Leftover Ingredient Recipe

[Babbage78]

Hey everyone, Had a few lbs of malt and some hops hanging around, so I've decided to throw them together for fun. Tell me what you would classify this beer as and whether you think it would work out.

5 gallon batch, 1.063 OG 27 IBU

8.50 lbs Maris Otter
2.00 lbs Vienna Malt
0.50 lbs Special B
0.25 lbs Extra Dark Crystal
0.50 oz East Kent Goldings (60 min)
0.50 oz Australian Topaz (30 min)
Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Yeast

Was thinking of mashing at 154 F for 60 mins, followed by a mash out.
Gonna ferment at 69 for the first few days then let it climb to 72 til I cold crash and rack.

I've never really used this yeast strain before, if anyone has any experience with it, I'd love to hear about it

 

[sweetcell]

stylistically you're between several styles (OG too high for northern brown or EBS, not caramel'y & dark enough for a robust porter, etc). if you're going to brew to style, you need to start with the style in mind. the chances that a bunch of random ingredients thrown together are going to fall within the confines of a style are very slim. it's like going into your kitchen, grabbing 5 random ingredients (garbanzo beans, onions, peanut butter, lemon salt, fish oil), throwing them into a pot and asking someone to identify the dish. you might end up with a known recipe... but chances are a lot higher you'll have something new and unique on your hands.

but what matters is taste and i'd say this looks like a good recipe. go for it!

 

[motorneuron]

I agree with sweetcell above--it's not exactly any style, but it would probably be good. However, you're pretty close to an ESB with what you have. If you want to go more in that direction, you probably want some more hops--both for aroma and for bittering. In fact, I think I'd up the hops a bit anyway, if you have more hops on hand. 27 IBU seems a little low for 154 mash, 1.063 OG, and English yeast--in other words, it might finish a little sweet for my tastes. Up to you though.

 

[Babbage78]

Thanks for the replies guys! I actually was a little worried that it would end up a little over sweet, I do want it to have a little sweetness but while still being balanced by the hops. What do you think is the best BU:GU ratio a slightly malt forward beer that is balanced overall?

 

[motorneuron]

For my money, ESB-type of English beer is a great balance of malty sweetness with hops. There are a few keys to the style, but one of the big differences between bitters and American IPAs (which are otherwise in basically the same family) is the English yeast. That gives the fruity esters, but it also attenuates a bit less than American strains typically do, leaving you with some residual sweetness. I don't know 1469 at all--never used it--but if it behaves as it's predicted to (with apparent attenuation of 67-71%), you will definitely have significant residual sweetness in a ~1.063 OG beer mashed at 154F with some crystal.

Very roughly, traditional SBs and ESBs are around a BU:GU of .6-.9. So for a beer that is quite strong even by ESB standards, I don't think 50 IBUs would be an unreasonable target; 40 would be fine too. 27 seems low. Again, compared to an American yeast, 40 or 50 IBUs might not seem quite as bitter because of the higher FG.

But hey, lower bitterness won't kill you either. Worst case scenario, if you find it's not quite to your liking after primary fermentation is done, you can dry hop it or increase bitterness using a hop tea.

 

[Babbage78]

I agree that the original ibu I had planned is too low, I think I'm gonna up it to around 40 ibu. I also like your idea to dry hop the beer, the entire batch is pretty much an experiment, might as well keep it going lol

 

[Babbage78]

Okay, so I just got through brewing this recipe right now, but my OG came out waaaaay short. I was shooting for 1.063 with 75% efficiency but only ended up with 1.052. During the brew session everything went fairly smoothly, I mashed in a degree hotter than I had wanted but just left the cooler top open til I reach 154 and continued onward.

What do you think might have caused such bad efficiency? I usually hit 75% fairly easy and I noticed in beersmith that when I remove the 2 lbs of vienna malt, the expected OG is 1.052, coincedence?

Someone help me!!! I've never missed the mark this badly, and now that means I over pitched and over hopped...

 

[Babbage78]

On second thought I also changed my mashtun this brew session to have a false bottom instead of a mesh tube, I seem to have much less dead space in my mashtun now. I just went back and measured how much extra wort I had, which happened to be almost exactly one gallon, I uped my recipe by a gallon in beersmith and got an expected OG of 1.052....

I guess that solves it, thats what I get for not measuring the dead space on a new mashtun set up....

 

[motorneuron]

The good news is that, whatever the precise reason, 1.052 vs 1.063 really won't make or break this recipe. A 20% difference won't kill you on either the yeast or the hops front. So don't worry about it! Of course, it's still worth trying to track down the reason for next time.

 

[Babbage78]

Yeah I guess it's not the end of the world, just a bit of a perfectionist I guess it falls more squarely into the extra special bitter category now, minus the topaz hops lol