Advice on simple All Grain Ale

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WinSchutten

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I'm looking to start my first all grain recipe. All the ones I found had a mash bill with a lot of different kinds of grains in it. I wanted a maximum of three grains to keep things simple, so I tried to get a recipe going in BeerSmith. But as my first beer I'd like it to be good tasting as well. So I'd like some comments on it.

I'm looking for a strong coloruful ale with a lot of flavor and body to drink slowly while reading a book. As a fan of craft beers I'd like my own to be special as well. This might be heavier then a traditional english ale, but I like strong beers.

I use 7 l of water in my mash. Which I bring up to 150F to bring to my mash bill of 6.6 lb of Pale Malt (87%), 0,55 lb of Aromatic Malt (7,2%) and 0.44lb of Caramel/Crystal Malt 40L (5,8%).

BeerSmith tells me the estimated original gravity will be 1.108. I plan a 60 minute boil. As it boils I would use 0.5 oz of Fuggles and 0.5 oz of East Kent Goldings. Adding a further 0.35oz of both for a extra 20 minutes.

I cool it down until it is 64F and add English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) to let it ferment for 30 days.

Would this be a good first try beer? Simple still yet rewarding to make me want to make a second batch?
 
Is this a 21L/5 gallon batch?

You're probably going to need more mash water. It looks like you've got less than 1L per pound, and you probably want to shoot for about 1.3L per pound of grain.

And if you want simple, you're going to want to stay away from heavy beers for now. (If you've fermented high gravity beers in the past and have the means to oxygenate it properly, then go ahead. However, 002 doesn't do well with very high gravity beers.)
 
Ah much thanks. With all the measurements I converted I still put in liters instead of gallons. It is 1,8 gallons.

The end gravity was 1,052 SG with an ABV of 9,5%.

So Super High Gravbity Ale Yeast (WLP099) would be better. The best way I have to oxygenate it is to agitate and slosh it around in the fermenter, but I don't mind doing that, even for a long time (a hour?).

It might be easier to start off with lower gravity beers.. But I'm stubborn...
 
You'd be better off with dry yeast. It doesn't need the oxygenation. (Shaking won't get enough oxygen into the wort for liquid yeast - high gravity beers need more oxygen than there is in room air, so you'd need pure O2.)
 
Ah much thanks. With all the measurements I converted I still put in liters instead of gallons. It is 1,8 gallons.

The end gravity was 1,052 SG with an ABV of 9,5%.

So Super High Gravbity Ale Yeast (WLP099) would be better. The best way I have to oxygenate it is to agitate and slosh it around in the fermenter, but I don't mind doing that, even for a long time (a hour?).

It might be easier to start off with lower gravity beers.. But I'm stubborn...

OG 1.052 is never going to get you a 9% ABV beer. Assuming a healthy well orchestrated fermentation on your part you will have a ~5% ABV beer.

Your volumes look wrong. They seem very arbitrary without mention of batch size, planned sparge, anticipated volume losses etc.

I would advise against brewing your own recipe at the outset. If you are new to AG brewing there are a lot of areas to get right. Recipe formulation and understanding OG and it's relation to ABV through apparent attenuation seems to be one area in which there seems to be some gaps in your knowledge.

I would advise brewing one of the excellent tried and true; oft times award winning recipes, here on HBT. If you have any flavor issues in the final beer you will know they are process and not recipe related. Nice to eliminate this variable starting out.
 
I do think you just saved my first real effort ;). I will definately look into oxyginating my wort with pure o2, this article] has some good timing schedules.
 
OG 1.052 is never going to get you a 9% ABV beer. Assuming a healthy well orchestrated fermentation on your part you will have a ~5% ABV beer.

Your volumes look wrong. They seem very arbitrary without mention of batch size, planned sparge, anticipated volume losses etc.

I would advise against brewing your own recipe at the outset. If you are new to AG brewing there are a lot of areas to get right. Recipe formulation and understanding OG and it's relation to ABV through apparent attenuation seems to be one area in which there seems to be some gaps in your knowledge.

I would advise brewing one of the excellent tried and true; oft times award winning recipes, here on HBT. If you have any flavor issues in the final beer you will know they are process and not recipe related. Nice to eliminate this variable starting out.

But its hard to find relatively simple recipes.. I will look harder though, I will take your advice.
 
Went the hard way my first two AG batches. Did not fail in the end product with regard to quality, but recipe was not good and I don't have the experience to fix it. As a suggestion- do a SMaSH first, then grow it into what you want - learn the ingredients along the way.
 
But its hard to find relatively simple recipes.. I will look harder though, I will take your advice.

Just do a single infusion mash to start with. I doesn't matter how many types of grain there are. They all get milled and thrown in together at the same time. *(exceptions apply in certain techniques)

1,2 or 6 different grains. Doesn't matter. Some types of beer require more grain types. Others by their very nature are simple requiring only 1. The process is the same though.

Da Yoopers Pale ale is tremendous.

Edwort's Haus ale is tasty simple and cheap. 1 hop, dry yeast. Couldn't ask for a simpler to-style brew.

Looking for a stout? @Yooper 's oatmeal stout is legendary for good reason. It's delicious.

Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde is a massive hit with home brewers. I'm not a fan of blonde ales but that is beside the point. Simple, tasty, cheap.

Simpler again are single malt, single hop beers. SMASH recipes.

Pick a base grain and a hop t try and your off to the races.

Pick a dry yeast that will work well with your chosen beer style. Plenty of good ones and they are much more forgiving of any yeast mishandling SNAFUs.

Brew an ale not a lager. Again more forgiving.

It's all about stacking the deck in one's favor to reflect where we each see ourselves on the brewer's learning curve.

Others will disagree, but I place recipe formulation well above the tree-line on that undulating slope.

Best of luck with your endeavors.
 
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