First recipe post. What do you think?

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MrWhleDr

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Just picked up ingredients for my next pale ale. it is just off the path from my last pale batch based off of SNPA. I just wanted to see what everyone thinks about the ingredients.
Extract recipe:
8 oz. Carapils
4 oz. Crystal 20L
4 oz. Crystal 40L
3.3# Coopers Light LME
3# Muntons Plain DME
?Sugar? for alcohol content
2 oz. Amarillo 8.6
1 oz. Perle 8.2
1 oz. Chinook 11.4
1 oz. Cascade 6.3
Safale 05
What do you think that my hop schedule should be? I would like to have grapefruit aroma and flavor. What are your thoughts on taking all of these hops, mixing them together, re-weigh them and then add 1 oz. at a time? I also want to dry hop. Can I dry hop straight to the primary rather than dealing with secondary? Also, would you suggest adding sugar to the ingredient list to raise the alcohol content? Sorry for so many questions and thanks for any replies. I have been surfing on this site for a while. I plan on not buying store bought beer as I am addicted to homebrewing.
 
That looks tasty to me.

Regarding alcohol content, what ABV are you aiming for? Only you can decide what you want to achieve in that regard. I highly recommend Beer Smith for working things like that out. You can enter your ingredients, and it will predict what %ABV you are likely to achieve. If that is lower than you want, add more extract or sugar until you get the result you are looking for.

Regarding hops, I probably wouldn't use all of those. Four different varieties might get a little muddy. How about (keeping it simple):

1 oz Amarillo @60 mins
1 oz Amarillo @5 mins
1 oz Cascade (dry hop)

Again I highly recommend Beer Smith for playing around with such things, as it will predict what IBU you are going to end up with. Make sure you enter the correct boil volume, as this will affect hop bitterness. You can adjust this either by changing the quantities of hops, or if you want more bitterness from less hops, move some of your extract (maybe the DME) to a late addition 10 minutes from the end of the boil. Software removes a lot of the guesswork from working out your hop bittering.
 
Thanks for the reply. So I am going to do a full boil with a late extract addition. I thought I read that liquid is better for the late addition? Beersmith looks like something that is very helpful. I didnt have any alcohol % set in my mind, I just thought I would add some sugar to boost it. What would be a reasonable amount for this recipe? What is the best fermenting sugar? Corn sugar? Do you think an amarillo only pale would be good? How about the dry hop in primary once my FG is stable? Thanks again.
 
If you're boiling the full volume, you don't need to add late. The main point of the late-addition method is to reduce the sugar density (gravity) of a concentrated wort. You don't have that problem.

As for a hops schedule, I like Conroe's layout if you want to keep the varieties separate. I am, however, completely in love with the idea of mixing 'em all together and adding an ounce at 20-minute intervals - 60, 40, 20, flameout, and the last ounce for dry-hops. That's just freaking cool. :fro:

I wouldn't use plain sugar to boost the ABV. I'd add more DME. If you do decide to add sugar, I wouldn't go above 10% of the total fermentables, because you need some body to back up the hops and sugar is a body diluent.

Cheers,

Bob
 
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