-60 minutes. then sparge (pour over grains as planned) with your 170°F water.

have fun!

Ahhh right, yes that was what I meant to do, I just got my temperatures wrong.:eek: Cheers.:)

I'll try and find out how to guage how much success I've had with mashing from this with a view to going for a proper partial-mash in the near future.
 
It was brewday today for the above. :)

I ended up using 2 lbs of malt as I was pressed for space a bit in my tun. I need to sort that out really!

But I tweaked the speciality grains a bit:

0.5 lbs of wheat malt
1 lb of carapils
0.25 lbs 80L British crystal

Whole thing went well and using a stewpot as a tun in the oven set on the lowest setting, I managed to keep within the 150-155F range during the hour. The resulting liquid from the grist tasted very sweet so evidently I did something right! I didn't bother trying to work out my efficiency though as there wasn't a significant amount of 2-row being used. If this beer works out really well then the next beer may well be made with half the sugars coming from 2-row, assuming I can find a way to mash that quantity!

n283200051_20989_5928.jpg


I squeezed a full 6 gallons into what is about a 6.3 gallon carboy so it was a bit of a squeeze! Blowoff tube in full use already. :D
 
It was brewday today for the above. :)

I ended up using 2 lbs of malt as I was pressed for space a bit in my tun. I need to sort that out really!

But I tweaked the speciality grains a bit:

0.5 lbs of wheat malt
1 lb of carapils
0.25 lbs 80L British crystal

Whole thing went well and using a stewpot as a tun in the oven set on the lowest setting, I managed to keep within the 150-155F range during the hour. The resulting liquid from the grist tasted very sweet so evidently I did something right! I didn't bother trying to work out my efficiency though as there wasn't a significant amount of 2-row being used. If this beer works out really well then the next beer may well be made with half the sugars coming from 2-row, assuming I can find a way to mash that quantity!

n283200051_20989_5928.jpg


I squeezed a full 6 gallons into what is about a 6.3 gallon carboy so it was a bit of a squeeze! Blowoff tube in full use already. :D


What I see there is 5.5 gallons in a 6 gallon Better Bottle :rockin:
 
What I see there is 5.5 gallons in a 6 gallon Better Bottle :rockin:

This is a Betta Bottle but I know for a fact that there is 23 litres of wort in there (which is a little over 6 US gallons). I know this because when I first got it I carefully measured out graduations on it so I'd know at what level is what capacity. I think it is a 25 litre Betta Bottle (that was what it was advertised as in the homebrew shop).:)
 
Hmm I seem to have lost about 2 pints of wort/beer to krausen through the blowoff.:( This fermentation seems to have been too good! Still swirling around in there like a tropical storm but I think the krausen is under control now. It's not being projected down the pipe any more!
 

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